Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss – The very first time my sister told me she wanted to lose tummy fat, I laughed so loud that she almost picked a fight with me.
Though I didn’t know what intermittent fasting was then, I certainly knew that losing tummy fat had a lot to do with reducing food intake.
Knowing how much difficulty my sister would have to let her food go, I concluded it was an impossible mission for her. It is difficult, in fact, almost impracticable for an individual who loves food to lose weight using intermittent fasting results.
I have unconsciously practiced intermittent fasting on different occasions, and there was evidence of weight loss (though not desired at those moments).
Have you ever heard a gossip referring to a preacher as a hungry-man because of his slim nature and after you have conducted your research you find out that the preacher’s body took its size following different fasting periods observed by the preacher?
I have it too! This preacher has unintentionally reduced in body size by employing one of the methods of intermittent fasting.
I want to believe you’re thinking what I want you to be thinking right now – that intermittent fasting results can be used for weight loss. In this article, I’ll be showing you how you can fast to lose weight in 14 days.
Read Also: 5 Best Intermittent Fasting Schedules For Weight Loss
What Is Intermittent Fasting?
What exactly is intermittent fasting? Looking at the two words alone gives you the perfect answer. Intermittent refers to ‘stopping and starting at intervals’ while fasting means ‘abstinence from food’.
So simply put, intermittent fasting refers to abstaining from food at intervals. Now, different people may practice intermittent fasting for different reasons but in this article, our focus is on intermittent fasting for weight loss.
This is how intermittent fasting works in the simplest terms: you intentionally refuse to eat food for longer than usual.
For some, they prefer to skip breakfast and lunch and have the only dinner or skip breakfast and dinner and have only lunch in a whole week.
Others may prefer to skip only one meal and eat a lesser quantity of food than what they are used to for the rest of the day.
For junk lovers, they may choose to stay away from junks and pastries for a whole year. All these different categories of people hope to be rewarded with a recognizable reduction in weight.
How to Use Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss
Let’s have a look at the most common methods of intermittent fasting:
1. Fasting 16 hours daily
16 hours seem big, right? Not to worry, it’s quite easy to achieve, especially if you’re the type that skips breakfast. This is how you go about it.
After eating your dinner between 6-9 pm, you don’t eat till about 12 noon or 1 pm the following day. From 1 pm to 6 pm on this second day, you can eat twice or thrice.
Now, this is not a ticket for you to eat all that your appetite craves for, no, you must ensure that you eat healthy within the remaining 8 hours of your feeding window, else, your intention to lose weight may be forfeited.
2. Fasting for 24 hours once or twice in a week
Remember how you screamed when you saw the 16 hours fasting; I expect you to scream louder now. Yes, this method will prove to be more complicated than the ones we have looked at initially.
A typical example of how this would work, is, eating by 3 pm on Tuesday and waiting till 3 pm of the next day before eating again – that’s a full 24 hours fast.
Doing this fast once or twice a week will definitely lead to weight loss, but it sure will demand a lot of discipline to succeed in it.
Trust me, you feel so hungry that you will be tempted to eat before time. So I advise that you start with the 16 hours fast before you graduate to this one.
Also, during the fasting hours, you are permitted to have water, coffee or any other non-caloric beverage but certainly not solid food.
3. Fasting for 2 days per week
You are probably wondering how I expect you to stay for two whole days without food; far from it; you don’t have to go hungry all day but you certainly won’t eat the normal quantity of food that you are used to.
Let’s assume that you usually consume 1200 calories daily. To practice this method, you will choose two days, say Monday and Friday when you will consume no more than 250 calories.
4. Skipping meals when convenient
It may surprise you to know that your body will not necessarily break down due to the absence of food.
How do I know this? There have been days when I was so busy at work that I forgot to eat, and in some of those days, I had to move from place to place.
Still, I met up with deadline coupled with efficient results with little or no sign of fatigue. It then follows that one can skip meals as often as possible and remain healthy.
This method involves you skipping breakfast, lunch or dinner as the case may be due to a busy schedule or simply because you weren’t feeling so hungry.
Conclusion
I am not saying that intermittent fasting is the ultimate means to weight loss, but I can assure you that if you choose to employ any of the methods above; you will most definitely see positive outcomes.
I must not fail to let you know that achieving weight loss demands a lot of discipline and if you plan to use intermittent fasting; then you must be consistent with any method you choose.
You may want to prepare a fasting time table to guide you on the method you have chosen. You may also choose to find someone you will be accountable to; that is, someone that will supervise you to ensure you are obeying your timetable.
Let me quickly add this, while practicing intermittent fasting, you must ensure you eat healthy during your feeding window.
Fight the temptation of rewarding yourself with your favorite junk food after fasting for long hours. Feed more on vegetables, fruits, non-caloric beverage, lean protein, whole grains and the likes of these.
So let me know which of these methods you have chosen to meet your weight loss goals in the comment box below. I also look forward to hearing from you after 14 days on the outcomes of your decision.
