Learn not to eat at certain times
Intermittent Fasting Schedules:
If you’re considering giving fasting a shot, there are a few different options for working it into your lifestyle.
Daily Intermittent Fasting
Most of the time, I follow the Leangains model of intermittent fasting, which uses a 16–hour fast followed by an 8–hour eating period.
It doesn’t matter when you start your 8–hour eating period. You can start at 8am and stop at 4pm. Or you start at 2pm and stop at 10pm. Do whatever works for you. I tend to find that eating around 1pm and 8pm works well because those times allow me to eat lunch and dinner with friends and family. Breakfast is typically a meal that I eat on my own, so skipping it isn’t a big deal.
Because daily intermittent fasting is done every day it becomes very easy to get into the habit of eating on this schedule. Right now, you’re probably eating around the same time every day without thinking about it. Well, with daily intermittent fasting it’s the same thing, you just learn to not eat at certain times, which is remarkably easy.
One potential disadvantage of this schedule is that because you typically cut out a meal or two out of your day, it becomes more difficult to get the same number of calories in during the week. Put simply, it’s tough to teach yourself to eat bigger meals on a consistent basis. The result is that many people who try this style of intermittent fasting end up losing weight. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your goals.
This is probably a good time to mention that while I have practiced intermittent fasting, I’m not fanatical about my diet. I work on building healthy habits that guide my behavior 90% of the time, so that I can do whatever I feel like during the other 10%. If I come over to your house to watch the football game and we order pizza at 11pm, guess what? I don’t care that it’s outside my feeding period, I’m eating it.
Weekly Intermittent Fasting
One of the best ways to get started with intermittent fasting is to do it once per week or once per month. The occasional fast has been shown to lead to many of the benefits we’ve already talked about, so even if you don’t use it to cut down on calories consistently there are still many other health benefits.
Because daily intermittent fasting is done every day it becomes very easy to get into the habit of eating on this schedule. Right now, you’re probably eating around the same time every day without thinking about it. Well, with daily intermittent fasting it’s the same thing, you just learn not to eat at certain times, which is remarkably easy.
In this example, lunch on Monday is your last meal of the day. You then fast until lunch on Tuesday. This schedule has the advantage of allowing you to eat everyday of the week while still reaping the benefits of fasting for 24 hours. It’s also less likely that you’ll lose weight because you are only cutting out two meals per week. So, if you’re looking to bulk up or keep weight on, then this is a great option.
I’ve done 24–hour fasts in the past (I just did one last month) and there are a wide range of variations and options for making it work into your schedule. For example, a long day of travel or the day after a big holiday feast are often great times to throw in a 24–hour fast.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of doing a 24–hour fast is getting over the mental barrier of fasting. If you’ve never fasted before, successfully completing your first one helps you realize that you won’t die if you don’t eat for a day.
Alternate Day Intermittent Fasting
Alternate day intermittent fasting incorporates longer fasting periods on alternating days throughout the week.
For example, you would eat dinner on Monday night and then not eat again until Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, however, you would eat all day and then start the 24–hour fasting cycle again after dinner on Wednesday evening. This allows you to get long fast periods on a consistent basis while also eating at least one meal every day of the week.
This style of intermittent fasting seems to be used often in research studies, but from what I have seen it isn’t very popular in the real world. I’ve never tried alternate day fasting myself and I don’t plan to do so.
The benefit of alternate day intermittent fasting is that it gives you longer time in the fasted state than the Leangains style of fasting. Hypothetically, this would increase the benefits you receive from fasting.
In practice, however, I would be concerned with eating enough. Based on my experience, teaching yourself to consistently eat more is one of the harder parts of intermittent fasting. You might be able to feast for a meal, but learning to do so every day of the week takes a little bit of planning, a lot of cooking, and consistent eating. The end result is that most people who try intermittent fasting end up losing some weight because the size of their meals remains similar even though a few meals are being cut out each week.
If you’re looking to lose weight, this isn’t a problem. And even if you’re happy with your weight, this won’t prove to be too much of an issue if you follow the daily fasting or weekly fasting schedules. However, if you’re fasting for 24 hours per day on multiple days per week, then it’s going to be very difficult to eat enough of your feast days to make up for that.
As a result, I think it’s a better idea to try daily intermittent fasting or a single 24–hour fast once per week or once per month.
On the 3rd & final installment of Intermittent Fasting, I’ll break down the benefits…it’ll be a Heart, Health & Pocketbook moment you wouldn’t want to miss!
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