Should You Try Intermittent Fasting to Lose Weight?

Should You Try Intermittent Fasting to Lose Weight?

Should You Try Intermittent Fasting to Lose Weight?
Intermittent fasting is about both the quantity and quality of what you eat within a time frame.
Intermittent fasting is a hot topic that comes up frequently in my practice. Ok: 

You limit the time you eat, but within that timeframe, eat as you normally would.

  • No calorie counting. 
  • No dietary restrictions. 
  • Simple and flexible. 

In an ever-changing world, intermittent fasting is trending as a possible route to sustainable weight loss.

What is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting (IF) has become an umbrella term for timing one of the fundamental tools of our diet. More specifically, intermittent fasting refers to a dietary program aimed at extending the body’s fasting period. This is achieved by reducing the so-called feeding window.

The most common timed eating protocols (usually research-based) are described in the following previously published articles.

Is it time to try intermittent fasting? 

If you’ve tried various diet methods, you probably know the pitfalls. 

A low-calorie diet often leaves you tired, hungry, and irritable.

A low-carbohydrate or “ketogenic” diet can cause cravings and constipation. 

A low-fat diet is also difficult to maintain and, contrary to popular belief, does not appear to prevent cardiovascular disease.

This diet doesn’t restrict what you eat, but when you eat it . Eric Rimm, M.D., Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H., says the change may be easier for some people to cope with.

Chang Public Health School. Short-term studies suggest that people follow the intermittent fasting diet as much or more than other diets.

According to his 2019 review article published in the journal Nutrients, intermittent fasting can promote weight loss and reduce risk factors associated with heart diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy blood fat levels, and inflammation.

Intermittent Fasting: The Positive News Continues

There are promising studies on intermittent fasting (IF) performed in obese mice. They lose weight, and improve blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar…but they are rats.

Almost all human studies show IF to be safe and effective, but others It is no more effective than any other diet, and many people find fasting difficult.

However, a growing body of research shows that the timing of fasting is important and may be a more realistic, sustainable, and effective approach to weight loss and diabetes prevention.

Background Information on Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting as a weight loss method has always existed in many forms, but in 2012 the TV documentary Eat Fast, Live Long was featured in BBC journalist Michael Mosley’s The Fasting.

It was popularized by the book The Fast Diet and The Fast Diet by journalist Kate Harrison. The 5:2 diet is based on her personal experience and her 2016 bestseller, Dr. Jason Fong. IF has generated consistently positive reactions as anecdotes about its effectiveness have spread.

Not So Fast: The Pros and Cons of New Diet Trends. The obesity epidemic has spawned an entire industry of weight loss programs.

The current trend is intermittent fasting, which alternates phases of extreme calorie restriction with phases of normal nutrition. It claims to help reduce the risk of inflammation and other heart diseases.

What is intermittent fasting?

In all diets, weight loss follows the same equation. You use less energy each day than your body burns during normal activity. Intermittent fasting achieves this goal by severely restricting calorie intake on certain days of the week or at certain times of the day.

The theory is that intermittent fasting helps reduce appetite by slowing down the body’s metabolism.
“One very popular model is called the 5:2 diet,” says T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In this system, you typically eat 5 days a week, but a 2-day fast restricts your food intake to 500-600 calories.

Another variation of intermittent fasting involves alternating “fast days,” where you eat less than a quarter of your base calorie requirement, and “rest days,” where you eat to your heart’s content.

How do fat diets help you lose weight?

First, consider a “satiety” state that promotes cell growth and a “fasting” state that promotes cell breakdown and repair.

Both can be beneficial or harmful depending on the situation (cell growth leads to muscle growth, but remember it also leads to the development of cancer.

Many of our genes, especially those that control metabolism (how we digest and use energy from food), turn on and off each day based on our natural circadian rhythms (sleep-wake cycles).

Is intermittent fasting a dependable weight reduction strategy?

To date, the solution is doubtful due to the fact that first-class of research frequently consists of very small samples, brief intervention periods, exclusive observation designs (frequently without manipulate groups), exclusive fasting protocols, and contributors of various shapes and sizes.

The proof of intermittent fasting and its results in weight reduction specifically pertains to research that uses time-restrained intermittent fasting as a method. Recent studies have proven that proscribing meal consumption let you lose some pounds.

New studies on intermittent fasting as a weight reduction tool.

To recognize the impartial impact of time limit on weight reduction, we want to assess a reduced-calorie food regimen mixed with a time-limited food regimen as compared to a time-limited food regimen alone.

The latest outcomes of a year-length observation addressed this very question: does a time-limited food regimen with a calorie limit have an extra impact on weight reduction and metabolic danger elements in overweight sufferers than a day-by-day calorie limit alone?

To solve this question, the observe enrolled people between 18 and 75 years of age with a BMI between 28 and 45, mainly apart from people who have been actively collaborating in weight loss software or taking medicines that have an effect on weight or caloric consumption.

Participants have been advised to observe a food regimen with 25% less energy (1,500 to 1,800 energy in line with day for guys and 1,2 hundred to 1,500 energy in line with day for women) with a predetermined ratio of energy from protein, carbohydrate, and fat.

To verify adherence to the food regimen (a famous project in food regimen research), contributors have been requested to weigh their meals and maintain a day-by-day meals diary, picture the meals they ate, and report meal instances through the use of a custom-designed cell application.

Should You Try Intermittent Fasting to Lose Weight?

Half of the participants (the timed eating group) were instructed to consume the prescribed number of calories within 8 hours.

All participants were also instructed to maintain their usual daily physical activity throughout the study in order to exclude this variable and segregate the timing of food intake as the only difference between the two groups. .

After one year, 118 patients successfully completed the study, with similar levels of adherence and dietary content in the two groups. Both groups lost significant weight. The time-restricted eating group averaged about 18 kg, while the daily calorie restriction group averaged 14 kg.

The difference in weight loss between the two groups was not statistically significant, and there were no significant differences in weight loss between subgroups classified by gender, baseline BMI, or insulin sensitivity.

Improvements in blood pressure, lipids, glucose, and cardiometabolic risk factors were also similar in both groups. This study provides clear evidence that dietary restriction alone has no significant effect on weight loss, all other factors being equal.

What does the new IF study mean for you?

Time-restricted eating seems like a safe strategy and may lead to some weight loss—unless you change your previous diet (by eating more calories).
Temporary dietary weight loss is primarily due to achieving a negative energy balance. Adhering to a regular diet and limiting meal times can reduce your daily calorie intake by hundreds of calories.

Maintaining this lifestyle leads to moderate weight loss (3-8% on average based on current data) and improved cardiometabolic markers such as blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, triglyceride levels and mean blood levels.

There is a possibility. glucose level. But, and this is a big problem, if you overcompensate by eating too much at mealtime, your weight loss strategy won’t work. In fact, it can backfire. His two other measures of diet – food quantity and quality – are still very important.

One of the drawbacks of IF is the loss of muscle mass.

Although weight loss is a reasonable goal for cardiometabolic health, weight loss by any intervention (including intermittent fasting) often results in concomitant loss of muscle mass. , even a negative side effect of the intermittent fasting protocol.

Given the importance of muscle mass in stimulating metabolism, regulating blood sugar levels, and maintaining overall physical performance, I highly recommend combining resistance training with an intermittent fasting protocol.


Finally, the weight loss achieved with intermittent diets (often called intermittent) may differ from the cellular adaptations that occur with complete, prolonged fasting. It is difficult to determine whether metabolic benefits are due to weight loss or underlying cellular adaptations. Probably a combination of both.
However, in a world where we can eat 24/7, it is clear that we can benefit from adjusting our circadian biology and spending a little less time each day in the fasted state and a little more time in the fasted state.