Hi everyone,
I hope you are well.
I’ve read some posts on here, the rules, faq’s etc and it may have said this already but I am a bit confused with all the numbers eg. 16:8???? Well I think I know that one, but not the other combinations.
Is it considered intermittent fasting still if I only eat between 5-9am (4 hrs) and 5-9pm (4 hrs)?
Or does it have to be a window of time that one chooses but without a gap in between eg. 5pm - 1 am?
Sorry if it’s a dumb question, hence the newbie flair lol.
The point is to fast for an uninterrupted period, no gaps. So 16:8 would be 16 straight hours of fasting. What you describe is not 16:8, because you’d only be fasting between 9 PM and 5 AM (8 hours) and between 9 AM and 5 PM (another 8 hours). While that adds up to 16, it is not the same as fasting for 16 straight hours. The uninterrupted fasting period is important because it gives your body time to start burning its stored fuel, which is what you want for weight loss.
You get the benefits of fasting from allowing your body to regulate its insulin levels and glycose levels during fasting periods. When denying yourself food your body is better able to break down fat. When you fast for longer, you eventually enter into ketosis for the further breakdown of fat. The benefits continue to increase after a fasting period of 12 hours (they generally don’t increase past 72 hours- 5 days, depending in source of info.). So by splitting your eating times into 5-9 AM and PM you are not allowing your body to get the fasting benefits. If you are struggling with fasting for 16 hours I would recommend starting with 12 and then seeing if you can work up from there.If you make a mistake don’t get frustrated, it’s one day and it won’t hurt your overall progress if you stick to it over a longer period of time.
I recommend Andrew Huberman‘s podcast on intermittent fasting if you’re curious about the science. The basic premise is that when you are actively consuming food or your body is busy digesting it, there’s no opportunity for other beneficial processes, which include fat metabolism but also a lot of housekeeping and renewal. Everything we know about fasting indicates that those don’t kick in until you are at least 14 hours out from the last crumb of food you swallowed.