Intermittent fasting rules
- Dietitian.Lauren Hmede
- Jan 21, 2019
- 4 min read
Could Intermittent Fasting Solve Your Weight-Loss Plateau?
There’s been a lot of buzz around intermittent fasting (IF) recently — but what does it really entail? Think about it like this: When you get up in the morning, you eat breakfast. You’re breaking your fast from the previous night.
While you are sleeping, technically, you’re fasting (unless you’re sleep eating). Conversely, while you’re awake, you’re eating. Intermittent fasting can be simply defined as going without food for a longer period of time than sleep and consuming all of your calories within a specific window of time.
Benefits of intermittent fasting:
Reducing calories intake has been linked with increased longevity.
One of the big effect of IF is improving insulin secretion as the hormone is released in response to food. It has the effect of causing the liver, muscle and fat cells to store glucose. In a fasting state, blood glucose levels drop, leading to a decrease in insulin production, which signals the body to start burning stored energy.
There are many potential benefits to intermittent fasting, including:
Weight loss
Improved mental state
Increased energy
Improved fat-burning
Increased growth hormone production
Lowered blood cholesterol
Reduction of inflammation
Improved cellular repair
Is intermittent fasting right for you?
There no specific cases to try or not the intermittent fasting but there are general recommendations and guidelines while you are following IF diet as it affects your lifestyle.
IF may not fit your work schedule or family nutritional needs, you are athlete you must think about your needs after recovery and if you are women you must think about hormonal changes.
It is important to consult your doctor before you start your diet, and remember that this diet may suit you but not for your friend, so the best way to make sure that is good for you is to try it.
There are a ton of variations on intermittent fasting, and choosing which one is right for you is often a matter of trial and error. To get you started, here are a few examples of IF protocols:
1. Breakfast skipper method: 16/8
Fast for 16 hours, and then eat during an eight-hour window.
This is a good protocol for those who are new to IF and would typically eat between the hours of 4 p.m. and midnight.
2. Lean gains:
Women fast for 14 hours, while men fast for 16 hours.
Similar to the Breakfast Skipper, but the slight decrease in fast length for women is to ensure you’re not messing up your hormones, as females can be more sensitive to signals of starvation.
3. Fast diet: 5:2 diet
Eat for five days and significantly cut calories for for two days.
This is a more advanced method of fasting in which you eat as you normally would for five days, and then reduce your calories significantly (600 calories for men and 500 calories for women) for two days.
4.Alternating:
Eat one day, fast the next.
With this diet, on the fasting days you should eat a fifth of your recommended daily caloric intake, and then consume a normal amount of calories on feasting days.
This is a slightly easier protocol to follow than Fast Diet.
5.Warrior:
Fast for 20 hours a day and eat one large meal at night
This is a more challenging protocol to follow, as you’ll need to ensure you fit all of your important macro- and micronutrients into one meal a day.
There really are a limitless number of variations on the intermittent fasting protocol, so if you’re considering IF, start with one (say, breakfast skipper) and play around with what works with your schedule and hunger levels.
The impact of metabolsim and genetics:
Metabolism and genes play a role in specifying if intermittent fasting diet is good and right for you or not.
Suppose you have a fast metabolism and you're trying to build muscle. Focusing on your calorie intake around exercise means you have lots of energy to work out, with additional energy and amino acids to recover. If you’re a true “hard gainer” or “skinny fat,” IF might help you achieve your goals — not to mention the potential hormonal benefits.
If you have a slow metabolism or you store energy easily, then eating all your calories in a short space of time might make fat loss hard for you because you will hang onto energy even in the fasting windows, so IF might not be a good protocol for you to follow.
Genetics is a little harder to factor into the equation unless you’ve had a genetic test done, such as the one from Fitness Genes. They can tell you whether you have a fast or slow metabolism based on your genes. For example, the uncoupling genes (aka UCP genes) provide information to decide if you might be someone who would benefit from intermittent fasting.
About fitness genes:
Fitness genes is the first DNA-testing platform of its kind to eliminate the guessing game from fitness and nutrition.
With a quick DNA kit and an analysis of 43 gene variation, its team of genetic scientists reveals specific traits, including metabolic tendencies, dietary sensitivities, fat-burning capacity, muscle type, recovery time and more.
Fitness Genes then prescribes personalized, week-by-week exercise programs and nutritional guides based on your genetic profile.
Sources:
Comments