‘What have I got to lose?’ This is the first thought that came into my head as I bought a rather lengthy Kindle book about how much weight can you lose with intermittent fasting.
After having followed healthy eating plans and a simple 3 day a week workout regime, I found that while I did end up losing some of the extra pounds that I intended to shed, I was hitting constant plateaus where the scale just refused to budge and in some cases, budged in the wrong direction.
Needless to say, like many others, the idea of how to learn to lose weight by fasting never occurred to me. It was only after I got to know more about intermittent fasting that I repented. I repented the fact that I did not jump aboard the hype train much earlier.
What is intermittent fasting?
Explained in a nutshell, intermittent fasting refers to restricting consumption of food to a set period of time during a day. Usually in a conventional sense, fasting almost always refers to a day long fast, like the kind people do as a part of detoxifying their bodies after a holiday or after a vacation in which they over indulged in food and drink. Something many of us equate to starving.
Intermittent fasting on the other hand is a calculated fast. You stay away from eating during a set period of time and eat only when the fasting period is over. For example, most people who incorporate intermittent fasting in their daily lives do a daily fast that lasts 16 hours. Meaning that they will not consume food during that time, choosing to eat in the remaining 8 hours instead.
To a novice it might sound difficult. How do you not eat for 16 hours? Don’t you feel hungry? When you think about the fact that 8 of those 16 fasting hours you will probably spend being asleep, it does not sound so difficult. After all you do not spend all of your day eating, do you? If you do then it is time to reevaluate your lifestyle.
Is intermittent fasting safe?
You have to eat lots of smaller meals frequently throughout your day to speed up your metabolism. Fasting forces the body into starvation mode leading to loss of muscle. Skipping breakfast makes you fat. Fasted training does not build muscles.
These are common myths that you must have heard some time or the other. The whole 3 meals a day concept in fact is nothing but a big fattening myth. Intermittent fasting on the other hand is a completely safe concept that is extremely effective in boosting your health.
That is because you are not asked to change your diet or avoid any particular food items. In reality intermittent fasting is nothing but a change in meal timings. You now have a set window during which you must consume the calories that your body needs. Where is the harm in that?
Once you start fasting like this, you will be surprised to see how you are not as hungry as you usually are while still having plenty of energy in reserve. Besides if you do feel hunger pangs, then you can always consume green tea or lime water. In most such cases however, such hunger pangs are easily suppressed by drinking a glass of water.
Does intermittent fasting work for weight loss?
A 2005 study done by the American Society for Clinical Nutrition proved that intermittent fasting brings about not just metabolic health benefits but also weight loss. So the easiest answer to the question, does intermittent fasting work for weight loss, is yes!
Before we go in-depth about intermittent fasting read these pros and cons of intermittent fasting.
The simplest reason it is that when your body is in a fasting stage, it ends up relying on the fat storage to produce energy. Instead of using the food that you usually consume (the 3 meals a day lifestyle) as fuel, your body learns to target excess fat for use as an alternate source of fuel. Doesn’t take a genius to see how this could result in weight loss.
On paper, weight loss is a simple concept. Eat less than your body needs. When you are eating 3 (or more) meals a day, the only way you can be well within your caloric needs are to count calories and watch what you eat. This works but you need to be extremely well disciplined to follow such a regime.
But when your eating window is restricted to 8 hours a day (or whatever you decide for yourself), then there are only so many calories that you can intake during that time. As a result you end up eating less or in other words, you eat only about what you really need without over indulging yourself.
As to the question of, how much weight can you lose with intermittent fasting? It all depends on how seriously you adopt it into your daily life. The safe rate of weight loss, as recommended by physicians is between 1-2 pounds a week.
Intermittent fasting is a great lifehack
Apart from bringing about great benefits for your health, intermittent fasting benefits your overall lifestyle. When you are only eating once or at best, twice a day, you do not need to worry about what to eat and how much to eat. Not only does it save you money, it also frees up extra time in which you are free to pursue other interests that you might have. All the energy that you spent otherwise planning your meals can now be channeled to other productive ventures.
Similarly, if you miss a workout you do not have to start panicking and counting your calories. As a part of intermittent fasting, you are eating lesser times a day so that worry never arises. Most people are surprised by how easily this style of fasting fits into their daily lives and once they see the advantages they never go back.
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