Intermittent fasting helps with weight loss or is it just a myth? This may be what you are wondering.
Intermittent fasting (IF) has gained a lot of attention recently in the weight loss community. I'm sure you were wondering if intermittent fasting works for weight loss, and had researched about this topic.
IF provides a really good way to burn more fat and thus will help with your weight loss efforts. It doesn't have a lot of strict rules or guidelines that you have to adhere to.
It is very simple to follow, you just eat during the feeding period and then fast during the fasting period.
Here are some important things to know about intermittent fasting and weight loss to help you decide if it's right for you.
Does IF Burn More Fat?
You may be wondering if intermittent fasting burns more fats. The answer is yes.
Our body is like a machine, it works constantly to burn food for energy. Our body will burn the food we eat first, and it usually takes a few hours, before it begins burning fat in storage.
This is why if you have a calorie deficit, which happens during fasting, your body will start burning fat.
When you are doing IF you are burning food and also have a longer time period to burn
fat during the fasting period.
This is the reason why IF is effective for your weight loss plan, it will burn more fat than other diet plans which you eat every few hours.
Intermittent Fasting Helps With Weight Loss?
The video below: How to Start Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss
In this video, Dr Majd explains intermittent fasting. “The longer you are overweight the longer it takes to decrease insulin levels.”
She also mentioned a book which may be helpful to some of you–The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss
“In order to achieve weight loss, we need to figure out how to suppress insulin levels in our bodies for a prolonged period of time and frequently, meaning intermittently.”
Intermittent Fasting Helps With Weight Loss?
You Naturally Reduce Calories While On IF
When you are on an intermittent fasting schedule you are on limited eating periods, thus you will be eating less.
You might think that you will gorge down everything you can get hold of when your fasting period is over. But most likely that will not happen.
The reason is that over time you will get used to going long periods of time without eating. And at the same time, you will also have a reduced appetite.
When you are fasting you will tend to be more mindful of what you eat during your 
eating periods. More likely than not you will go for healthier and nutrient-dense foods to get yourself full.
By being mindful of what you eat during this time helps you to make better food choices and also how much you eat. Consequently, your carbs and calories intake will likely be cut down.
Self-Control
There are many side benefits of intermittent fasting, one of which is you will learn self-control when it comes to eating.
When you decide to start on intermittent fasting, stick with the particular IF protocol you had chosen. Don't worry too much about what you eat during your eating periods.
If you want to indulge in junk food during the eating periods you can. This is because, 
over time, you will learn to practice self-control by sticking to your eating and fasting states.
Eventually, you will use the self-control skill to start altering your eating habit in terms of what kind of food you put into your body. Also, you will learn to control how often you eat.
This self-control habit will enhance your weight loss effort or naturally control your weight if you are not trying to lose weight.
Raise Metabolism And Fat Burning
Norepinephrine, which is a hormone and neurotransmitter, can boost your metabolism. With a higher metabolism, you can burn more calories throughout the day even when you are resting.
And intermittent fasting may increase your norepinephrine levels, thus helping with weight loss.
Furthermore, IF's eating pattern may help to reduce insulin levels in our bodies. Insulin is a hormone that is involved in blood sugar regulation.
In between meals, as long as we don't snack, the insulin levels in our bodies will 
decrease. Consequently, our fat cells will then release stored sugar to be used as fuel.
We can lose weight if we make our insulin levels go down. Intermittent fasting is designed to allow a reduction of insulin levels far and long enough so that we burn off our fats.
So a lower level of insulin can speed up fat burning thus promoting weight loss.
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Pair Intermittent Fasting With Keto
When intermittent fasting is used in conjunction with the ketogenic diet, IF can speed 
up ketosis and resulting in faster weight loss.
What's a ketogenic diet? It is a very high fat but low carb diet, which is designed to jump-start ketosis.
What's ketosis? It is a metabolic state in which your body is forced to burn fat for fuel instead of burning carbs.
How to induce ketosis? Ketosis occurs when our bodies are deprived of glucose, which is our main source of energy.
When intermittent fasting is paired with a keto diet it can help your body gets into ketosis faster. Thus forcing your body to burn fat instead of carb for fuel.
Intermittent fasting can also help to mitigate some of the side effects that often go along with a keto diet.
For example, a side effect is the keto flu, which is characterized by nausea, headaches, and fatigue.
Intermittent Fasting Helps With Weight Loss?
Does Intermittent Fasting Help To Retain Muscles?
One of the negative sides of dieting is that our bodies tend to burn muscles along with
fat.
However, some studies are showing that IF can possibly help our bodies hold on to muscles while losing body fat.
In one study, it was shown that intermittent-calorie-restriction caused a similar amount of weight loss as continuous-calorie-restriction. However, there was a much smaller loss of muscle mass in the intermittent-calorie-restriction method.
10% of weight lost as muscle mass (intermittent calorie restriction/intermittent fasting) vs 25% of weight lost as muscle mass (continuous calorie restriction).
However, we have to take the findings with a grain of salt as there were some limitations to the studies.
The video below: 4 Reasons Why You Should Be Intermittent Fasting
- Greater Fat Loss
- Improved Health
- Helps Fight Jet Lag
- It Is Very Convenient
The video below: Does intermittent fasting help you lose weight?
Is there a link between intermittent fasting and weight loss? Interview with Dr Krista Varady of the University of Illinois in Chicago.