Intermittent fasting has become quite the hype in the last decade. Lots of fitness and nutrition influencers have hopped on the bandwagon and swear by it as if their lives depend on it. Many people with the goal of changing their body composition have experienced amazing results by the use of intermittent fasting. People claim that they effortlessly lose body fat and gain muscle mass in combination with resistance training when using intermittent fasting. Others have tried intermittent fasting and haven’t experienced any results at all. When I talk to people about intermittent fasting I get a lot of mixed reactions from either extreme positive and even obsessively enthusiastic, all the way to the other extreme of hating intermittent fasting and claiming that it is actually an unhealthy fad diet that doesn’t work. Within this article your questions about intermittent fasting will be answered and the mystery will be cleared as to why so many people experience fantastic results and other don’t. It may also give you clarity to decide whether intermittent fasting is for you and since there are certain forms of fasting, one might be for suitable for you than another. Let’s get into unlocking the truth about intermittent fasting.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting is simply a form of short term fasting. Intermittent fasting requires you to restrict yourself from taking in any calories during a specific time period in which you will remain completely fasted. The fast ends when your eating window opens. The eating window is a set time period where you allow yourself to eat your calories for the day. During your fast you’re allowed to drink water and consume zero calorie drinks such as black coffee and tea. These don’t cause a problem as they won’t interfere with your body remaining in a fasted state. It has been shown that intermittent fasting has numerous health benefits. For many people intermittent fasting has proven to be an effective tool at losing body fat and improving body composition. Studies have shown that after being in a fasted state for long enough, growth hormone levels and testosterone levels rise. Long term benefits of intermittent fasting include lowering blood pressure levels, better cardiovascular health, improving insulin sensitivity and lowering the risk of developing diabetes. Many people who practice intermittent fasting on a regular basis claim that they experience more mental clarity and better cognitive function, as well as more stable energy levels throughout their day compared to times when they were eating multiple meals spread throughout the day. These experiences regarding energy levels were true even though daily calorie intake remained the same.
Intermittent fasting comes in many different forms and different people practice different fasting protocols in accordance with their personal preference. The most popular and mainstream form of intermittent fasting is the 16/8 protocol. The 16/8 protocol is a daily form of intermittent fasting where you choose to stay in a fasted state for 16 hours per day and consume all of your daily calories within an 8 hour eating window. The majority of people practicing intermittent fasting find this to be optimal as it is reasonable to fast for 16 hours straight without experiencing excessive hunger or other negative effects of not eating. Others like to go more extreme and adopt a fasting strategy that expands the fasting period to 18 hours or even 20 hours, which means that all daily calories will be consumed within a 6 hour or 4 hour eating window.
Then there’s a different form of intermittent fasting where you pick one or two days per week where you will fast for an entire day and you simply don’t eat anything at all on your fasting days. The other days of the week where you will eat with a ‘normal’ meal frequency. This form of fasting also has been getting more popular and people tend to experience a lot of the benefits of a daily fast.
Is intermittent fasting the holy grail for weight loss?
So many people report losing weight while practicing intermittent fasting. Does this mean that intermittent fasting is holy grail everybody should be using to stay at a healthy weight and body fat percentage? The answer is no. The reason why so many people experience positive changes in weight and body fat percentage is because intermittent fasting causes a lot of people, unknowingly, to be in a calorie deficit. When it comes to weight loss there is only one major factor that is overwhelmingly important regardless of all other factors and will inevitably make the biggest difference on the scale. That factor is the law of thermodynamics or in other words, calories in versus calories out.
Weight management all comes down to how much energy you put into your body versus how much energy you burn. If you eat too many calories on a regular basis, you will gain weight. If you eat just the right amount of calories on a regular basis for your body’s energy expenditure you will stay at the same weight. If you eat less calories on a regular basis and are in a state of a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. By being in a fasted state for a big part of the day, you skip breakfast and most likely lunch. Those are two meals that already contain a lot of calories for most people. Once the eating window opens, people who are not aware of how many calories they consume will most likely eat one or two decent sized meals and maybe one or two smaller snacks. Unaware of their energy intake, they simply take in less calories overall and therefore experience weight loss. This is especially true when people stick to a clean diet with simple, natural, unprocessed foods that aren’t very calorie dense. A lot of people without in depth nutritional knowledge who start using intermittent fasting simply eat clean and therefore daily calorie intake isn’t excessively high. If this is sustained for a sufficient period of time, weight loss follows as a result. Intermittent fasting by itself isn’t responsible for the weight loss. What was responsible for the weight loss was the prolonged calorie deficit. Intermittent fasting however, was the tool that caused the calorie deficit.
There are so many people who report amazing results by practicing intermittent fasting. But there are as many people who report negative results and that have gained weight using intermittent fasting. These people gain weight not because of the fasting by itself, but because they overconsume calories during their eating windows. It doesn’t matter how long you fast each and every day, if you gorge yourself like a pig on large quantities of calorie dense foods that cause you to overshoot your daily calorie requirements. Stuffing yourself with 6 burgers, 4 servings of fries, 2 pizzas, some snickers and 2 tubs of Ben and Jerry’s to seal the deal and have eating around 6500 calories at the end of your eating window and your current maintenance level is 3000… well, are you really surprised that you gained weight? It all simply comes down to calories in versus calories out.
That being said. Most of the health benefits reported by practitioners of intermittent fasting are a result of weight loss and in particular, the loss of body fat. The best thing an individual can do for his or her health is to lose excessive pounds of fat off their body. The only way to do this is to be in a calorie deficit for a prolonged period of time. The method used to put yourself in a calorie deficit is of lesser importance. Whether you eat 1 big meal a day or 8 smaller meals per day, as long as you eat less calories than you burn, you will inevitably lose weight.
Using intermittent fasting correctly
Intermittent fasting is not the holy grail of weight loss, nor is it some magical fat loss ritual created by Zeus himself. It is however a very helpful tool when it comes to organizing your daily calorie intake.
Personally, I love intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting allows me to go about my day doing what I need to do and not worry about food all the time. In the past I used to believe that you should eat 6 to 8 smaller meals per day to keep stoking that metabolic fire in order to keep your metabolism running high. I used to be a slave to my meal frequency due to this myth and never left the house without my meals prepped in Tupperware containers. I cringe when I look back at it. These days I don’t give a damn about how many meals I eat per day. I simply respect how many calories I put into my body and make sure that I eat 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight to retain muscle mass on a fat loss phase or to gain muscle mass on a muscle gaining phase. The rest is of lesser importance and won’t make much of a difference in the big picture.
Besides being neurotic about my meal frequency in the past, I personally never really felt satisfied after eating a small meal. I now intermittent fast every day and eat 1 to 3 meals per day depending on how I feel and what my schedule looks like. I don’t follow a strict fasting plan but in general I will fast between 16 – 20 hours depending on what my day looks like. Some days I break my fast with a smaller meal such as a 4 egg omelet with turkey bacon and a fruit salad, followed by a big satisfying meal of a big piece of meat with a heap of roasted potatoes and a good chunk of veggies, followed by a delicious dessert to satisfy my sweet tooth. Other days, my schedule is quite tight and I’m occupied the largest part of the day. When this happens I may only eat 1 big meal followed by something sweet such as Greek yoghurt with banana slices, honey and some dark chocolate. When you eat your first meal after being fasted all day, even a boiled piece of broccoli tastes like heaven. It really makes you appreciate food much more compared to when you eat continuously all day long. Even though my calorie intake remains the same when intermittent fasting, I feel way more satisfied and fulfilled after eating an enormous meal at the end of the day compared to eating a large amount of smaller portions spread over the whole day. It’s a tool I use to organize when I eat my daily calories to fulfill my personal needs and that’s how you should use it as well it you decide to use it.
Conclusion about intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting is not a diet. It is a very useful tool to organize when you eat in your calories for the day. Those who use it will find that it allows them to spend their daily time productively instead of constantly having to be occupied with food and enjoy eating big calorie dense feasts once your eating window open. This makes losing weight and body fat easier from a psychological point of view as well. Eating one or two big meals satisfies a lot of people, including myself, much more than eating a large number of smaller meals during the day, even though daily calorie intake is the same.
At the end of the day, the key to optimizing your body composition is an appropriate calorie and protein intake for your body’s needs. If these two factors are respected, you’ve nailed the nutritional part about achieving your dream physique. Intermittent fasting can be a helpful tool along your fat loss journey to take your mind off of food for the majority of the day, while eating big, satisfying meals at the end of the day and make you feel full for a long time and allow you to drop fat effortlessly.