Is Intermittent Fasting The Key To Fat Loss You’ve Been Hoping For?
I’m sure you have heard loads about Intermittent Fasting (IF)
But…What it it?
Fasting is the voluntary withholding of food for spiritual, health, or other reasons. It has been practiced for thousands of years and is a staple across many different religions and cultures around the globe.
Today, variations of fasting put a new twist on the ancient practice.
Intermittent Fasting (IF) is when you don’t eat for a period of time (most commonly 16 hours), then eat all your meals in the remaining block of time (normally an 8 hour feeding window).
For example, you eat your first meal at 12noon then you eat your last meal before 8pm).
You can still drink water throughout the whole day. You simply give your body’s digestion a bit of break because you are not snacking or drinking calories from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed. You can drink water, black coffee & unsweetened tea.
What a day tailored to fat loss might look like:
This is a very general example just to give you an idea. This may be too little or too much food for you.
Wake up 7.30am
Lunchtime – First proper meal – Lean Beef Mince with 50/50 Courgette Pasta/Normal Pasta + Half an avocado
4pm – Snack – Greek Style Yoghurt + A few squares of dark chocolate and a few Chia Seed Rice/Corn Cakes
5.30pm – Gym Session
7.30pm – Dinner ☺ – Homemade Sweet potato wedges + Turkey Burgers + Homemade Coleslaw using yoghurt instead of salad cream/mayo
So it’s basically an eating style but NOT a diet, as there is no talk about WHAT you eat, it’s simply WHEN you eat!
And this is where a lot of the confusion occurs.
Some people think they can eat whatever they want and expect to lose fat, just because they’re doing IF.
Where’s the logic in that? You cannot just eat any crap you want because you spend 16 hours fasting and think you’re gonna look like some sexy athlete lol.
In fairness to you, you’ve probably been misled by some sneaky marketing.
However, there are a bunch of proven benefits which I will outline below as well as giving some practical take home messages for you.
The benefits are:
(These are Sciencey so if this confuses you don’t worry just check out my conclusion)
1. It causes insulin levels to drop, which improves insulin sensitivity, optimizes blood sugar levels and burns fat (1, 2).
2. Increased levels of human growth hormone (HGH), an important hormone involved in cellular regeneration that has been linked to improvements in body composition and decreased body fat (3,5).
3. Shown to induce autophagy, an important cellular repair process that helps remove waste and toxins to keep your body healthy (6).
4. A study showed that biomarkers for aging, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer where reduced without any side effects: https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)00224-7
5. May offer protection against chronic disease and brain aging by altering specific genes and molecules within your body (7).
My closing thoughts and the real world benefits?
While it’s really easy to get distracted by the benefits; especially the one that emphasises better ability to use insulin and burn fat for fuel. It’s super important that we don’t lose sight of the fundamentals when it comes to food:
We need to be eating quality nutrients & if we want to drop body fat we need to be in a calorie deficit (burn more calories than we are getting in)!
This is what your main focus should be. Once you’ve got the hang of quality food consistently being a habit (for the record millions are still struggling with this and this is what I help my clients with), only then is it worth experimenting with more advanced food timing practices such as IF.
I do think it can be a very practical way to eat in modern times; allowing you to eat your largest meal for dinner (most social meal of the day) while still being able to achieve weight loss (providing you stick to the fundamentals).
And, it also teaches you to not panic and think you are dying after not eating for merely a few hours which I think is very useful for life. But for the vast majority of people, I’d suggest your focus to be on the fundamentals as that is what will really make the difference to you in both the short and long term.
If your goal is trim down some body fat then I recommend you read this first, before attempting IF because the fasting can create a binging mind-set if you’re not careful.
If you have specific questions feel free to contact me directly here
Let me know how you get along ☺
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