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Intermittent fasting or fasting is an eating method that is revolutionizing social networks; It is more than a diet that takes care of your health and your metabolism. Given that this food strategy does not require restrictions in terms of quantity and type of food, it has attracted millions of followers, “which bees to the honeycomb”.
Regarding intermittent fasting, some nutritionists have spoken out as detractors, while an important sector affirms that, with correct medical guidance, it can bear good fruit.
Since eating does not follow structured rules that can be applied to everyone equally, before deciding, it is better to know what fasting consists of, its benefits, and possible risks. Well, in this article we will address this issue.
What is intermittent fasting or Fasting?
Naturally, we all practice unconscious fasting, because for a prolonged period, in the time slot between dinner and breakfast; when we are asleep, we eat nothing.
Now, what is fasting? Dr. Daniel Mantas, director of NutriNour; an Institute specializing in clinical, sports, and personalized nutrition, believes that it consists of leaving a window of time during the day in which no solid food is ingested and another space to ingest all the necessary calories.
Intermittent fasting consists of reducing the number of meals a day to no more than three, which results in an 8 to 10-hour breakfast. Some can practice it up to the age of twelve, and even up to eighteen. Glucose levels in our blood gradually decrease during the breakfast period. For it to be considered that autophagy is taking place, that is, a mechanism associated with fasting, the minimum fasting time required is 12 hours.
In general, if you practice intermittent fasting you can eat what you want during the established hours. Of course, if you want to get good results, it is best to eat healthy foods because it will not have any favorable effect if, after fasting, you eat processed foods like a hamburger.
Types of intermittent fasting
Although this method admits many variations in its application, if the patient uses the guidance of a specialist doctor, he will be able to choose the one that best suits his needs and health conditions.
Among the types of intermittent fasting, the following could be pointed out:
- I fast for 12 hours a day. With this, you have to decide on the 12-hour fasting period and stick to it. The easiest way to do this is to include sleep time in the fasting window and try to consume the same number of calories each day.
- I fast for 16 hours a day. In this modality of the diet, men fast for 16 hours a day and women for 14 hours.
- I fast for 2 days a week. It consists of eating regular amounts of healthy foods for 5 days and reducing your calorie intake on the other 2 days.
- I fast on alternate days. Some people avoid solid food on fasting days or consume up to 500 calories, and on non-fasting days they eat as much as they feel like. This extreme form of intermittent fasting is not suitable for people with certain medical conditions.
How does Fasting or intermittent fasting work?
The research unit of the Harvard Medical School was given the task of investigating the effects of the habit of starting, interrupting, and resuming the diet, and its incidence at the cellular level.
The researchers found that weight problems are related to the cells’ ability to process energy from food. As people age, the mitochondria, which supply energy to the cell, do not respond to the demand that the body makes, starting to accumulate energy, which is transformed into fat.
These scientists confirmed that there is a link between the role of mitochondria and the amount of food we eat daily. It was revealed that when mitochondria are subjected to low energy; like intermittent fasting, they stay healthy.
In such a way that the success of this method does not lie in the type of food that is consumed, but rather in the time and amount that is eaten. His goal is for people to accumulate calories at a certain time of day, instead of spreading them out throughout the day, as is done with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Benefits of intermittent fasting
In the expert opinion of Sara Rueda, a nutritionist at Blua de Sanitas, some benefits can be seen with nightly fasting, which usually lasts approximately 8 hours, such as the regulation of circadian rhythms and the quality of sleep. However, the fasting period should be individual for each person, as it depends a lot on their characteristics and lifestyles. This underlines the need to assess the personal situation with a nutritionist before starting fasting. Next, you will know at least two advantages that intermittent fasting can bring.
Reduces risk of obesity and diabetes
An article in the scientific journal The New England Journal of Medicine expresses the opinion of Dr. Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, who has dedicated 25 years to the study of the effects of diet on health, where he comments that intermittent fasting can modify the risk factors associated with obesity and diabetes.
Two studies carried out by the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, in which 100 overweight women participated, revealed that those who followed the 5:2 modality not only lost the same amount of weight as those who decreased the caloric intake but also obtained optimal results in the insulin sensitivity test and reduction of abdominal fat.
In this regard, Dr. Daniel Mantas comments that “during intermittent fasting, there is a change of substrate as an energy source because the body, not having glucose from food as an energy source, resorts to triglyceride reserves ”.
Benefits the digestive system
When you stop introducing food for some time, the digestive system rests, which translates into improvement for this important system.
About this, Sara Ampuero García, dietetics and nutrition technician and food technologist, comments that the digestive system is activated every time we eat, starting the process of transformation and absorption of nutrients. After a short rest, we activate it again and this cycle produces a bacterial overgrowth that inflames the abdomen.
Now, with intermittent fasting, digestive inflammation decreases, therefore, it helps to improve the intestinal barrier function. In addition, it has been observed that fasting increases the production of Lysozyme, a molecule that prevents the proliferation and growth of bacteria.
Does intermittent fasting help you lose weight?
It is good to clarify this issue because more and more people are signing up for fasting to achieve the desired ideal weight. Although intermittent fasting is a simple strategy and can be combined with different types of diet, it can cause a rebound effect if used temporarily and if you eat compulsively at the end of the fast. But, will you achieve the goal of losing weight with fasting? Good results can be obtained only if a caloric deficit is maintained, that is if caloric intake is less than caloric expenditure.
So, thinking in the long term, the only thing that is effective for weight loss is adherence to healthy lifestyle habits. Not only the difference in spending and intake is important, but it is also necessary to cover the nutritional requirements (vitamins, minerals, macronutrients).
