Intermittent Fasting Is an Eating Pattern... Not a Diet!

Intermittent fasting offers clear benefits for making people healthier along with a simple approach that can be combined with healthy eating for permanent weight loss. If you don't eat anything, your body changes to make stored fat deposits more accessible for use as fuel. This is caused by changes in the nervous system and a major change in production of specific hormones that affects metabolism. To effectively skip food intake a few days each week, you need to follow a balanced menu plan that is eaten in moderation on your feasting days and make healthy food choices as well as manage your portion sizes.

• The 16:8 Fasts - When you fast for sixteen hours, you can skip breakfast, eat an early dinner and simply avoid all late night snacking, then repeat the process the next day.
• Alternate Day Fasts - Eat-Stop-Eat is one of the simplest fasting diets around. You eat healthy and every one to two weeks simply fast for 24 hours.
• Two Day Fasts - This two days per week diet requires women to consume 500 calories and men 600 calories for two days each week while healthy meals are consumed the other five days.
• Crescendo Fasts - A popular choice among women, this fasting protocol is used on non-consecutive days of the week and involves 12-16 hours of fasting on rest days as opposed to training days.

If you are brand new to fasting and see a decrease in performance or have failed expectations, your body will adapt over time and will adjust to burning stored body fat for fuel. The benefits of intermittent fasting go way beyond weight management and includes numerous benefits for improving your metabolic health to help prevent the onset of chronic diseases. A successful fast involves dividing days and weeks into feasting and fasting period. If your goal is weight loss, it is crucial to have a balanced menu plan that can realistically be sustained.

*NOTE: Due to a difference in hormonal makeup, women have special considerations when fasting. Intermittent fasting is not a good idea for women under 18 years of age, those with a lean body profile, or those with medical conditions, such as hypothyroidism or a history of eating disorders. Ask your physician about an appropriate fasting protocol for you.