Intermittent Fasting: A Beginner’s Guide to Weight Loss and Improved Health

What is Intermittent Fasting?

By the term Intermittent Fasting we refer to an eating schedule that establishes an eating time window and certain hours of fasting. There are many different types of Intermittent Fasting, some of those are restricting calories for some days and others have specific days of fasting during the week.

Intermittent Fasting isn’t like any other diet plan that focuses on food groups or on calories, its effectiveness lays on the times we eat. It is considered to be a realistic and successful way to lose weight and once we find the type of fasting that fits our lifestyle it is easier for us to stick with it.

What are the different types of Intermittent Fasting?

The 5:2 Diet

The 5:2 means that we can continue eating what we typically eat 5 days per week and restrict our meals to 500-600 calories for 2 days. For example, on Tuesdays and Fridays we eat two small meals of 300 calories each, while the rest of the week we eat normally.

The Alternate day fasting

In the alternate day fasting we fast any other day. There are various types of this fasting. Some strict diets indicate that you cannot have any food in the day of the fasting where others allow around 500 calories in total.

The 16:8 Method

In the 16:8 method we are fasting through 16 hours, and we have an eating window of 8 hours where we can eat two to three meals. Many people follow this method by just skipping breakfast and not eating nothing after dinner.

Unsweetened drinks with no calories doesn’t break your fasting so even if you are not in your eating window you can still have green tea without sugar, milk or honey and black coffee.

The 12:12 Method & Recommended by WeightLoss-Solutions

The 12-hour intermittent fasting is one of the fasting types that claims excellent results in the long run, and it is probably the easiest fasting for the majority of people. Following the 12 hour fasting means that if you ate breakfast at 9 am in the morning your last meal should be before 9 a.m. in the evening.

The 12-hour fasting is a solution for people who haven’t tried Intermittent Fasting before and are afraid that they might feel hunger if the do a shorter eating period. Once we feel comfortable with the 12:12 method we could try decreasing our eating window to 10 hours and fast for 14 hours.

All methods can help us reach our weight goals, but they also depend on the food we are consuming during our eating window. None of the methods above will work if we are consuming a lot of processed food or an excessive number of calories.

Why changing the time we eat makes a difference?

Fasting is not something revolutionary, it has been part of the culture of many ancient civilizations in the past but now we have enough scientific evidence regarding its benefits.

When we eat our body uses the carbohydrates we consume for energy and if we don’t need them immediately, it stores them as fat. Time restricted eating gives our body more hours to use up fat.

After we finish eating our body continues using the carbohydrates we consumed before using stored fat so when we extend our fasting window, we give more time to our metabolism to be on fat burning mode.

It is proven that switching from feed to fasting is triggering several essential cellular functions that not only help us burn more calories and lose weight but also improves our metabolism, lowers blood sugar levels, and decreases inflammation.

What are the benefits of Intermittent Fasting?

According to a famous study by Dr. Mattson published in the New England Journal of Medicine “Intermittent fasting has a range of health benefits that lead to a longer life, a leaner body and a sharper mind. Many things happen during intermittent fasting that can protect organs against chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, age-related neurodegenerative disorders, even inflammatory bowel disease and many cancers”.

Intermittent Fasting is not by any means dangerous, and it can have only beneficial effects to our health if it is done correctly. However, to adopt this new eating lifestyle we have to make sure that we are comfortable staying for longer without eating since fasting should not be something that makes us miserable, but rather, we should enjoy the process and its numerous benefits. WeightLoss-Solutions can teach you the right way to clean and healthy eating to help you lose weight and keep it off. Our 21 Day Weight Loss Program teaches you the science behind how your body actually works and simple lifestyle habits to get you your dream body.