Many people are using intermittent fasting as a way to loose weight but is it really healthy?
Using sporadic eating patterns can help you to shift a little extra weight but that doesn't mean that it is healthy long term solution to someone that wants to alter the shape of their body for the better and maintain that shape and body weight
One of the major problems is when the body doesn't get protein every 2-3 hours it can start to eat muscle. Muscle burns calories even when you are resting so having less muscle means burning less calories.
Eating at irregular times and having no set eating routine influences insulin and blood sugar health. Some research showed men to have improved insulin health when intermittent fasting where as women’s insulin health got worse - its worth noting at this point that the research was not conclusive on this topic.
However other areas could be affected negatively such as blood pressure becoming low. Many scientists and nutritionists have put intermittent fasting in the same boat as calorie restriction - unsustainable.
Intermittent fasting also throws your hormones out of balance. If one hormone isn't being produced by its gland, it will undoubtedly throw the rest of your hormones out of sync with each other. When you hormones are not all working correctly it can affect your metabolism in an undesirable way, reduce your ability to build lean muscle tone, negatively impact fertility, cause inflammation within the body and also increases the risk of disease.
You would not want to be doing it breastfeeding.. So surely its not the best thing to do for health.
Intermittent fasting will help most people to loose weight. But like calorie restriction diets it is not a way of eating that is sustainable for fat loss and a healthy lifestyle. You may loose muscle tone as well as body fat since you will be depriving your body of protein for long periods. Depriving yourself of food for long periods can lead you to make bad nutritional choices when you do come to eat.
If loosing weight and staying lean is your goal then you would be better off eating 5 to 6 meals a day, which are rich in good quality protein sources, low in carbohydrates and have a good amount of natural fat. Eating regularly will help to keep your metabolism fired up and keep you burning fat.
