You can begin losing weight with intermittent fasting gradually by consuming all your meals between 9am and 5pm. It usually takes two to four weeks to create an intermittent fasting habit. Once this becomes a habit you can lose weight with intermittent fasting by reducing your fasting another hour to 9am and 4pm.
Simply allocate a 16-hour window in the day that you will abstain from calories completely. Many choose their window to be from around 8 p.m. to 12 p.m. the following day, but it's just as possible to eat earlier in the day and stop eating earlier.
This type of intermittent fasting is called the '16/8' fasting because you don't eat for 16 hours of the day and only eat during a specific 8-hour window. You can also reduce or increase the eating window on different days.
Most people who follow the 16:8 plan abstain from food at night and for part of the morning and evening. They tend to consume their daily calories during the middle of the day. There are no restrictions on the types or amounts of food that a person can eat during the 8-hour window.
Research published in the journal Cell Metabolism on Thursday suggests that eating only during a 10-hour window every day (for example, 8 am to 6 pm, or 10 am to 8 pm) is ideal for overall health. This is slightly less time than the typical 14 to 15 hour spread that people tend to spend eating throughout the day.
You can begin losing weight with intermittent fasting gradually by consuming all your meals between 9am and 5pm. It usually takes two to four weeks to create an intermittent fasting habit. Once this becomes a habit you can lose weight with intermittent fasting by reducing your fasting another hour to 9am and 4pm.
You can select any 16-hour and 8-hour block of time that works best for your schedule. But it's important to keep your eating window at the same every day. Other intermittent fasting schedules include 18:6 (when you fast for 18 hours and eat for 6 hours) or alternating days.
The benefits of a 16-hour fasting schedule are the same as a 12-hour fasting. They include weight loss, aid in the cellular repair process, improved sleep, improved digestion, increased mental health and clarity, and reduced insulin resistance.
Consider a simple form of intermittent fasting.
Limit the hours of the day when you eat, and for best effect, make it earlier in the day (between 7 am to 3 pm, or even 10 am to 6 pm, but definitely not in the evening before bed).
This method of intermittent fasting can be repeated as often as you'd like or even done once or twice a week — whatever your personal preference is. Finding the right eating and fasting windows for this method might take a few days to figure out, especially if you're very active or if you wake up hungry for breakfast.
Of course, it's okay to change your fasting times! We encourage you to find the schedule that suits you best. Intermittent fasting should fit into your daily routine, not the other way around. Changing fasting times is sometimes just part of the routine.
Longer periods without food, such as 24-, 36-, 48- and 72-hour fasting periods, are not necessarily better for you, and may be dangerous. Going too long without eating might actually encourage your body to start storing more fat in response to starvation.
When you fast for shorter durations, your body doesn't have enough time to go into ketosis. This means it won't burn stored fat, and there won't be significant weight loss. As one study concluded, a fasting window of 18-19 hours is more effective in terms of weight loss than those between 12-17 hours [11].
You should aim to lose about 1% of your body weight a week. The amount of weight lost each week will slowly decrease. At 250 lbs you can expect to lose 2.5 – 3 lbs a week. But once you pass the 200-pound mark, the rate will go down to 1.5 – 2 lbs a week.
This is how much weight you can lose with intermittent fasting. In doing the fast correctly and ensuring that it is aligning with your mind, body and soul–you can expect a good weight loss of anywhere between 2 to 6 kgs a month with excellent inch loss and increase in energy levels and brain function.
In the case of Intermittent fasting, skipping your dinner is better and easier. You can have your dinner either early or have a heavy snack and can begin your fasting. Research suggests that fasting in the evening and overnight, then eating early in the morning is the better way to follow this diet to lose weight.
Occasional fasting combined with regular weight training is best for fat loss, Pilon says. By going on one or two 24-hour fasts during the week, you allow yourself to eat a slightly higher number of calories on the other five or six nonfasting days.
In other words, 16 hours of fasting doesn't compensate for eight hours of eating junk food. For the best results, you should be careful about your choice of eating window. According to Freirich, it should start early in the day, preferably no later than about 10 a.m., and finish early in the evening.
The 4-4-12 method has a shorter fasting window—12 hours—but eliminates snacking between meals. The goal here is to fast for at least four hours between breakfast and lunch, four hours between lunch and dinner, and at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast the next day.
Eating all meals within a 10 hour window (usually 9am – 7pm), then fasting for 14 hours. Eating all meals within an 8 hour window (usually 10am-6pm), then fasting for 16 hours (You'll often see this referred to as 16:8 intermittent fasting) Every other day fasting (eating nothing one day, then eating normally the next)
So, how many calories to eat during intermittent fasting 16/8? There is no general guideline for what you should eat or drink on fasting days, with the exception of the fact that your total calorie intake should not exceed 500 calories on these days.
Research shows intermittent fasting provides heaps of benefits including improved digestion, gut health and weight loss. So case point, eat your last meal at 5pm and you'll be more energised, have better gut health and digestion and are more likely to experience weight loss.