What is intermittent fasting?
When you allow yourself to eat during specified windows of time and restricted yourself outside of these time windows.
Intermittent fasting schedule
You can set your own timing for intermittent fasting but generally, it should involve at least 12 hours of intermittent fasting. Some of the popular approaches are the following.
Intermittent fasting 16/8
Intermittent fasting 16/8 also known as the Leangains method, is the best schedule for beginner intermittent fasting.
You just have to skip your breakfast and can eat lunch and after 8 hours you can have your dinner.
For example, you did your dinner at 9:00 pm/21:00 so you will skip your breakfast and will do lunch at around 1:00 pm/13:00. this makes it 16 hours of fasting and then you will do the dinner at 9:00 pm/21:00 which makes it 8 hours of fasting.
One meal per day
Also known as Keto Fasting, This is an intermediate level of intermittent fasting and is also famous among the keto community. because of its keto weight loss benefits.
You will eat one meal per day which makes you do intermittent fasting of 24 hours. This force your body to use your fat as primary energy and your liver will make Ketones. You can learn more about keto in our article Keto Diet.
Alternate day fasting
This involved alternate-day fasting in which a person has to do 24-hour fasting followed by a nonfasting day.
5:2 fasting
Or 5:2 diet, this method involve regular 5 days of eating with 2 days of fasting with one meal per day.
Intermittent fasting benefits
Intermittent fasting has amazing effects on your body and brain.
Intermittent fasting to lose weight
A metabolic switch from intermittent fasting can help your body to use your body’s fat as energy. Which helps you to lose weight effectively. It also helps to prevent obesity.
Insulin And Diabetes
Intermittent fasting drops your insulin levels which helps insulin sensitivity. Intermittent fasting also increases insulin responsiveness. This will prevent diabetes.
Cardiovascular Health
Intermittent fasting improved resting heart rates and decrease high blood pressure. Intermittent fasting also maintains the LDL and HDL cholesterol levels.
Repair Body And Brain Cells
Prolonged intermittent fasting increase autophagy. This will repair the body and recycle the damaged cells.
Endurance Performance
Intermittent fasting also increases HGH(Human Growth Hormone). This prevents you from losing muscle mass during fasting and increases endurance performance.
Gut Healing
Intermittent fasting decreases the inflammation in the body especially gut inflammation. Intermittent fasting also recovers you from a leaky gut.
Intermittent fasting side effects
Some people experience diarrhea during fasting which is occurring in the first week.
This happens due to the oversecretion of water and salts in the GI tract.
You can avoid this by adding salt to your diet and breaking fast with a keto diet like eggs, red meat, and fish.
Intermittent fasting and keto
Adding the keto diet to your intermittent fasting meal allows you to reach ketosis faster.
You will feel less hunger during intermittent fasting and be more energetic
Frequently Asked Questions
What can you drink during intermittent fasting
If you are doing dry fasting then you cannot eat or drink anything.
On water fasting, you can drink water and tea/coffee without sugar at a limited frequency.
Ideally, you should avoid tea or coffee to get the maximum benefits of intermittent fasting.
You cannot drink juice or any kind of liquid that contain calories.
What can you eat during intermittent fasting
You cannot eat anything during intermittent fasting unless you want to break your fast.|
You are allowed to take your medicine during water fasting.
Is intermittent fasting safe
Intermittent fasting is totally safe unless you are an underweight, pregnant woman, or have serious medical conditions.
Intermittent fasting while breastfeeding is not recommended.
If you have any medical condition it’s always best to discuss it with your doctor before starting intermittent fasting.
How much weight can you lose with intermittent fasting
It depends on how much calorie restriction you put in per day and for how long you are doing intermittent fasting.
In the first week, you are expected to lose weight drastically 2kg to 5kg but that weight loss is mostly water loss from your body as your body goes into the ketosis process.
How long should I do intermittent fasting?
It’s recommended to do intermittent fasting for at least 12 hours to get its beneficial effect.
How many days should I do intermittent fasting?
It depends upon your goal, you can follow the 5:2 method or alternative days method or you can make it your lifestyle by following one meal per day or two meals per day fasting.