
Can you believe it? Fasting can also have the types and procedures to be done to affect your health positively. Well, it is true. We know fasting with just a process of giving a short break to your meal for a day. But, fasting is not only about it. I'm sure, after going through this article, you are going to be amazed.
So, I was talking about Intermittent Fasting!
Each one of you does fasting when you are sleeping. Isn't it? That fasting duration is pretty long, for around 7-8 hours. So, why not just adding a few hours to your fasting and make yourself more healthy.
It is not so severe. Skipping your meal will not make you weak but strong enough to fight the disease.
Coming back to intermittent fasting, it is the cycle of skipping and eating your regular food. The best part about intermittent fasting is, there is no particle food you have to eat. You can have anything you want to enjoy at times.
Intermittent fasting is being in trend for a long time among people who want to make themselves healthy.
According to the research, intermittent fasting is beneficial for various reasons, such as increasing metabolism, weight loss, and increasing your life span.
Are you excited to know more about it? So, let's get started with
What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting is an overall fasting method, where you alternate the days of fasting and eating of food. The fantastic thing about the process is, it doesn't tell you which food you should eat. Instead, it suggests the timing of having food.
The fasting process splits the hour of the week's days or days in a particular sequence to aid you with the best effects. Intermittent fasting has several methods in which the schedule of eating and fasting is categorized. Fasting for a few hours or eating for a couple of days for a week can help you to burn fat.
Fasting is an older process. In ancient days, when people didn't have anything to eat, they only lived on fruits and vegetables.
Around before 50 years ago, there were no TVs and internet facilities for the people. So, they used to work, play, and eat on time. Also, between their working and eating, life was balanced, and they didn't need to exercise, giving extra time as their work replaced the gym timing.
Nowadays, people have the timing to eat at 11.00 PM. They don't have a fixed time to eat. They have TVs and the internet, where they run continuously to catch their favorite show, to chat with maybe unknown people on social media.
All these things have changed the routines and imposed adverse effects on your health.
How to Intermittent Fast?
Intermittent fasting has various types in which the cycle of eating and fasting had a different schedule.
You can choose to eat for a few hours or select to fast for two days a week. It's up to you. The process has a different vocabulary, but the result is pleasing.
Experts days, fasting for few hours, releasing the sugar stored in your body, burns the fat. They call it metabolic switching.
Intermittent fasting is all about burning fats stored in the form of sugar in your body. That results in you in a healthy body.
Now, let's have a look at the types of Intermittent fasting.
6 Ways of Intermittent Fasting
1) The 16/8 Method
The 16/8 method is also known as Leangains protocol and is popularized by Martin Berkhan.
This method is as simple as skipping your morning food or not eating anything after dinner.
In this method, you cannot eat anything for 14-16 hours and can eat within 8-10 hours daily. This method can be best for those who can not fast for the entire day.
Withing the eating slot, you can have two, three, or four meals.
For instance, let's consider you eat at 9 PM. Then, you can not eat till noon the next day. It means you have skipped your meal for 16 hours around.
People can find this method hard; who needs breakfast. So, you can have water, tea, coffee, or no-calorie drinks to reduce hunger.
The point to be noted for this method is that you can not eat junk food during the eating hours, as this won't help you continue with the process.
2) Eat Stop Eat Method
This method includes the fasting of 24 hours twice a week. You can also follow, once a week.
Brad Pilon came up with this method to help people to maintain a healthy life.
So, you have to skip your meal for an entire day, from AM to AM or PM to PM.
For example, if you eat today at 8 PM, you will be eating at 8 PM tomorrow.
You can select the zones for fasting. Like, lunch to lunch, or breakfast to breakfast. Meanwhile, you can have drinks like tea, coffee, water, and not solid food.
This method is quite tricky as you have to skip the meal for 24 hours. So, you don't need to go with this method directly. You can start your fasting with the 16/8 mode.
3) The Alternate Day Fasting
As the name says, you have to eat alternately. It means you will be fasting every next day.
As the method seems more comfortable, but it is not so easy to fast every alternate day. So, it is not suggested for the beginner by the experts.
As a beginner, if you directly jump on this method, you may probably go to bed hungry, which is not suitable for you. And, you won't be able to continue with the technique for a long time.
This method directly triggers 500 calories in your body.
4) The 5:2 Diet Method
Michael Mosley popularized the 5:2 diet as a fast diet. In this method, you can eat for five days and stop eating for two days a week.
This method protects you from having 500-600 calories while being on fasting. Many studies have been done on this method. And, all the reviews are inclined to the positive sides of the technique.
On average, while being on fasting, a woman intakes 500 calories, viz 250 calories in a small meal, and a male has 600 calories, 300 per meal, which helps them to maintain the health.
5) The Warriors Diet
The warrior diet was the first method to be included in the listing of intermittent fasting.
However, it is one of the most used and popular methods of fasting.
What you have to do is, eating raw food and vegetables in the morning and having a heavy meal at night.
It means you will be fasting all day long only. You will be eating daily and fasting daily also.
This method is very much similar to the Paleo Diet, where you eat uncooked food as your breakfast, then fast for the day, and again eat in the night as regular food.
6) The Spontaneous Meal Diet
Well, many times, you followed this process unknowingly. This process refers to skip the meal one time a day.
Let's consider, when you don't feel like eating anything in the morning, getting busy and don't have lunch, or while traveling, you don't find anything to eat. A spontaneous meal diet works in the same manner.
Spontaneous meal diets don't have any particular structure. Don't think that skipping a one-time meal will affect your health. Remember, your body is capable of fulfilling the food requirements for some instant.
However, it would help if you had a huge meal or a regular meal when you skip the one-time food. And not to eat junk food.
The Bottom Line
Intermittent fasting is being famous among many people for a healthy and working diet. Also, many people are reaping the benefits of the process. It may be possible some may don't have the services too due to various reasons.
Each method has a particular diet plan and the quantity of food to be eaten. If the process can be followed seriously, it will benefit you for sure.
It is a myth that the intermittent diet works more on men and less on women. But, it is not the reality.
One thing to crucially remember about it is the food quantity. You have to eat the healthy and required food at the time of eating. Also, fast food won't work.
You will have to be careful and active while following the schedule. Many studies have proved to be effective on the people who are following the diet.
You will find some methods of intermittent fasting so easy to follow for beginners. So, it is a trendy and followed fasting type in the world.
HRUTUJA PATKAR
Unable To Stick To Your Fitness Routine? This Fasting Method Can Help You Keep Your Health In Check.
Everybody knows the concept of fasting. It is not a new thing. And certainly, over a time period, humans have also acknowledged the importance of fasting. It can actually have a positive effect on your overall health.
We are habitual to fasting even if we don’t know. Think about it. We sleep every night for 7-8 hours, don’t we? And during that time we are not eating anything, right? Of course, we cannot eat while we sleep. Doesn’t that count as a sort of fast? That is why when we eat the other morning, it is called breakfast. Meaning breaking your past.
People nowadays are mad about dieting for losing weight. When we try to lose weight, we tend to skip meals too much. It is certainly not a good thing. It can affect our health overall negatively. It is a severe step to take. It can result in you lacking many important nutrients from your body.
But what if we say that doing it with a certain pattern and the right way can actually help you in doing that? It not only will help you with weight loss but will also help your body get strong enough to fight off diseases. This is where the concept of intermittent fasting lays.
But the highlight of this fasting is that you do not have to monitor the foods you eat during this type of fasting. YUP, you read it right! It is so unusual, like any dieting in which you are cut off from certain food products or dishes and may not eat them.
Intermittent fasting can be considered as a lifelong process in a way. It certainly takes longer to get its result in comparison to dieting. Simply put, intermittent fasting is to skip meals yet eating your regular food. It can be anything you want and can enjoy, including chocolates and ice-creams.
The benefits of intermittent fasting are huge. You not only control your weight but it helps with improving your metabolism and increasing your life span, along with making your health improve too.
As per some studies, intermittent fasting methods have helped people lose weight up to 3-8% in the time span of 3-24 weeks. It is as per the review of research done in 2014 related to it. Intermittent fasting may result in weight loss of rate of approximately 055 pounds to 1.65 pounds. That is up to 0.25 to 0.75 kg in a week.
Also, in a review of studies done on intermittent fasting diet methods and alternate days fasting as well, people had experienced 4-7% of the decrease in abdominal fat within 6-24 weeks. So, in a way, it targets belly fat.
Even if it is a trend among humans for some time now, there are still those who are unaware of exactly what intermittent fasting is and how it is initiated. So, let’s move on and understand this concept much better.
What Is The Meaning Of Intermittent Fasting?
The concept is related to the word intermittent. Intermittent means stopping and starting at intervals or coming back after a particular time span.
Justifying the meaning of the word intermittent fasting is a fasting method in which a person alternates the days for fasting and eating food. They do it in a decided pattern. So, it is in a way a type of dieting. But instead of deciding on the intake of food, it focuses on the timing of food to be taken and not compromising on any of the food you want to eat.
The concept of fasting is really old. But the way people eat changes from the time period and as per the way people spend their day. When people have no food, they eat only fruits, and it is a type of dieting.
A few years back, people had no television or internet than they would eat on time. And now, when we look at our lifestyle, we do not have any sort of eating pattern. It is irregular and flexible. It is not uncommon that we have breakfast at around noon.
The television and internet keep us occupied enough to not pay attention to eating schedules and routines. These have a really adverse effect on our health.
There are certain ways in which you try this fasting. In this type of fasting, there are various cycles where the schedule of eating and fasting is different. Fasting is different; interludes can help you burn fat without dieting. And not to forget it also keeps us healthy in the long run.
And now that we have understood in depth what intermittent fasting is, we now have to understand how we can persuade such a fasting method. So, let's not waste time and get on to understanding the different ways you can do intermittent fasting.
How To Carry On Intermittent Fasting?
As mentioned above, this type of fasting has different cycles and schedules for eating.
You can choose when and how to eat. As per research, a few days of fasting can help burn the fat in your body as it releases the sugar that was previously stored and utilizes it.
This is where the whole concept of intermittent fasting lies. The very concept of intermittent fasting is to burn the fat that is stored in your body. It is in weight loss and a healthy body.
Now let’s have a look at the ways you can practice intermittent fasting.
The 16/8 Method
Popularized by Martin Berkhan, this is also known as Leangains protocol.
It is a simple method in which you skip your morning breakfast or do not eat anything after dinner. The hours for eating in this method is 8-10 hours daily and not eating for 14-16 hours.
If you are unable to fast for an entire day, then this is the perfect method for you.
If you eat your dinner at night around eight, then adding the 14 or 16 hours, you are probably not to eat till noon the next day.
If you really want to have breakfast, then take coffee, water, or a zero-calorie drink to satiate your hunger while fasting like this.
Keep in mind to not eat any junk food while you're eating hours as it hinders the process.
The Alternate Day Fasting
You can already guess by the name itself what this type of fasting entails. Yes, as the name suggests, you will eat alternatively, Meaning every other day you would be fasting.
It can be hard to follow through with this method. So it is not suggested for the beginners to follow through or try even.
You are more likely to go to bed hungry with this method at your beginner’s level. It is not good,
and it will also be difficult to go through with this method for you.
However, this method burns 500 calories in your body.
The 5;2 Method
In this method, you will be eating for five days and not eating for two days in a week. Michael Mosley popularized this 5;2 diet method.
This method saves your body from having 500-600 calories during fasting. This method has gained many studies, and all the results are positive. It is a great way to maintain health.
Eat Stop Eat Method
This method includes fasting for a whole day or 24 hours twice a week. In the beginning, you can try this for once a week to get used to this method, Or you can continue this once a week schedule.
You have to skip your meal for an entire day. Brad Pilon was the one to get the idea of such fasting for a healthy life.
It means that if your last meal today was at 9 p.m., then your other meal will be at 9 p.m. the next day.
It is up to you in what way you need to eat. Meaning lunch to lunch, dinner to dinner, or breakfast to breakfast. You just cannot have solid foods during this time period of fasting but can have drinks like juice, coffee, or water.
This might be a tricky method to try in the beginning. So it is suggested that one can try the 16/8 mode of fasting first.
The Spontaneous Meal Diet
In this process, it is suggested to skip one meal per day. We might have unknowingly followed this method so many times in our lives.
We have skipped breakfast because we were getting late for our lectures in the morning; we have skipped lunch because we were busy with work. We might have also skipped dinner because we were too tired or not in the mood to eat. It is the same way this spontaneous meal diet works.
This spontaneous meal diet doesn’t have a particular set structure. Skipping a one-time meal is not going to have an adverse effect on your body. Our body keeps storing the nutrients and energy from the meals we have. So it is more than capable of fulfilling the loss of food we are having from skipping the meals.
Keep in mind to not eat food. And also, it will be better to have a regular meal or huge meal before skipping the meal for this diet method.
The Warriors Diet
The warrior's diet method is one of the most popular diet methods in intermittent fasting. It is also the first one to be included in the intermittent fasting method.
This diet method was popularized by fitness expert Ori Hofmekler.
How these diet method works are you have to stay on the intake of small amounts of fruits and vegetables during the day and only have a huge meal during the night.
In other words, it is fasting during the day and feasting during the night. The feast includes three or four-course meals.
It is also to be followed on a daily basis. It means that you are not deprived of food daily but will be fasting on a daily basis also.
It is a similar method to Paleo Diet. In this method, uncooked food is taken at breakfast, fasting for the whole day, and then having your regular meals at night during dinner.
Conclusion
Nowadays, intermittent fasting is getting more and more popular. The no restriction on food, but the restriction on eating time and schedule is what attracts people more towards this diet.
These methods of fasting have benefited people just as much as dieting and exercising, if not much. People have been rewarded with the benefits and the awarding results of this type of fasting diet. Therefore, they are adapting these methods more and more.
Each method has a pattern and amount of food to be taken. If one takes it seriously and follows it as per suggestion, then the results are very much pleasing.
There is also a belief that this intermittent fasting method works more on men and not on women. However, this is a pure myth and rubbish. This is far from reality.
The main thing to keep in mind is the food quantity and keeping away from junk food as much as you can. You need to eat healthy food and in the amount required at the given time as well. Fast food is a big no in this.
Also, you need to be careful and active and stick to the schedules and cycles of the fasting you choose as well. The studies have supported the positive results of these intermittent fasting diet methods on the people who stick to the diets.
Some of the methods in these intermittent fasting diets are really very easy and quickly adaptable, like the spontaneous diet method. Therefore, it is easily getting into trend and being popular among people easily.
It is a great tool for people who want to lose weight. However, it is to be kept in mind that these methods may not be fruitful for some people.