The Basics and Benefits of Intermittent Fasting: A Beginner’s Guide

Intermittent Fasting has an evolutionary basis. Before humans learned how to farm and build temporary shelters, we were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Finding food was uncertain and even dangerous for us, so we got used to not eating for days or weeks at a time. Despite these long fasting periods, humans adapted and survived.

Therefore, fasting for extended periods of time was more natural to us than eating 3 meals and 2 snacks per day.

But ever since we evolved into more intelligent beings, we learned to create permanent homes and eventually invent the technology that helps preserve and store our food. Over time, agriculture and food storage made meals more consistent, and fasting became less common in everyday life.

Intermittent fasting is very personal. There are several ways to go about it, depending on how you split your day or your week into eating and fasting periods.

Here are the most common methods:

1. Time-restricted Eating

This method is probably the most popular one, especially for IF beginners. Using this method, you get to choose your eating and fasting time windows. The typical ones are:

• 20/4 method— you fast for 20 hours and eat for 4 hours; this method is on the extreme end of the spectrum and is only ideal for those who have been intermittent fasting for some time

• 16/8 method – you fast for 16 hours and feed for 8 hours

• 14/10 method— you fast for 14 hours and eat for 10 hours; this method is ideal for beginners

• 12/12 method— you fast for 12 hours and eat for 12 hours; the minimum fasting period is 12 hours, making this the perfect method for beginners who can’t endure a 14-hour fasting period

These methods allow you to choose which hours you want to eat and fast, depending on what works for you best.

For example, if you follow the 16/8 method, you can try the Leangains protocol wherein you skip breakfast and eat from 1 PM to 9 PM. But if this time frame doesn’t work for you, you may choose different hours, say, fasting from 6 PM to 10 AM the next day.

2. The Fast Diet / The 5:2 Method

The fast diet involves sticking to a 500-calorie diet (if you’re a woman) or a 600-calorie diet (if you’re a man) for 2 days a week and returning to your regular diet for the other 5 days.

You can choose which days you limit your calories as long as you put at least one non-fasting day between those 2 days. For example, you can restrict calorie intake on Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Fridays and eat your regular meals for the rest of the week.

3. The Eat-Stop-Eat Method

This method is a bit more extreme. It involves fasting for 24 hours once or twice a week. You can either fast from breakfast to breakfast or dinner to dinner; that’s up to you.

Fasting for one day can cause side effects like headaches and fatigue. So, if and when you try this method, you need to go back to your healthy, regular diet during your non-fasting days.

Intermittent Fasting only has a few simple rules that help you maximize its benefits. These rules help you avoid interfering with your fast and maintain proper nutrition.

1. Establish a fasting and feeding time frame.

Intermittent fasting is all about meal timing and not meal content, so the most basic rule is to determine when and how long you want to fast. Again, the minimum fasting time is 12 hours (12/12 method).

2. Don’t break your fast. Stay under 50 calories.

This may go without saying, but you should fast for consecutive hours. Meaning, for 12 or 20 hours, you should not eat or drink anything that can break your fast. Otherwise, the hunger you’ve been enduring, especially if you’re just starting out, will be for naught.

To avoid breaking your fast, you can either refrain from eating or only eat foods that contain less than 50 calories.

Here are some foods and beverages you can consume without breaking your fast or compromising its benefits:

• Water

• Coffee and tea— black coffee and tea are ideal, but you can add a bit of milk as long as the drink’s total number of calories doesn’t exceed the 50-calorie limit

• Apple cider vinegar (diluted)

• Bone broth

• Low- to zero-calorie supplements

3. Although IF is not a diet, be mindful of what you eat.

Intermittent Fasting is not an excuse to be careless about what we eat. Aside from being a weight management tool, it’s also about building a sustainable lifestyle.

So, even if you’re doing IF, you must still choose to eat healthy, no matter what eating pattern you’re following.

Eat a colorful diet packed with fruits and vegetables. Choose whole foods, nuts, and seeds over processed foods with preservatives.

Aside from the ease and flexibility of Intermittent Fasting, its health and weight loss benefits also encourage people to jump on the bandwagon.

Insulin resistance is a condition where your cells stop responding to the insulin produced by your pancreas and don’t use the glucose (sugar) in your blood. This triggers the pancreas to produce more insulin to force glucose into the unresponsive cells.

Eventually, this leads to the rise of blood sugar levels, putting you at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Intermittent fasting is one of the ways to reduce insulin resistance and your risk for diabetes. Human studies prove that IF lowers insulin levels by 20-31% and blood sugar levels by 3-6%. 

Despite its benefits on our health, Intermittent Fasting also has challenges and adverse effects. Here are some of them:

It’s hard to stick to an eating pattern.

Social interferences like parties or when someone suddenly offers free food can mess with your eating pattern. 

Solution: Aside from relying on your willpower to say “No” to eating during your fast, you can also invite a close friend or relative to do IF with you and be your Accountability Buddy.

This way, you have someone outside yourself to hold you accountable for your commitment to IF and discourage you from slipping. You can also share your progress with this someone to keep yourselves motivated to keep going.

Studies prove that HMB still supports muscle health in people who have calorie-restricted diets. In other words, by taking AgelessLX Strawberry Lemonade, you can preserve your precious hard-earned muscle even when you’re fasting!

Boost the benefits of IF and be your healthiest, fittest, and toned self by mixing the AgelessLX Power Greens and AgelessLX Strawberry Lemonade together!  

If you find this article helpful, share it on social to help others understand Intermittent Fasting and discover the powerful supplements that maximize its benefits!