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Intermittent Fasting Can Help You Lose Weight

Written by Hannah.T, PhD | Reviewed by Josephine, M.Sc. Nutrition and Food Science

If you’ve been researching how to lose weight, you may have heard of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is a weight-loss strategy that focuses on when you eat, not necessarily how much or what you eat (1). During intermittent fasting, you’ll cycle between several hours of unrestricted eating and hours of no eating at all (fasting) (1).

In this article, we’ll answer some of the biggest questions about intermittent fasting, like: How does intermittent fasting work? What are the benefits? And can you use this plan with meal replacement shakes like Almased?

How Does Intermittent Fasting Work?

You can think of how your body breaks down foods as a “metabolic switch”(2). Let’s call one side of the switch the “sugar side”. Here, your body is busy breaking down sugars and carbohydrates from your food (2). If the switch is on the sugar side, fats are made and stored but not broken down (2). When the switch flips, the body starts using up the fats in storage (2). Let’s call this the “fat side”.

Intermittent fasting can help flip the switch from the “sugar side” to the “fat side”(2). After a meal, your body is on the “sugar side” of the switch (2). In about 12 to 36 hours, you’ll run out of sugar and flip to the “fat side” of the switch (2). But if you eat anything more before the switch flips, you’ll stay on the “sugar side” and the clock will restart (2). By eating only during a certain window of the day, or fasting for an entire day, you give your body a chance to flip the switch to the “fat side” and lose weight.

 

Why Is Intermittent Fasting Becoming Popular?

It might seem like intermittent fasting has become a buzzword in the last few years, but it’s something humans have done for millennia (2). In prehistoric times, we used to regularly go long stretches of time without food while we were hunting and gathering (2). We adapted to keep extra calories in fat stores to help us through these fasting periods (2).
Nowadays, though, we have constant access to food. We don’t even fast between our three main meals – we constantly snack throughout the day and stay up late for a midnight meal (3). Our lifestyle has changed to be more sedentary, so we aren’t burning enough calories and are making even more fat stores (3). Our bodies don’t flip the metabolic switch to the “fat side” often enough (2). Intermittent fasting has become popular as a way to reverse this trend (2).

How Do You Start Intermittent Fasting?

There are many different strategies for intermittent fasting. The three most popular intermittent fasting meal plans are alternate-day fasting, the 5:2 diet, and time-restricted eating (4).

In an alternate-day fasting plan, every other day, you change your eating (4). Some people eat zero calories on the fasting days, and others eat about 20 to 30% of their normal calories (4). On alternate days, you can eat just as usual.

In a 5:2 diet, you can eat normally on 5 days of the week, then fast for 2 days (4). The two fasting days can be spread throughout the week or can be consecutive (4). On fasting days, you can eat nothing or up to 500 calories (2).

In a time-restrictive eating plan, you fast every day for about 14 to 16 hours (4). Usually, people assign a daily “feeding window” where they’re allowed to eat freely before resuming the fast (4).

Each of these plans falls under the umbrella of intermittent fasting (4). Intermittent fasting is adaptable, so you can change the plan based on your needs (4). Everybody is different, so what might work for your friend might not be the best plan for you. 
Longer fasts, extending from several days to several weeks, were popular ways to treat disease historically (2). However, longer fasts can have serious negative effects and even cause death (2). Short-term fasting gives you all sorts of benefits without the risks of a long-term fast (2).

What Are the Benefits of Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting has a huge array of benefits for the entire body (2). First, short-term fasting has been shown in several studies to cause fat loss (2). For example, in one research study, healthy men who followed a time-restricted eating regimen for 8 weeks had a decrease in fat mass (5). But there was no change in muscle mass or strength (5).

Cardiovascular health is improved after intermittent fasting (2). Alternate-day fasting leads to improvements in heart rate and blood pressure (2). These findings are like the changes in heart health after endurance training (2).

People at risk of type 2 diabetes may especially benefit from intermittent fasting (2). Human studies show intermittent fasting can improve glucose and insulin levels (2). Another major concern for type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, which also decreases with long-term intermittent fasting (2). 

Another benefit of intermittent fasting is on brain function.6 Researchers who study mice have seen improvements in learning and memory tests after 6 to 8 months of intermittent fasting.7 It’s not yet clear if the same short-term effects on memory occur in humans.2 But it does seem as though intermittent fasting protects against brain-related diseases in humans, like Alzheimer’s disease or stroke.6

 

Can I Intermittently Fast and Take a Meal Replacement Shake?

Yes! Meal replacement shakes work great together with intermittent fasting. Almased is a high-protein low-glycemic supplement that can replace meals on low-calorie (fasting) days or non-fasting days (8).

Almased can even help make intermittent fasting easier. A 2022 study by Oliveira et al. shows that after just 32 hours of replacing meals with Almased, people’s appetite changes (9). Leptin is a hormone that makes you feel full (9). The researchers found that more leptin was in the blood a day after using a meal replacement shake than eating regular meals (9). So, the people who eat Almased feel full for longer, making fasting less difficult (9). Indeed, women in the study felt less of an appetite sensation in the day after having Almased than they did before (9).

Other studies have shown that Almased has similar benefits to intermittent fasting, like improvements in cardiovascular health, fat loss, and type 2 diabetes markers (8,10,11). By using Almased with intermittent fasting, you can double down on the positive changes in your body.

Almased Liquid Fasting Diet

If you’re looking for advice on how to use Almased, look no further than the Almased Four-Phase Figure Plan. The first phase is a modified free intermittent fasting plan that replaces all solid meals with shakes. In the 4- to 6-hour window between Almased shakes, you should drink plenty of fluids. The all-liquid diet is recommended for the first 2 weeks of the figure plan — enough time to kickstart your weight-loss journey.

The second phase of the intermittent fasting meal plan is the reduction phase, in which you slowly start reintroducing solid foods. You’ll still replace two meals a day with Almased and should steadily lose weight. In the third phase, the stability phase, you’ll move down to just one meal-replacement shake per day. Finally, in the life phase, you’ll use Almased as a supplement as needed. 

Consider intermittent fasting plans and Almased to improve your overall health!

 

References

  1. Liu K, Liu B, Heilbronn LK. Intermittent fasting: what questions should we be asking? Physiol Behav. 2020;218:112827. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.112827
  2. Anton SD, Moehl K, Donahoo WT, et al. Flipping the metabolic switch: understanding and applying health benefits of fasting. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2018;26(2):254-268. doi:10.1002/oby.22065
  3. Shields AT. Examination of the obesity epidemic from a behavioral perspective. Int J Behav Consult. 2009;5(1):142-158. doi:10.1037/h0100876
  4. Elortegui Pascual P, Rolands MR, Eldridge AL, et al. A meta‐analysis comparing the effectiveness of alternate day fasting, the 5:2 diet, and time‐restricted eating for weight loss. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2023;31(Suppl 1):9-21. doi:10.1002/oby.23568
  5. Moro T, Tinsley G, Bianco A, et al. Effects of eight weeks of time-restricted feeding (16/8) on basal metabolism, maximal strength, body composition, inflammation, and cardiovascular risk factors in resistance-trained males. J Transl Med. 2016;14(1):290. doi:10.1186/s12967-016-1044-0
  6. Gudden J, Arias Vasquez A, Bloemendaal M. The effects of intermittent fasting on brain and cognitive function. Nutrients. 2021;13(9):3166. doi:10.3390/nu13093166
  7. Fontán-Lozano Á, Sáez-Cassanelli JL, Inda MC, et al. Caloric restriction increases learning consolidation and facilitates synaptic plasticity through mechanisms dependent on NR2B subunits of the NMDA receptor. J Neurosci. 2007;27(38):10185-10195. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2757-07.2007
  8. Röhling M, Kempf K, Banzer W, et al. A high-protein and low-glycemic formula diet improves blood pressure and other hemodynamic parameters in high-risk individuals. Nutrients. 2022;14(7):1443. doi:10.3390/nu14071443
  9. Oliveira CLP, Boulé NG, Elliott SA, et al. A high-protein total diet replacement alters the regulation of food intake and energy homeostasis in healthy, normal-weight adults. Eur J Nutr. 2022;61(4):1849-1861. doi:10.1007/s00394-021-02747-1
  10. Deibert P, König D, Schmidt-Trucksaess A, et al. Weight loss without losing muscle mass in pre-obese and obese subjects induced by a high-soy-protein diet. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2004;28(10):1349-1352. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0802765
  11. König D, Deibert P, Frey I, Landmann U, Berg A. Effect of meal replacement on metabolic risk factors in overweight and obese subjects. J Nutr Metab. 2008;52(1):74-78. doi:10.1159/000119416
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