Intermittent Fasting: Healthy lifestyle choice
With all types of fasting available in the market, It gets confusing to pick one. While many diets plans come with their rulebook, Intermittent fasting is very simple to follow and maintain.
When you decide to follow a certain diet plan, the most important part is to follow it. Any diet shouldn’t be hard to follow for you, cause any stress, frustration or if simply you hate it, then its not the diet plan for you. Whatever your motive is, whether to lose weight or to maintain your health. Before you pick any diet for yourself, Make sure you choose a diet which suits you the best.
Intermittent fasting involves cycling between periods of fasting and eating, helps in weight loss, lower cholesterol and maintain your immunity. As other diets specify what all to eat and in what quantity, this dies doesn’t do so. Your meal quantity should be normal and not more than your regular days. There are different fasting time in intermittent fasting, so one should choose the plan which suits them the best, according to their goals.
This diet is safe for healthy and normal being, However people with an underlying medical condition should refer to their doctor and consult them.
Choose Fasting Plans according to your needs and goals and we will talk about
12:12
16:8 Window
Alternative DayWindow
Skipping Meal
20:4 Window
12:12 Window
Its pretty simple. You eat for 12 hours and stop eating completely for the next 12 hours. Its to be followed every day. Usually, if you add a sleeping period in your fasting window, then it becomes pretty easy. Since it gives a small window to eat, It controls the quantity of food which you consume in a day, thus encourage weight loss.
In your Fasting period, you can drink water, black coffee or tea and anything which has zero calories in it.
If you are a breakfast person, then you can finish your dinner at 8:00 PM and the following day, you can have your breakfast after 8:00 AM since your fasting period will be over.
16:8 Window
As the fasting plan suggests, You fast for 16 hours in a day and only eat for 8 hours. Its also knows as Leangains method. If you followed the 12:12 window plan however It didn’t work out for you or you didn’t see any results, then you should give this fasting plan a try.
It’s not specified, how many meals can you add in your 8 hours of the window and as long as the meal size is proportionate, you can include 2-3 meals in 8 hours of eating window.
Alternative Day
In this diet, the fasting plan will not be according to the hours in a day but fasting for a day. You will eat one day normally and the following day, you will fast for the whole day and so on. This method helps to burn your stored fat by using it as a fuel for energy.
For example, if you started your diet on Monday and finished your dinner by 9 PM, then your fasting period starts from 9 PM, Monday to Tuesday at 9 Pm. Afterwards, you will follow your normal diet by Wednesday 9 PM and start fasting again.
It’s recommended to start with 12:12 window or 16:8 and eventually move to this fasting plan since it requires a lot of willpower and control, this will not be suitable for beginners. It’s also important to eat your meal in a regular amount after 24 hours and not overeat.
Skipping Meal
This suits very well for beginners. If you aren’t sure if you can keep up with intermittent fasting, then try skipping a meal, any meal. If you think you can skip breakfast, then skip breakfast. This method helps to avoid eating a meal when you aren’t hungry and eat only when you are hungry.
It’s very easy to follow and feels very natural method.
20:4 Window
since the last plan was easy, let’s talk about the extreme one. As the name suggests, You fast for 20 hours in a day and only eat for 4 hours. Which means you will fast for a whole day and only can only eat 1 large meal. Its recommended eating fruits, vegetable and carbohydrates in that short span of window.
This diet is pretty challenging and can have negative effects on your body if you didn’t intake enough nutrients and fibre.
Please take care of your body by keeping it hydrated during any fasting period. Chose your meal food which will serve your body right. It’s always best to start from an easy fasting plan and then shifting to any other fasting plan you like.
Very good post about Intermittent Fasting. Highly informative. Nicely written. Keep up the good work.