Intermittent Fasting, What is it?

Intermittent Fasting has been getting extremely popular recently but it isn't anything too crazy. In short, it is just restricting your eating to a small window ranging anywhere from 6-10 hours, sometimes even less. There are studies that show IF having some metabolic advantages like raising your Human Growth Hormone levels but it doesn't really amount to anything significant. What it really is is a great way to structure your eating and for some people (me including) they were already Intermittent fasting before they even knew what it was. In my case, I was never hungry in the morning so I skipped breakfast and eat my first meal around 3-5 pm and my last meal by 10 pm. This style of eating is great when dieting since when you're limited to such a small window of eating you have no chance of overeating. Since it can be pretty hard to overeat in small eating windows one of the perks of IF is being able to eat some "junk foods" you normally wouldn't. 

There are quite a few different style of IF, I'll be going over the three most popular styles.

16/8 Method

With this method, you fast for 16 hours in a day and eat in the 8 hours window. Remember, a majority of that 16 hours will be while you are sleeping. So for example, if your last meal was at 9 pm you would have your first meal at 1 pm the next day. With this method, you can have anywhere from 2-3 decently sized meals.

"The Warrior Diet"

With this method, instead of a window you just eat one HUGE meal. This style of eating can be extremely hard to start but becomes extremely satisfying once you get into the groove. Most people who do this say they feel more satiated eating one huge meal a day instead of many small meals.

"Eat-Stop-Eat"

This method is similar to the Warrior Diet but less extreme, you only eat one huge meal a day but only once or twice a week. The rest of the days you eat normally or in a 16/8 style fast. 

Strategies to overcome hunger

At the start, it can be hard getting accustomed to this style of eating especially if you're coming from a background of eating 5+ small meals a day. Some strategies to control are: drinking coffee, drinking lots of water, diet sodas, gum, soda water/sparkling water. As a general rule, you should be getting 2L+ of water a day.

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