Posted on 01/25/2025 3:56:15 PM PST by ConservativeMind
Intermittent fasting has gained attention for its potential metabolic benefits, but questions remain about which regimen is most effective and how it compares to continuous energy restriction. To address these questions, researchers analyzed data from over 9,800 participants across 153 studies, focusing on three common intermittent fasting regimens: time-restricted eating, alternate-day fasting, and the 5:2 diet. These were compared with continuous energy restriction and usual diets.
The analysis examined four key metabolic domains (anthropometry, blood pressure, glycemic parameters, and lipid profile) across 14 specific outcomes. By employing network meta-analysis, the researchers were able to combine direct and indirect evidence, allowing them to rank the effectiveness of each dietary strategy based on their impacts on metabolic health.
The findings highlighted that all intermittent fasting regimens significantly reduced body weight compared to usual diets. The network meta-analysis revealed that intermittent fasting was more effective than usual diets in 85.4% of the studied metabolic outcomes and outperformed continuous energy restriction in 56.1%. Among the intermittent fasting regimens, alternate-day fasting consistently emerged as the most effective strategy for improving metabolic health, ranking first in 64.3% of the comparisons and second in 14.3%.
This research supports intermittent fasting as an effective dietary approach for improving metabolic health, outperforming usual diets and demonstrating efficacy comparable to continuous energy restriction. Among the various intermittent fasting regimens, alternate-day fasting stands out as the most promising, consistently delivering the most substantial improvements based on current evidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
If interested in a five-day fast, consider the fast-mimicking diet from Prolon. It has real benefits with autophagy that kicks in on Day 3. The fasting food you are given makes your body think it is in a water-only fast. I have done this in the past and it really helps. You can get the whole five day diet for under $170.
I’ve been fasting for over 2 years. Not so perfectly around the holidays, but it’s easy to get back on track. I have lost a lot of weight and my blood work is all in normal range. I’ve 65 and am a breast cancer survivor. Usually eat 1 meal a day and do longer fasts from time to time. For those who are interested, I’d suggest starting with shorter fasts then work your way up. It becomes easier to fast longer.
Good luck!
Expensive for what it contains. DIY-able? Or all proprietary?
Occasional fasting sounds like a good idea. I could certainly benefit from less food intake. I may start it today, as soon as I finish my dinner and maybe the dessert too, since both meals are already prepared.
No need to waste food, you know.
If people just ate well balanced meals of real food, their weight issues would largely take care of themselves.
But people want quick fixes and easy solutions, which is why taking a pill (Ozempic) is so much more popular than changing their bad eating habits.
It isn’t necessary to spend ANY money to burn fat! Goodness gracious.
I lost 75 pounds in maybe 8 months simply by restricting calories, and eating one meal a day. It is very simple, if not easy.
600 to 800 calories a day for rapid weight loss. 900 to 1000 for a more moderate rate. Eat all your favorite foods. Pizza, meatloaf, bacon and eggs, it really doesn’t matter, we will naturally gravitate towards high quality protein and fats, carbs just put one on a roller coaster ride of “hunger” pangs, that’s how we porked out in the first place.
Buy a gram scale and weigh out food carefully. Best to write it down. Every week or 10 days I’d allow myself to eat “unrestricted” or whatever.
LOL. Diets are a tomorrow thing, aren’t they? But seriously, intermittent fasting seems to help many people. Some say that it resets one’s appetite and stops compulsive eating.
The Cleveland Clinic explains...
In a 5:2 diet, you eat “normally” five days out of the week. These are your non-fasting days. The other two days are fasting days. You consume fewer calories on those days depending on your sex assigned at birth.
I figured it meant eating for 5 straight hours twice a day. I was off a wee bit.
Typically, people start feeling better very quickly. They will start to look at it not exclusively in terms of vanity (losing weight).
What surprised me, was so many ailments that I thought were part of aging or just something I had to put up with, were in reality the side effects or chronic overeating. Allergies, weird rashes, gut and stomach issues, sleeping problems, energy. My vision improved markedly. There is a kind of “clear thinking” that many people describe, or certainly I noticed a reduction in what I would call “Carb Fog” upon awakening in the morning.
Once in a while I will have a junk food binge like the old days. It just makes me feel sick. Still have a weakness for some carby foods, but the body naturally learns to prefer real food, it just does. I also learned right away what specific foods don’t agree with me. I used to eat so much, so often, there was no way to tell. Artificial fats mainly, just destroy my digestion. Cheese and butter OK, but I limit Milk, no corn syrup. Coconut oil for frying, or lard, tallow, butter, olive oil.
I believe in and have practiced IF for twenty years or so. I definitely feel better when I do it, but the older I get the harder it is to do.
13 days is my max so far. I could have gone longer I felt. Broke it due to holiday. This year I will plan better and go longer.
It’s all about the calories.
It’s all about the insulin
Yes, the glucose in the blood needs to be used up before the body can intake more safely.
Stop. Ozempic is usually an injected medication.
And it actually assists in stopping bad eating (and other addictive behaviors).
And weight problems don’t miraculously go away with healthy meals. There are many hormonal conditions that cause weight gain and prevent weight loss. PCOS, hypothyroidism, etc.
Respectfully, people like you are ignorant and self righteous, constantly imputing obesity to character defects so you can feel superior.
It’s a form of virtue signaling and you just had to put it out there.
The human digestive system is not a calorimeter. It’s far more complicated than that.
Of course it is more complicated than that. But do you really want to invest your time talking about minutiaes?
It’s all about the Insulin Resistance.
Of course it is more complicated than that. But do you really want to invest your time talking about minutiaes?
I only know that avoiding processed sugar and walking a minimum of 30 minutes a day will cut your risk of diabetes to near zero for most people.
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