Your diet will define your progress. This is true no matter what else you do. So, naturally, we must examine diet trendS, and determine whether it’s something that can genuinely help shape your best self, or whether it’s a useless fad or trick of psychology.

How does intermittent fasting work? 

Intermittent fasting is the practice of drastically restricting caloric intake (in other words, eating way less) – for large chunks of your day/week. Researchers have been examining the use of intermittent fasting as a tool for weight loss for over a century, so let’s summarize what we know about it now.

There are two main approaches to intermittent fasting:

The daily method. This method confines daily eating to a 6–8-hour portion of each day. 

The 5:2 method. This more recent method involves a normal diet five days of the week. The other two days are restricted to one meal of around 500 calories per day.

Research shows that it can take two to four weeks before the body becomes accustomed to intermittent fasting. So you might not feel great and might not see results right away, which can be discouraging. But people who make it through that initial adjustment period tend to stick with the diet, and have positive results.

claimed Benefits

Advocates of intermittent fasting have attached an incredible range of claimed benefits to the diet. And at times, research has backed up many of them.

At the top of the list is the claim of improved fat loss while building muscle, but the list goes on to include improved memory, blood pressure and resting heart rates, greater endurance, and boosted protection against a wide array of diseases, disorders and ailments.

the verdict

It appears more and more likely that caloric intake restriction explains most of the beneficial effects seen with intermittent fasting – in other words, it could be that the benefit lies in simply being another way for people to restrict calories, an option for certain personality types to structure their diets.

Recent studies have consistently failed to show a major difference between intermittent fasting and standard calorie-restricted dieting. But that’s not to say that intermittent fasting doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work better. But if it helps your discipline by providing structure and placing focus on certain times of the day or week, it can be a great way to instill consistency in your diet and to get to your goals.