I’m about to start the books that were helpfully suggested to me here, and am excited to do so! But i’m trying to understand all the talk about counting calories and being in a calorie deficit. I was under the impression that IF relies on when we eat, not so much what or how much? TIA for anyone who has the patience to explain this to me!
IF allows your body the time to fully digest and process the food and then switch from food energy to energy stores on the body,
provided you stay in a caloric deficit but not one that cuts your calorie intake in half which would leave you depriving yourself but enough calories to sustain yourself, then you would be losing weight.
Energy stored on the body would be coming from the energy stored in the liver, in the muscles, and when youre in ketosis then body fat.
16 hours seems to be the minimum for the intermittent fasting to do its thing and is the most common amount of time to fast for, from what Ive seen.
Id taken the advices of placing the fasting hours when im least active like in the evenings after work and through my sleeping hours. When I stop eating at 6pm, when I wake up at 5am thats already 11 hours done and then by the time 12pm rolls around thats 18 hours fasting for me.
But you can fit the fasting hours however it fits your lifestyle. I do exercise fasted in the morning around 5am on work days before going to work. Its been said that when you train fasted, it boosts the effect of IF on the body and further burns fat.
Alot of what I know is from youtube videos of people that have done intermittent fasting it or are doctors and trained professionals in nutrition and learning as I go.
Been doing IF since 2/2/23 and started at around 176 pounds and am currently 167.8 today as of my weigh in this afternoon before I broke my 21 hour fast.
All depends on what you eat… high protein and natural fat you can eat as much as you want… I would focus on keeping the carbs to a minimum (lowers the insuline level) there for faster results during the fasting.