Intermittent fasting has become very popular in recent years and is being touted as almost cure all technique and particularly effective for weight loss/weight management.

Today, I would like to dive deeper into this topic, give you my take and a few warnings.

Before we dive any deeper, what do we mean by intermittent fasting (IF)?

In short, unlike other diets that focus on the type of foods you eat or don’t eat, IF focuses instead on the eating pattern with feeding window (the time you eat) and a fasting window (the time you absent from food and caloric drinks).

So, why would you fast? It turns out, fasting can be very beneficial to our health and back in the day has been a part of our normal lifestyle - think of your ancestors – aka the cavemen and cavewomen - hunting or foraging for food. If that is too distant, it seems no coincidence that all the religions and spiritual practices recommend periods of fasting.

There are many benefits of fasting, including:

• Anti-ageing - it has been shown to prolong lifespan and slow down the aging process thanks to both cellular repair (including autophagy) and gene activation (related to longevity and protection against disease).

• Weight loss/management – one of the important benefits of IF is the improved insulin sensitivity and a general drop in insulin. That means your body is less prone to store fat and instead uses it more efficiently for fuel (a process called ketosis). In addition, IF increases human growth hormone, helping muscle gain and fat loss.

• Regulating inflammation – by regulating insuling sensitivity and improving cellular repair, IF reduces chronic inflammation in your body. One of the side effects of that would be lower markers for your hearth health (level and type of cholesterol, triglycerides, C-reactive protein).

So, now that I hopefully got you interested, a few words on how to go about it. There are many different types of intermitent fasting, which largely differ by the length of feeding window versus fasting window.

The most common types include:

• Overnight fast: the basic one (which hopefully, if you are reading this blog regularly, you do already) consist of 12 hour feeding window and 12 hour fasting window. This is one of the best things you can do for your health right now, if not already doing. The idea is that if you finish dinner at 7 pm, then you don’t consume any calories (food or drink) until 7 am the next morning. I would also add that this timing should be adjusted to your sleeping routine – you should aim at staring fast at least 3 hours before going to be in the evening. This way, you respect your body’s circadian rhythm and allow it to do all the necessary ‘cleaning’ throughout the night.

• Extended overnight fast (16/8 IF): this is when things start getting interesting; feeding window gets shortened to 8 hours and fasting window extended to 16 hours. Just a word of caution, don’t attempt to jump from 12 to 16 hours fasting window in one go – this should be done slowly by gradually extending the fasting window as long as your body allows it. And maybe for you, the sweet spot is 14 and not 16 hours – you need to listen to your body and see how it reacts.

• Alternate day fasting - this schedule, as the name indicates, involves fasting every other day. On fasting days, some eat no food at all while others eat a very small amount, usually around 500 calories. On non-fasting days, you follow your usual, healthy diet. There are many variations of this principle. One popular variation is a so-called 5:2 diet where you consume only 500–600 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days. Another, more strict one, involves fasting for 24 hours on 2 non-consecutive days (i.e. you eat nothing from dinner one day until dinner the next day).

So, should we all jump on the IF wagon? Not so fast.

First of all, if you are trying to conceive, pregnant, breastfeeding, or underweight, stay away from fasting. Second, if you have a history of disordered eating, this is not for you. Third, if you have any health conditions for which you take medication, before you do anything, consult your doctor.

In addition to that, if you are a women, you need to proceed with caution. Women – more so than men - are particularly sensitive to signals of starvation (for abvious reasons as we are the ones that ensure the survival of human race ;-)). If your body thinks it is being starved, it will increase the hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin as well as your stress hormone, cortisol. This hormonal reaction could undermine your efforts and instead lead to worsening of your hormonal balance and to weight gain instead of weight loss. So, be gentle with yourself and first start with 12 hour fasting window, which is safe and recommended for everybody, and only gradually extend the fasting period 1-3 times a week (on non-consecutive days). On the days you do longer fast, avoid strenous physical exercises and drink plenty of water.

Hopefully, this post helped you to understand a bit better the benefits of fasting and maybe encouraged you to try it yourself. Just remember to go slow and, if in doubt, consult your doctor.

Have you experimented with fasting? If so, do share in comments as your experience may be helpful to others reading this blog.

In case you need help in incorporating fasting into your life, do reach out and schedule a free consultation with me today.

Hello! I am Magda and I work with people that are ready to transform their health and wellbeing. What are your health goals that you have not been able to reach? Read more about me and my services.

Subscribe!

Subscribe below to my newsletter.