The route for weight loss has traditionally been cut calories. Swap that regular soda for diet, get an apple instead of a cookie, and you're going to cut pounds, the idea goes.
But instead of going to such calorie cuts, many people are now leading to more intense steps to reduce their average daily calorie counts.
Flashing fastening called, this last diet path takes a different approach. Instead of changing how much you eat, you change when you eat. "Intermittent fasting is loosely defined as periods of non-feeding, followed by periods of food," explains Krista Varady, PhD, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois in the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition of Chicago.
Fasten origins are rooted in religion. Various religions, including Islam, Judaism and Christianity, observe periods of restriction of food for spiritual reasons. Somewhere along the line, the researchers found that jumping meals also have some health benefits, including weight loss and blood pressure and lower cholesterol.
Food Fasting For Weight Loss - Could Fasting Help You Lose Weight, Get Healthier?
- Alternative fasting is the most intense version. You do not eat anything and drink only drinks from water or calories one day, and then you basically eat what you want the next day.
- Alternate alternating alternates between a low calorie day (about 500 calories) and a normal eating day.
- Diet 5: 2 (also called Quick Diet) involves eating normally 5 days a week, and then reduce about 500 calories in the other 2 days.
- The fasting diet that you eat a very low-calorie diet for only a few days and then return to a normal diet. It offers many of the benefits of fasting without the investment in time.
- Time restricted feeding concentrates at the time of your meals. You just eat within a certain window every day - for example, from 10 in the morning at 6am. So you're fast for the rest of the day.

Varady did a study by comparing the effects of alternative fasting with calorie restriction in 100 obese adults. After 1 year, people in the rapid alternative lost about 6% of their body weight. The calorie restrictions group had lost about 5.3% of its weight.
Other studies on alternative fasting show a weight loss of 3% to 8%. Time restricted feed produced a little less weight loss - about 3% to 4%.
and this is good for your health in general. The first research finds intermittent fasting could help alleviate things that can harm your heart, such as high blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol - sometimes significantly.
Courtney Peterson, PhD, Assistant Professor of the Department of Nutrition Sciences at Alabama University, studies the effects of intermittent fasting in conditions such as diabetes, blood pressure and heart disease. She says some of her participants had blood pressure from 10 to 11 points of practice. "This is a huge effect. It's about equivalent to a low blood pressure medicine."
Most of the health benefits are likely due to weight loss, and some people with type 2 diabetes can also benefit, it says.
"There are searches that suggest that intermittent fast improves blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes," says Peterson. "However, they need to be more careful with drops of blood sugar. Hypoglycemia episodes [very low blood sugar] are more common than usual."
But fasting with type 2 diabetes It can be especially dangerous. It is best to consult a doctor before attempting.
Intermittent Fasting can also delay the aging process and improve longevity, but so far, the only evidence of this is of study of rats, worms and other animals. "We are still in the early stages of doing an intermittent fasting research in humans," Peterson says. "Probably, eventually be a study in older adults to see if it can slow down an aging indicator, such as loss of muscle mass."
Intermittent fasting can take some adjustment. "It takes a little of your body to get accustomed to that standard down to eat," says Varady.