In this article we explain everything you need to know about intermittent fasting: its benefits, the different types of fasting and we help you know where to start. Read our advice to help you put in place the diet best suited to your profile, which you will be able to maintain over the long term.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting is a diet in which you abstain from consuming calories for an extended period of time. Usually, this period lasts between 12 and 40 hours.
What are the different intermittent fasting programs?
There are several ways to practice intermittent fasting, all of which involve dividing the day or week into eating and fasting periods. During fasting periods, you either eat very little or nothing at all.
Each program has its advantages and disadvantages and will be more or less adapted to your profile if you are a beginner or if you are used to:
The 16/8 diet.
This program involves fasting every day for a certain number of hours and eating in the remaining hours. A popular example is the 16/8 diet. This involves fasting for 16 hours every day and eating (2.3 meals or more) over a period of 8 hours. This is the simplest form of fasting to start with and the easiest to maintain on a daily basis. Very simply, you can skip your breakfast and eat all of your calories over the two remaining meals of the day (lunch and evening meal). So if you eat your dinner at 7:30 p.m., you will fast until 12 p.m. the next day, which makes 16 hours of fasting in total. The idea here is to give your digestive system and your entire body time to rest where it is not used.
If you want to adopt this method and are new to intermittent fasting, start by moving back your breakfast time a little more every day, and gradually work towards eliminating it.
The 5:2 diet.
The 5:2 diet involves eating as you normally do 5 days a week and then limiting your calorie intake to 500-600 the remaining 2 days. This intermittent fasting diet can be more complicated to adopt because you must be sure that you can find 2 days per week that suit you to eat less, also you must have a good foundation in nutrition and diet to be able to restrict your calorie intake. at a low volume, so you need to be aware of how many calories you are ingesting.
The Eat stop Eat.
Eat Stop Eat involves fasting for 24 hours once or twice a week. Here too we are talking about a more restrictive and complex diet, rather not recommended for beginners because we start directly with 24-hour fasts. This may be too big a change at once and the body and metabolism may have difficulty adapting, so you will feel some fatigue and exhaustion and an unpleasant feeling of hunger at first.
Two-day fasting.
With alternate day fasting, the goal is to fast every other day. This type of intermittent fasting is much more complex and difficult than the 16/8 method.
How do I choose my intermittent fasting program?
The best thing is to be accompanied by a health professional who will be able to guide you according to your objective, your profile and your eating habits. You need to choose a program that can be easily integrated into your daily life, that will not require too much effort and that your body can handle without any problem.
The 16/8 method is the most widespread and the easiest to maintain over time. Once you have adopted this fast, you can try others from one week to the next by documenting your feelings.
What are the benefits of intermittent fasting?
May promote weight loss and good metabolic health
Fasting or abstaining from food often creates a calorie deficit, meaning your body has fewer calories than it needs to maintain its current weight. Which can help with weight loss.
Intermittent fasting methods like the 16/8 method are a type of intermittent fasting that has been directly linked to weight loss. Indeed, if this is not necessarily the primary goal of intermittent fasting, when we eliminate breakfast for example, it will often be quite hard to consciously relate all of our caloric intake to the 2 remaining meals, we will therefore eating less than usual without necessarily realizing it.
However, research says that intermittent fasting is as good as - no better than - other diets that also rely on limiting your daily calorie intake.
In addition to naturally eliminating calorie intake during the fasting period, intermittent fasting can promote weight loss by regulating your appetite. It will increase the feeling of satiety while suppressing the feeling of hunger.
This diet pattern has also been linked to improved overall health, such as:
- lower blood pressure
- improve blood sugar
- repair damaged cells
- protect brain health
Can be a lasting lifestyle change
While intermittent fasting may seem complicated and intimidating at first, it is often simpler than it seems. As you plan fewer meals, the fasting diet can even help you simplify your day.
Additionally, intermittent fasting (16/8 type) does not require counting calories or monitoring your macros. What's more, you don't have to drastically change the basics of your diet, you continue to eat the foods you prefer and don't have to include products you don't like.
Works well with a nutritious, whole-food diet
As noted above, intermittent fasting doesn't require you to buy special foods or deviate much from what you usually eat. Intermittent fasting focuses more on the timing of your meals than what you eat, and is generally easy to implement in conjunction with your current diet.
If your diet is already balanced but you are looking for other ways to continue to improve the quality of your overall health, the intermittent fasting diet could be an avenue to explore.
Be careful, this doesn't mean that the foods you eat don't matter. There's no doubt that you'll get the most out of intermittent fasting by eating a variety of nutritious foods and limiting overeating.
Are there any contraindications to starting intermittent fasting?
While intermittent fasting is generally considered safe, it's best to exercise caution when starting this new eating routine.
Some disadvantages of intermittent fasting are:
- a feeling of hunger.
- nutrition that is not based on intuition.
- drops in mood.
Also restricting your caloric intake for a prolonged period can be dangerous for:
- children and adolescents
- pregnant or breastfeeding women
- people with certain illnesses such as diabetes (since fasting through food deprivation for periods of time has effects on insulin, the blood sugar-regulating hormone)
- people taking certain medications
- people with a history of eating disorders
Before embarking on an intermittent fasting diet or making any other drastic change to your diet, consult a trusted healthcare professional to help you get started safely.
IN SUMMARY.
Intermittent fasting is an eating routine that alternates periods of eating and fasting. There are many different methods of doing this but the 16/8 form of intermittent fasting is the most popular, which involves alternating 16 hours of fasting with 8 hours where you can eat your meals. It is often considered to be the simplest, most durable and easiest to respect.
To choose the most suitable diet and to be sure that intermittent fasting is right for you, we invite you to consult a doctor who will be able to advise you best.
