Intermittent Fasting: Feast or Famine?

Remember the phrase, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day?” Is it still so? Intermittent fasting has taken the nutrition world by storm because of the potential benefits including weight loss, improved insulin sensitivity, improved brain health, and longevity. The question is, does it really work and is it actually good for you?

This is a loaded question because I’ve heard some people swear by it, and others that become hangry and end up inadvertently teaching their kids all of those fun four letter words. The more research I do on this, the more it’s clear that it really depends on the individual and their circumstances. If you’re pregnant or nursing, it’s definitely not a good idea. If you have an eating disorder, STOP READING, this is not the diet for you (Check out a Podcast called Food Psch instead, it’ll rock your world).

The entire concept is supported by the Paleo Culture because it mimics what our ancestors had to do when they were hunter-gatherers. There were times of feasting when the hunting was successful, and times of famine when it wasn’t. Intermittent fasting involves refraining from food for certain periods of time. There are several ways of doing this ranging from “Eat Stop Eat,” “Lean Grains Protocol,” “5:2 diet” “Alternate Day Fasting” and “The Warrior Diet.” In general, the medical community has deemed these as fad diets, but there may be some benefit if it’s done correctly.

4 Reasons Intermittent Fasting May Be Good:

#1 Weight Loss: Most people seem to be interested in this because of the potential for weight loss. There’s some evidence to show that fasting can not only increase weight loss, but also decrease the loss of lean muscle mass at the same time. This is quite exciting for those guys attempting to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his younger years (1, 2,3). On the flip side reducing how much you eat each day is just as effective at weight loss but not quite as good at sparring lean muscle mass. So if you’re not worried about looking ripped, you can rest assured reducing your calorie intake each day without incorporating fasting will get you the same results of weight loss.

#2 Improved Glucose Levels: For those of you suffering from/or at risk for diabetes, you’ll be interested to hear intermittent fasting can improve glucose levels by increasing insulin-mediated glucose reuptake. The theory behind this lies in the “Thrifty Gene Concept” which explains that during famine, our bodies become more efficient at turning food into fat in order to store it for the next famine. Diabetics innately are not good at doing this because the glucose gets stuck in the blood since insulin isn’t working correctly (insulin is what takes glucose out of the blood so that it can be used in the tissues of the body), so this is why fasting seems to help them (4).

#3 Reduced Risk of Alzheimers: Fasting seems to stimulate production of certain proteins, and antioxidant enzymes that have neuroprotective effects, helping to decrease the risk of Alzheimers (5) Researchers were also able to discover that fasting seemed to recover the expression of a certain protein called sirtuin 1 which helps to prevent the progression of the aging process by inhibiting nuclear factor-kappa B (the main regulator of genes related to inflammation) (6,7).

#4 It May Also Reduce Inflammation and Oxidative Stress In The Body: Inflammatory markers such as CRP, interleukin 1-B, tumor necrosis factor and homocysteine levels have been found to be lower after intermittent fasting. (8, 9, 10) The mechanism by which this happens is not well understood though. If you’re interested in reading more on inflammation, read here on my previous blog.

Caveats To Intermittent Fasting:
Intermittent fasting really needs to be combined with calorie restriction (aka not eating as much as you want) if weight loss is going to happen. Otherwise most people just make up for their lost calories the next day by indulging in a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, and overeat themselves into oblivion. The second thing here to keep in mind is that there’s mixed results on whether people are able to keep the weight off after they lose it. (11)

Who should do the intermittent diet?
If you’re interested in weight loss, have a strong family history of alzheimer's and are looking to prevent it, have diabetes and if you find that you don’t overeat on the non-fast days, then this diet may work for you. The problem is, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. If it’s not something you can sustain for years and years, you may want to find an alternative route because the goal of “diets” are something that will keep you healthy (and happy!) over the long term. I put links to all of the diets above if you’re interested in learning more about them, so pick one that will most likely fit your lifestyle.

So is breakfast still the most important meal of the day?

The data seems to be mixed on this. Like I mentioned before, it depends on the individual so you’ll have to see how you respond. Some research shows that eating small frequent meals over the course of the day seems to increase your metabolism and decrease hunger (12,13 14) but other research shows intermittent fasting may be just as good as eating breakfast (14). These two studies (16 17) show that short term fasting actually helps increase metabolism, but keep in mind it involves not only skipping breakfast, but the entire days worth of food

Thanks for reading! Find me on Instagram at StaySpryHealth for more information.