Intermittent Fasting is a popular buzzword within the low-carb community, but it has actually been around for a very long time. Originally debuting as the Warrior Diet in 2002, this decades-old, alternative eating, cyclic approach to dieting puts the focus on when you eat instead of what and how much.
I haven't talked about IF very much.
This is because it's often recommended to newbies by low-carb dieters, and I totally do not agree with that advice. When you're first learning how to trim your carbs and get the pounds coming off, that's not the time to be skipping meals.
Intermittent Fasting works best when you slip into it naturally.
But, there is an exception to that:
Those who are short and need fewer calories to maintain a calorie deficit might lose weight better eating fewer meals and snacks throughout the day. Intermittent Fasting raises the volume of food you can eat during a single meal or snack, and higher protein at a single meal works to prevent you from being hungry.
The original Warrior Diet called for a 4-hour eating window in the evenings. You ate during that 4-hour time slot and fasted before and after that 4-hour window.
Today, there is a wide variety of fasting schedules you can use, with a 16:8 being the most common. You fast for 16 hours per day and eat for 8 instead of 4.
This 8-hour eating window makes a great option for shorties because you're able to divide your total food intake into 2 meals, rather than 3. When your number of meals and snacks are reduced, calorie deprivation is easier to stick to.
Keto Isn't Always Enough for Shorties
The state of ketosis switches your metabolism from predominantly burning glucose to fatty acids.
This lowers your basal insulin level and curbs your appetite, making it easier to eat at a calorie deficit. However, some shorties like me find counting carbs are not enough to keep the pounds coming off.
Portion control is also important for weight loss.
Eating less often allows insulin to stay low for an extended period of time. Those who eat throughout the day tend to have higher basal insulin levels than those who do not. The more often you eat, the less time your body spends burning fat.
The hours you choose to eat are up to you.
You don't have to eat just at night, but most people find it more convenient to skip breakfast, rather than dinner.
How to Do Intermittent Fasting
When you eat fewer carbs, your hunger will dramatically go down. So you'll want to stick to the traditional 20 net carbs per day. Or even less. This will enable you to get through those 16 hours of fasting without a lot of discomfort.
You just eat your meals and snacks within your 8-hour feeding window.
You might also decide to shorten your window from 8 hours down to 6 (noon to 6:00 p.m.) or even 4 (1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.). That's fine too. The object is to find an eating pattern that works for you.
What you don't want to do is schedule your last meal for the day too close to bedtime. You want to be able to sleep comfortably.
So don't be too rigid.
If you go slightly over your eating window, due to life, don't stress about it. You're aiming for consistency.
You don't want to be so strict that you quit.
Since fasting can be difficult, even with Keto, you might need to ease into your 16:8 schedule, allowing the window to get shorter and shorter each week, rather than trying to white-knuckle it from day 1.
Most people find it easier to do Intermittent Fasting after they have already gone into ketosis and experienced the reduction in hunger. Allow yourself a comfortable, successful Induction before choosing to fast.
How low you need your insulin level to drop depends on your ability to access and use your own body fat. Find a schedule that will allow your insulin to stay low enough to burn body fat, but not so low that you get hungry enough to quit.
Reducing your meals to 2 per day will lower your insulin levels, but you still need to consume fewer calories than you were eating before. When it comes to fasting, the time needed to see results will differ from individual to individual.
Do some experimentation before committing to a particular eating schedule. It's not failure to juggle your eating window to see which time of the day works best for you.
Be flexible.
Don't avoid going out with friends or family just because you're fasting. Move your hours for that day and then return to your typical schedule the following day.
You also don't have to be precise. If you don't want to keep track of time, then don't. Limit yourself to 1 or 2 meals per day, a snack or not, no matter how long it takes.
Eating windows are a guideline. It honestly doesn't matter how you do it. You'll just find it easier to stay at a calorie deficit if you shrink down your meals and snacks.
Society has convinced us that we need to eat throughout the day to keep our metabolisms running at high speed, but that isn't true. If you're overweight or obese, you're eating too much, regardless of how much, or how little, that is.
There are no specific foods you have to eat.
But protein needs will remain the same as if you were eating 3 meals a day, so you'll want to plot that out first. Right now, I'm aiming for 72 to 90 grams of protein per day, but your needs might be more or less than mine.
To keep Keto sustainable, shoot for 20 net carbs, or less. The fewer carbs you eat, the less hungry you'll be, but many people would find a zero-carb diet too difficult to stick to.
Focus on salads and non-starchy vegetables to go along with your protein. On Keto, you don't officially count calories, but you do need to stop eating when you hit satiety. For a lot of people, that's sooner than they realize.
Don't Rush Into IF
Even for shorties, Intermittent Fasting isn't something that you should rush into.
It's a flexible eating plan that requires you to eat all of your carbs and calories within a certain time frame. Most people do evolve into some type of fasting regime before hitting goal weight, but that isn't true for everyone.
When you're short and need fewer calories than most, eating 3 meals a day, plus a snack or two, can be just too much food. Intermittent Fasting lets you tailor your eating schedule to match your size and calorie requirements.
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