Can Intermittent Fasting Help in Weight Loss?
Thesis Statement: Intermittent fasting is not your average diet. It’s more like control of your eating pattern. During this type of dieting, people get to eat within a limited time frame normally known as windows. But does this diet really helps in losing weight? Let’s find out in this article. An intermittent fast, or intermittent energy restriction, refers to a variety of meal timing patterns that change between voluntary and non-fasting over time. Intermittent fasting involves fasting for a short interval at a specific time only. There's no doubt that fasting can help our body to repair and help us to improve our lifestyle. Along with this, fasting also helps to decrease the risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
Different Methods of Intermittent Fasting
On this note, let’s look at different intermittent fasting methods that you can follow to reach your optimum weight. All of these fasting patterns are effective and are proven to produce results through studies. But we recommend that you should choose the one that suits your needs and do it after consulting with your doctor.
1. The 16:8 method
Fasting for 16 hours and eating for 8 hours is a 16:8 method. It’s one of the popular methods in which food and calorie-containing beverages are limited to an 8-hour window per day under the diet. Therefore, it needs fasting for the other sixteen hours of the day. This method is time-restricted and is more flexible than other methods, but still, many people find it difficult to fast for 16 hours. Nevertheless, it prevents hypertension and helps to decrease weight. Even studies find this method quite effective in preventing cardiovascular diseases.
2. Eat-Stop-Eat Diet
It’s a bit more complex than others and includes fasting for 24 hours completely and two days per week. During this people fast from breakfast to breakfast or lunch to lunch. In addition, people can have tea and other drinks during fasting, which doesn’t include calories. Fasting for 24 hours helps your body shift to fat consumption, which can cause weight loss.
Similarly, experts recommend consuming ACV water during intermittent fasting as it aids in weight loss. But if you don’t want to drink it in liquid form, you can consume it in the form of ACV gummies and the benefits of ACV gummies are the same as drinking it in pure form. However, if you choose to follow this method, consult your doctor because following this can lead to many problems like headaches, irritability, and disordered eating patterns.
3. The 5:2 Method
This method is a bit easier than others, including eating normally for five days and fasting for the remaining two days, which means your body will consume the usual number of calories in 5 days and fewer calories in the remaining. Men usually have 600 calories in the day; they control it, while women have 500. You can choose any two days in a week on which you have to hold your calories. This method is suitable for preventing diseases like diabetes.
4. Alternate Fasting Day
It’s a method in which you can fast one day and skip another day. While you are not fasting you can eat anything you want. This method is equally effective as the one where you have to control the calories daily. It’s the best method if someone is new to intermittent fasting.
For more apparent results, health experts recommend pairing it with strength training to further improve its outcome.
5. Meal Skipping
It’s best for beginners too and includes skipping a meal in a day. It’s easy as people can skip any meal according to hunger, but you have to eat a healthy meal in order to provide essential nutrients to your body. For more information on the essential nutrients that your body needs check out Divinity Nutra – the wellness blog!
Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting
There are a few other benefits of doing intermittent fasting apart from losing weight.
- It helps you to boost your memory.
- Eating restricted diets can help you decrease heart diseases.
- Help to decrease fat while maintaining muscle mass
- Prevent obesity
- Reduce tissue damage in a surgery
How It Helps to Reduce Weight
Intermittent fasting helps you eat fewer calories, which is why it helps you lose weight. During the fasting periods, in all of the procedures requiring skipping meals, you’ll consume fewer calories unless you accommodate by ingesting much more during the eating periods. Depending on the rate of weight loss, intermittent fasting may result in weight loss of 0.55 to 1.65 pounds (0.25–0.75 kg) each week.
In addition, the waist circumference of the participants decreased by 4–7%, indicating that this can help to reduce belly fat. These findings suggest that intermittent fasting could be an effective weight-loss strategy. For the best results, it’s vital to get a healthy diet during non-fasting days and to strictly manage your sleeping pattern so you don’t destroy your health.
The Verdict
Intermittent fasting can prove to be quite effective as a weight-loss tool if you know how to implement it in the right way. This dieting technique works by restricting the calorie intake and produces the required results over time. In all, intermittent fasting can really help you in losing excessive pounds but the trick is to pick out a diet that works for you. So, we recommend that you should consult with your doctor before starting it.