In-country like India, people from villages had this kind of lifestyle. They prefer to have two meals a day. In current modern days, it’s called an “intermittent fasting diet”.
Intermittent fasting is popular as an IF diet. It’s really helpful in weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol. It is a really effective and sustainable approach to weight loss.
How IF Helps You in Losing Weight
The science behind intermittent fasting makes sense. It is like basic that when you have savings you use them during your financial problems. So that was the basic concept behind it and if I say it in scientific terms then, here it is:
When we eat food, it gets broken down by enzymes in our gut and it ends up by molecules in our bloodstream.
The carbohydrates (particularly sugar and refined grains) get quickly break down into sugar which our cells use for energy. When we do any physical activities that energy gets utilized and if we are not that much active that energy gets stored in our fat cells. But sugar can only enter our cells with insulin, it’s a hormone that brings the sugar into the fat cells and keeps it there.
Between Meals, if do not snack our insulin level will go down and as I have given an example of savings, Our fat cells release their stored sugar to be used as energy and that’s how our fat gets utilized as energy.
We lose weight if we let our insulin level go down for long enough, it will help to burn fat.
Ways to Do IF Diet
There are several ways to do an IF diet.
16:8 Method
In this method, you have to do fasting every day for some hours. Like 16 hours you have to do fasting and in the rest of 8 hours, you have the eating window. Within this window, you can have two or three meals.
This method of IF diet is easier. Because in this, you just have to skip the breakfast. For example, if you finished your last meal at 8 p.m. and don’t eat until noon the next day, you’re technically fasting for 16 hours.
The 5:2 Diet
The 5:2 diet is eating normally for 5 days of the week and restricting calorie intake to 500 for 2 days of the week.
For Example, You eat like normally for 5 days and you eat small meals on those two days.
Alternate Day Fasting
There are several methods of fasting but this one is quite tough.
In this method, you have to eat for a day and then fast for another day, so, this how this diet works. It is quite difficult to go to bed hungry on every alternative day.
This method is really tough for beginners.
Eat Stop Eat
In this method, you have to 24 hours of fast once or twice a week.
Like fasting from dinner to dinner of the next day, it’s almost 24 hours of fast. For example, if you finish your dinner at 7 p.m. On Monday and you do not eat anything till 7 p.m. of the next day means Tuesday. It can be done from breakfast to breakfast or lunch to lunch as well.
If you’re doing this for weight loss it’s really necessary to eat normally during the eating periods. I mean you should eat in the same amount of food or in calories as if you had not been fasting at all.
In these all methods you are not allowed to have solid foods while fasting period, you can have zero-calorie beverages like lemon water, black coffee, green tea.
Because as you have read the science behind IF you will know that if you eat any solid food during the fast its gives insulin spike and it breaks your fast.
Things To Consider While Doing IF Diet
- Break the fast through something small and high nutrient food.
- Stay hydrated.
- Do not eat during the fasting period.
- Do not overeat in the eating window.
- Stay in caloric deficit if you wishing to lose weight through IF.
As long as you try to stick to healthy food in this diet will leads you to make it your lifestyle and you will have impressive health benefits.
Author bio :
Nikita Borisa is a freelance writer. she is working on publishing her own book. she likes to write about health, food, travel. she loves cooking as especially authentic Rajasthani food.
