Human body will only be in two states : Fed or Fasted state.

What happens in Fed State?

During the fed state, insulin goes up because we are ingesting more food. Since insulin is the fat storage hormone, it will tell your body to store more body fat or glycogen (stored form of glucose).

When you eat, insulin will be produced because it will be needed to utilise all the glucose that you have in your bloodstream. The glucose will be the primary source of energy that your body will be using to maintain it’s function.

When the the caloric intake is more that what your body can burn on that precise moment, the tendency of the body is to store those calories in the form of fat.

What happens in Fasted State?

When you don’t eat – and this is when you are at your fasted state – insulin level will go down and will signal the body to use those stored body fat or glycogen so that you will have energy for the cells to use.

This is the primary reason why you don’t starve or why you don’t feel weak when you are not eating – because you are utilising your reserves!

It usually takes 4 hours after eating before you can reach fasted state.

The fasted and fed state can’t occur at the same time. So basically, when you are eating, you are using the calories from the food that you are eating and you are not drawing out from the stored calories in your body.

The only way to use the stored body fat is to go on the fasted state and let the insulin level fall.

Looking at a person’s normal day, when one eats constantly, eat snacks in between meals, there will be constant insulin peaks during the day and the body won’t have the chance to be switched into the fasted state.

Now, looking at the entire picture and seeing what the issue is, we can understand how we continually store fat and how we gain weight.

From this knowledge, we can device a plan on how to solve it and that is to increase the amount of time that you are not eating!

This is the concept of Intermittent Fasting.

The key thing to understand is that there is nothing wrong when you fast, or being in a fasted state. This is a natural process of human physiology.

Nobody died from fasting and you definitely won’t get ill from doing it. In fact, the effect will be the total opposite – you will let your body reach it’s prime health.

Different methods of Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is a very popular trend when it comes to weight loss. There has been studies backing its benefits and there are different methods that one can use depending on their lifestyle or personal choice.

Most of the methods will be about Time Restricted Eating where in you will restrict the number of hours during the day that you can eat food.

It is very important to be cautious about your own health condition before beginning a fast.

Always err on the safe side and consult with your doctor especially if you are taking medications which can alter blood glucose and if you have an existing medical condition.

12:12 IF Method

If you are newbie to the fasting world, you might want to try this as a place to start. As the number implies, this will have a 12 hour eating period and 12 hour fasting state.

This method will divide your day into half and pretty much straight forward.

This schedule is very doable and would require minimal adjustments to your normal eating pattern.

16:8 IF Method

This is probably the most popular method for the reason that is easy to fit in your lifestyle and can result in weight loss. The schedule can be easily incorporated into your schedule without affecting your social life (or probably a little!)

In this method, you can have early dinner and skip breakfast or you can have dinner but have nothing after it and can start eating at lunch the following day.

Restricting your eating window to 8 hours where in you can have 2 to 3 meals is achievable for most people. While on your fasted state, you can have black coffee, tea and water without breaking your fast.

We must remember that what we eat during the eating window is also as important as fasting. Make sure that we eat healthy food and limit our intake of processed food.

20:4 Diet

Also known as the Warrior Diet. This allows 4 hours of eating window and 20 hours of fasting. In this type of diet, the preferred food is unprocessed food.

This is quite different to the other methods where in there is no restriction on what type of food to be eaten.

This was named Warrior Diet because it was patterned from our prehistoric ancestors wherein their day will be preoccupied with hunting and gathering food and they will feast at night.

23:1 OMAD

Typically called OMAD or One Meal a Day diet. A type of Intermittent fasting where you will restrict your fed state to 1 hour daily and have your fasted state for 23 hours.

The time you choose to eat will depend on your lifestyle, and of personal preference.

This type of fasting entails eating one meal for the entire day also, thereby, restricting the caloric intake in a day.

Fat Fasting

This will involve eating food which have high fat content. The fat will typically be 80-90% of your recommended caloric intake.

A time restricted eating that allows high fat food like full fat cream, butter, cheese, fatty meat, etc.

Since fat is highly satiating, this will curb your hunger and, also, allows you to achieve weight loss.

High intake of fat will induce the body into a metabolic state of ketosis.

Benefits of ketosis include, primarily, weight loss, lower level of triglycerides, increased HDL, reduced blood sugar and insulin levels in the body, etc.

5:2 IF Method

Intermittent fasting method done in a weekly routine, and also known as Fast Diet.

This is method will allow you to eat as normally as you would for 5 days and have 2 days of caloric restriction.

The caloric restriction will be 500 cal/day for women and 600 cal/day for men.

You can choose what day to fast, depending on your preference but be reminded not to fast on 2 consecutive days or back to back days.

Alternate Day Fasting

This method allows you to fast on alternate days. This is fasting one day and feasting on the next.

There will be different types of Alternate Day Fasting. One version will make you fast for 24-36 hours and you can have your feast the day following the fast.

Another version is the Modified Alternate Day Fasting wherein you can consume 500 calories during your fasting day.

Extended Fast

A type of intermittent fasting wherein you fast longer than a day.

This can be tricky for some people and will need further evaluation of their doctor.

Some studies will show that this yield health benefits like autophagy and weight loss.

In summary, intermittent fasting can be a good tool for weight loss. The method that you can use will depend on your personal preference, depending on your health condition and life style.

Some might work for others and the others might not. It is very important to note though that the kind of food that we eat is as important as the intermittent fasting method we choose.

This is not a one size fits all process. It will take some research and bit of experimenting to see what can actually work for you.