Intermittent Fasting: Hoax or Truth?

Around the middle of October, in a bid to improve myself, I decided to try intermittent fasting. You were rightly concerned at first about it and asked if I was sure or have done any research. I was not very sure about it BUT I did do my research and I am going to explain what I found in three (3) minutes.

Intermittent fasting is an eating plan that switches between eating and fasting. There's a lot of focus on what you eat when it comes to diet and fitness. The focus of intermittent fasting however, is when you eat.

There are many approaches to intermittent fasting.

• The daily approach keeps eating in a 6-8 hour window and fasting for the remaining hours of the day. In practice, that can look like only eating between the hours of 12pm to 6pm or 10am to 4pm. It involves skipping at least one meal while avoiding eating late.

• The 5:2 approach keeps regular eating to 5 days in a week and fasting to 2 days in the week. On each of those two days, one (low calorie) meal is recommended.

• The alternate day approach keeps fasting to every other day with regular eating on the next.

The approach I went with was the daily approach, in an effort to keep my meals between 11am and 7pm or 12pm and 8pm. I chose this approach because its easier to maintain consistency with a daily plan and I have no issues with skipping meals.

Does It Work Though?

Research (and personal experience over a month) say, it does actually. How it works, is through a process which Mark Mattson of John Hopkins, refers to as metabolic switching. Your body uses the energy from your food to perform its functions and stores excess glucose and fat in areas like your abdomen and thighs for later. These excesses however, are never used since the body can continue to run on the numerous daily meals we consume. Intermittent fasting aims to force the body, during your fasting windows, to use up the stored excesses of fat. This switch from burning just the daily calories consumed to burning up fat stores IS metabolic switching. Straightforward really.

Sooo, Benefits Please

1. Weight loss. Very straightforward. When you fast, you eat less, you burn up fat, you lose weight. The only caveats are; trying not to eat every unhealthy meal in the world during your eating window AND exercising a bit IF you want quicker losses.

2. Physical health improvements. Several are listed across many sources. Some include reducing the risk and effects of Type 2 diabetes, improved heart health and improved tissue health.

3. Attention to diet. Research and personal experience has shown that paying attention to when you eat actually leads you to pay attention to what you eat and the calories you consume. This should lead you to healthier food choices (we hope).

Nothing's Perfect: The Drawbacks

1. It is NOT for everyone. Pregnant people, children below 18 and people with pre-existing health conditions like Type 1 diabetes, ulcer and eating disorders are advised to avoid intermittent fasting or do it only by the recommendation and instructions of their doctor.

2. It is difficult to adhere to if and when social eating is important. We need to go on dates. Eat breakfast together. Have dinners at our favorite restaurants. We need to try fine dining and travel to have tastes of other cultures. That can be difficult when you have a strict window for eating. (However there is always a workaround)

To conclude, I will say that in a month, intermittent fasting coupled with a 4-5 day a week simple workout routine, I have lost 4kg. One can always argue that simply reducing your portions & calorie intake, exercising and eating whenever you want will achieve the same results. To those people I say...

Fair enough chale.