The world of fat loss is such that everyday there's a new trend. Mostly, these trends are false fat loss promises sold by 'fake natural' fitness models or chubby dieticians. People looking for shortcuts buy these promises and eventually, end up losing money, not fat. The latest fad is that of the intermittent fasting, a dieting trend in which you eat for 8 hours and fast for 16 hours. Absolutely garbage videos are making rounds on the internet boasting about IF's 'benefits' for fat loss.  To put it modestly - those claims are just non-sense and far from the truth. Before I begin as to why, if you are carbohydrate-insulin advocate, this will offend your minimal understanding of science.

What Is IF?

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Intermittent Fasting is a diet in which you break down eating into two windows. You stop consuming any food (calories) for a particular time period aka and eat during a particular time window. Mostly, it's 16:8 where you fast for 16 hours straight and take in all your calories during the 8 hours of feasting. This window can be and is modified according to individual needs as well.

Now, The Problem Here Is….

If you run a Google search on IF, you will see millions of people advocating its benefit to fat loss and how it gave them magical results. What these advocates don't understand that it's not intermittent fasting that's making them  lose weight, it's simply a CALORIE DEFICIT!

Yes, as SIMPLE as that!

Now you would say, wait, that's it? You mean to say that IF made a person eat less and they lost weight? Oh yes, it does. In fact EVERY fat loss diet's foundation is fat loss. “Oh, but wait, my guru (who does not understand s**t about nutrition) told me that fasting does not raise insulin and increases ketogenesis, which in turn burns body fat. With this logic, ketogenic diets also make perfect sense. But more than often people are completely wrong about the keto diets as well.

Alright, Time To Look At Some Evidence Now

1. Fat loss is simply a result of eating lesser calories than what you expend for a sustained period. Calories In versus calories out, dummy!

2. The carb-insulin thesis or better said misinformation is generally preached by low-carb gurus to sell their stupid 'one-fits-all' diet plans. This theory has been debunked in metabolic ward studies which closely monitor energy intake and output. [2][3]

3. A meta-analysis of 32 studies has suggested that low-fat diets might have a slight edge over low-carbohydrate diets for fat loss. [4]

Well, now that we have it clear that fat loss is a simple case of 'calories in vs. calories out', let's look at who should be doing IF in the first place?

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Intermittent Fasting May Help You If

1. You are not counting calories right now and have just cut down a couple of meals from your day.  This may benefit with the condition that all else stays same. If you have cut down from 5 to 3 meals but eat double the amount in those 3 meals, it is no good.

2. It helps you stick to your diet.

For some people, it can be a viable thing to do if it helps them stick better to their diet and as a result, eat lesser calories.

3. You just like doing it.

If this is a practice that you enjoy doing, then do it by all means. At the end of the day, you need to find out what works for you.

Take Away Points

1. Intermittent fasting does not help you lose weight, eating lesser calories in the long run does.

2. The carb-insulin hypothesis is s#!t.

3. Do it if you like it. As simple as that, silly!

References:

1. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/95/4/989

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/956398

3. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/07/05/ajcn.116.133561.abstract

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28193517

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of the online coaching portal called GetSetGo Fitness (www.getsetgo.fitness). He is a National Exercise & Sports Trainers Association certified fitness expert who has also done certifications with Bayesian Bodybuilding and The British Council. He is an online coach and has helped over 200 people with their fitness goals by working with them.