Surely you’ve heard the term so fashionable right now, intermittent fasting – and all the wonderful benefits that tell us out there that bring us to our health, specifically associated with weight loss.
But what’s the reality?
Although there is scientific evidence that demonstrates the benefits of this food practice, it is not a guaranteed solution. According to Sascha Barboza, a personal trainer certified by the International Sports Sciences Association, with studies in sports nutrition of the Spanish Federation of Culturism and Master’s Degree in Nutrition, better known as Sascha Fitness, intermittent fasting could benefit human health in different ways, including weight loss, but considering that it is not something that serves everyone, as many factors intervene in the process.
So What is Intermittent Fasting?
According to Barboza, intermittent fasting is not a diet, it is a way of eating, it is a dietary pattern where fasting periods alternate with feeding periods. This method has several ways to be done, where we find 2 proposals:
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, it is a way of eating, it is a food pattern where fasting periods alternate with feeding periods.
The longest, where it is recommended to fast for 16-18 hours and eat for a period of approximately 6 or 8 hours a day
The other proposal consists of fasting 2 or 3 24-hour fasts, that is, two days eat in the usual way, and 1 day fast for 24 hours, so the process is repeated
All the intermittent fasting methods start from the basis of the same idea: when calorie intake is reduced, the body will use stored fat to obtain energy. But what makes intermittent fasting different from simply reducing calories is the possibility that it will be easier for people to restrict calories for limited periods rather than the days, weeks, and months required by conventional diets.
Why Do Some Experts Propose This Method?
One of the most interesting benefits among people who have practiced intermittent fasting is that it really simplifies your life, you don’t have to think much about what you’re going to have breakfast. This group of people, usually those who work hard and start the day very early, and skip the time to sit down for breakfast, can be a benefit in time.
But Sascha is one of the people who recommends making breakfast and taking it easy because in a way taking the first meal of the day activates your metabolism, helps reset the hormones, and gives you all the energy you need for the day. Even so, it is very important to remember, that the nutrition expert emphasizes quite a lot, and it is that I think that for some it can work, for others it may not be so convenient, basing its methodology on studies that demonstrate the benefits of having breakfast, and as already mentioned at the beginning, the health benefits of intermittent fasting are also scientifically supported, relying on the fact that all individuals are different, and our metabolisms do not work in equal ways.
Likewise, another of the great benefits that those who defend this method claim is that it helps to control insulin levels, since,, as they go through such a long fasting period, blood glucose levels remain lower for a prolonged period of time. This also helps the growth hormone rise, as this is inversely proportional to insulin.
And what happens when the high-growth hormone and low insulin match? Well, it’s excellent for improving body composition. When insulin levels are kept constantly high, fat oxidation is not as efficient, and, on the contrary, the body tends to accumulate fat. The opposite happens when the growth hormone rises, there is more catabolism at the level of fatty acids, that is, the body uses fat as a source of fuel more easily and simply. Growth hormone has the dual effect of helping to increase muscle mass and burn fat.
With this same duality of high-growth hormone lower insulin, the benefits at the hormone level are very noticeable as the levels of noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter that acts at multiple points of the human body, increase, and this makes it easy to release and mobilize fatty acids as a source of energy. When there is a calorie deficit and an ideal hormonal environment, that’s when the body starts using fat reserves as gasoline.
Another statement that is often common to hear is that intermittent fasting practices help cell regeneration and repair and help the process of removing toxins from the body in a more efficient way. Likewise, intermittent fasting can help slow premature aging, it can lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides.
Who Benefits Most From This Food Method?
Although each body is a universe, and many theories support intermittent fasting as a lifestyle, those who benefit most from it are men.
Why is that? The question is not to sentence the entire female guild, says Sascha, because there are women who practice intermittent fasting and do very well, there are always exceptions to the norm, but the common denominator is that in women it is not as effective, in fact most do not work, because although men and women have the same hormones, such as testosterone, the proportions are completely different: in men it is dominant, while in women it is lower.
The common denominator is that in women it’s not that effective, in fact most don’t work.
Intermittent fasting for a man and a woman activates completely different things. In the case of women, when the body detects that there is a food deficit, the body enters a state of alert, this happens, because the body of women at the biological level is prepared to reproduce and be fertile, and when there is something that attacks fertility, the body is genetically programmed to defend us from this. Lack of food and nutrients is severe for a woman who wants to become pregnant or can even affect menstrual cycles.
This affects female metabolism while raising much more than in men levels of the hormone cortisol, disrupting insulin levels and facilitating the accumulation of fat at the abdominal level. Likewise, muscle mass wears out, and irregular insulin peaks begin to appear that are not beneficial for improving body composition and keeping energy levels stable. Similarly, Grelina, a hormone that is responsible for regulating appetite in women, shoots after about 4 or 5 hours, which is why, by making such long fasts, after this time women tend to feel more hungry, more anxious, more irritable, and react very negatively.
So What is The Proposal?
Regarding women, the fitness expert recommends that it is best to do a 12-hour fast, the same one she has practiced. In this proposal, the most recommended thing is that the last meal of the day will be made between 20h and 9 pm, and breakfast will be done 12 hours later. Thus, all the hormonal, insulin, and wear problems that were discussed above are avoided since most of this fast will be done asleep, and sleeping the body behaves differently, to what is known as an internal biological clock or circadian rhythm.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that many of the human body’s processes are linked to our circadian rhythms. For example, most of us know that receiving sunlight early in the morning is beneficial for our mood and sleeping, and that being exposed to the blue light of our cell phones or laptops can disrupt our night sleep. Similarly, food at the right time can nourish us, and healthy food at the wrong time can be junk food. Instead of being used as fuel, it is stored as fat, which makes sense once the basics of how human metabolism works are examined.
Eating with time restrictions gives our body more time to consume fat. When we eat, our body uses carbohydrates to get energy and, if we don’t need them right away, stored in the liver as glycogen or converted to fat. Once we finish eating during the day, our body continues to work with the glucose of the carbohydrates we just ate for a few hours before taking advantage of the stored carbohydrates, or glycogen, in the liver. That glycogen lasts several hours before running out about eight hours after we stop eating, which is when our body begins to take advantage of stored fat.
When we shorten our power window and expand our fasting window, we spend more time in this fat-burning mode of our metabolism. But the moment we eat food again, even if it’s just milk coffee, and a little sugar, we go back the other way and start burning carbohydrates and storing glycogen and fat. Then, at the end of eating at 10 p.m., the body will run out of glycogen and will start burning fat around 6 a.m. If you usually have breakfast at 6 a.m., but you change it at 9 a.m., you’ve given your body an extra three hours to use fat as fuel.
Intermittent fasting is not a miraculous solution to losing weight.
More research on time-restricted food is needed. So far, there has been no study with humans that has lasted more than a few months.
Intermittent fasting is not a miraculous solution to losing weight. Some research even suggests that people who practice fasting on alternate days could instinctively eat more before and after their fasting days or reduce their activity on fasting days, denying the benefits of calorie reduction. In his studies on time-restricted food, Satchin Panda, professor of circadian biology at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says he has seen some participants gain weight after taking the idea of eating what they wanted inside a window to the end, berths of the food they usually abstained from.
The most important thing about all this is knowing what works and what it does to each person. You can try, but you have to have control and always try to do it under the supervision of a specialist in the subject who is guiding the process and taking note of the benefits and whether it is really taking effect. Everyone must be responsible and aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and take the whole process in the most cautious way possible.