Weight loss doesn’t require calorie counting, and you don’t necessarily need to reduce eating to lose weight. You can lose weight just by improving your eating in a way that listens to your body. However, if restrictive methods are used in eating to accelerate weight loss, there are many ways to do this, and appropriately measured intermittent fasting is one of them.
A meta-analysis study from 2018 also states that you can lose weight with intermittent fasting just as with other restrictive eating methods. However, there are many types of intermittent fasting, and their suitability is quite individual, so the matter needs to be examined more closely.
How Intermittent Fasting Can Work – or not Work
Intermittent fasting is generally understood as having a specific time period during the fast when you don’t eat or eat very little – and then there’s a non-fasting period where you eat freely.
The most well-known manifestation of this is the 5-2 diet, where you eat little for two days a week and normally for five. In addition to the 5-2 split, there are many other divisions, such as 16-8. During this fast, food is eaten for eight hours and no eating for 16 hours. There are also fasts where you eat only once a day. All methods have their pros and cons, which can be summarized in a few themes.
The Physiologically Best Intermittent Fasting Method Has not yet been Identified
In principle, any of these intermittent fasting methods can work. The more restrictive the fasting and eating become, the more weight is lost. Conversely, the less you’re allowed to eat, the more likely fasting will make hunger uncontrollable, leading to overeating due to increased sweet cravings or hunger, and all theoretical weight loss benefits are lost.
If this happens, intermittent fasting becomes fattening and unhealthy for weight management. If the amounts eaten after fasts remain normal, then it can be a slimming and healthy solution.
Moderate hunger management thus rises to a central role in determining the suitability of intermittent fasting, and it is above all a physiological question – not willpower. The battle against great hunger is lost sooner or later.
For whom Intermittent Fasting is not the Best Option for Weight Loss
It’s not just coincidence or requiring self-discipline that determines who intermittent fasting suits. Genetics and lifestyle also have some influence, but based on research and experiential evidence, I believe that intermittent fasting is less suitable for tired people, those who are significantly overweight, less active individuals, women, and people with eating regulation problems (such as binge eating or sweet cravings).
For those with significant overweight, fasting may be suitable in the initial stages of weight management and weight loss, but after a 10-20 kg weight loss, intermittent fasting may not be the best option because the body’s ability to tolerate large energy deficits weakens as weight loss progresses.
Intermittent Fasting Can be Beneficial for Physically Active People
Good experiences with intermittent fasting are most often reported by physically active and fit men. Others can also benefit from intermittent fasting, but the probabilities of successful results come from this target group.
The lowest probabilities of success with intermittent fasting are therefore at the other extreme, namely overweight individuals whose lifestyle and energy levels need improvement. The results of intermittent fasting are thus quite individual, and its suitability can only be ultimately noticed by trying it.
In addition to physiological factors, factors such as social flexibility need to be taken into account in everyday life. In other words, how it is otherwise possible and pleasant for you to live. You can try intermittent fasting, but if it doesn’t work, it’s better to let it be.
Remember these if You’re Considering Starting Intermittent Fasting
1) Permanent weight loss and weight management do not require conscious reduction of eating – improving background factors is enough. This is, in my opinion, the primary solution, and I would like to leave it as the only one, because it is in many ways the best solution for well-being and change permanence.
2) Despite everything, many people try to eat only a little to lose weight, so it’s important to understand that steady and constant low eating is a poor strategy. Intermittent fasting is one option to vary the amount of energy deficit on different days or to limit the energy deficit to a reasonable size.
3) You can try different intermittent fasting methods, but for few people are they a more permanent solution, and it’s always worth planning in advance how to transition from intermittent fasting to even more flexible eating someday. Even a short fast can teach something about your own hunger management limits, and therefore intermittent fasting done with an experimental mindset is sometimes worth trying.
