A guide to intermittent fasting

It was the most popular weight loss search term in 2019 and traces its roots back to an ancient ritual. Intermittent fasting is seeing a resurgence in its popularity and is now one of the most effective methods of weight loss and improving one’s health.

What is intermittent fasting?

It is a pattern of eating where you alternate between periods of eating and fasting. It is not to be confused with a diet, since it doesn’t specify which foods to eat but rather when to eat them.

Three methods of intermittent fasting are alternate-day fasting, periodic fasting, and daily time-restricted feeding.

These are some popular methods of doing this:

The twice-a-week method – 5:2

You cap your calories at 500-600 for two non-consecutive days a week. During the other five days of the week, you maintain a healthy and normal diet.

Alternate day fasting

Involves modified fasting every other day. For example, limit your calories on fasting days to 500 (or lesser) and on non-fasting days, opt for your regular, healthy diet.

Time-restricted eating

One sets fasting and eating windows in this method. For example, if you follow the 16/8 method, you fast for 16 hours in between meals and can eat for only eight hours of the day. You also skip breakfast in this one. Similarly, there is also a 14/10 method.

Since most people already fast while they sleep, this method is popular.

24-hour fasting

Also called the ‘eat, stop, eat method’, it involves fasting completely for a full 24 hours. Often times, it’s only done once or twice a week.

Benefits of intermittent fasting

There is nothing new about the benefits of fasting, which has been practised throughout human history. However, this habit was disregarded because of its religious connections.

Now many people are now re-discovering this dietary intervention and have reported benefits like weight loss, lowering insulin, increasing growth hormone levels and cellular repair, all of which have been backed by studies and research.

Recently, researchers from the University of Sydney also discovered how intermittent fasting influences key metabolic pathways in the liver.

“Intermittent fasting (IF) is currently one of the world’s most popular fitness trends. If done correctly, people using it lose weight, improve overall health (including the brain) and simplify their lifestyles. Common IF involves 16-hour fasting daily or a 24-hour fasting twice weekly. Various studies have proven that this method of fasting helps in the prevention of certain diseases such as type 2 diabetes, reduces cardiac diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and even cancers,” says Dr S Manohar, director, internal medicine, Sakra World Hospital.

Lost weight

Rosemary Dean started IF two years back, after her son, who was a health buff, became quite lean and built muscle through the process.

“The most appealing part of this to me is that I don’t have to skip any kind of food group which I’m completely against. I like my rice and ghee and bacon and I didn’t have to give up any of those, unlike in a normal diet,” says the housewife, who is also a Thyroid patient.

Rosemary says she lost 10 kg within three months, without doing any extra exercise other than housework.

“I did not go to the gym or go for walks but the results were amazing. And I felt a change as far as my energy levels were concerned too. I did not feel the need to sleep in the afternoon, could get up
earlier in the morning, had a lot more energy and even ran a marathon for the first time, a year after I started IF.”

“Normally, I’m not somebody who’s keen on breakfast so I usually start my meal only by one o’clock, which is my lunch and then around 5-6 pm, I would eat another meal and that would be it. So fasting for eight hours was very easy for me,” she adds.

Caleb David, managing director, Davlekha Perez Advisory India Pvt Ltd, started intermittent fasting to kickstart his weight loss journey and reduce his blood sugar. His friend, who is a trainer, suggested IF to him.

“I have breakfast during 8 – 8. 30 am and dinner during the same time period at night. During the 12 hours in between, I could have two to three cups of black tea or coffee without sugar. Or I can have a banana or an apple or one pomegranate. If I still feel hungry, I can have dried fruits like 5-6 almonds and cashews,” he says.

He has just started this and says that it takes some time to get used to, especially for someone like him who is used to having three full meals a day.

When asked what can one drink during the fasting window, Rosemary says one can’t have juice but lime water with salt is a good option.

“Drink as much water as you want. Some people say it is okay to have buttermilk but the actual process doesn’t call for that. And you can have as much black coffee, tea and green tea as you want as long as you don’t add the honey or sugar to it,” she explains.