I heard a lot of people saying that the way IF helps with weight loss is that you just can’t consume too much calories on a restrictive eating window, then is there a point of doing both IF and calorie restriction? Is there any other benefit of IF?
There are supposedly benefits of IF related to controlling insulin and autophagy, but I’m not an expert on the specifics!
What I do know is that CICO is king. As long as you are burning more than you are consuming, you with lose weight. IF can be helpful for this, but the reality is that you will still gain if you eat at a surplus
Yes, the only way to lose weight is to eat less than you’re burning. IF makes it easier, cause it cuts out a meal and lots of snacking, but still super easy to stay at, or go above your TDEE in the eating time
You have to restrict calories to lose weight. Fasting just creates a window of time where your insulin levels are low, allowing your body to deplete your glycogen reserves and then switch to actually using your fat reserves for energy. But you still need to eat less than your maintenance calories to lose weight. If you do OMAD for instance, you wouldn’t eat 2000 calories in that one meal, you eat a meal of around 700-1000 calories, making sure you get plenty of protein, good fat and fiber.
I suggest a 500 calories deficit minimum for IF I eat 1400 a day and do 16:8 and see loss weekly. I hit a plateau a few weeks ago and Friday/Saturday I did 23:1 and broke thru it 1.3 weightloss. But I had to stay in my deficit during my eating window. My favorite calorie counting app is MyNetDiary.