Health Intermittent Fasting

By Meredith Corporation

Intermittent fasting allows you to get in touch with what true hunger and fullness feels like, basic biological cues that many of us have lost sight of in our snack-all-day culture. This special edition teaches you how to build a strong food foundation, and explains how intermittent fasting has shifted the rules around mealtimes. If abided by carefully, it can yield lasting benefits to how we eat and help improve our relation with food. Inside you'll find 250-calorie recipes, raw fruit and veggie recipes, Mediterranean diet recipes, refreshing drink recipes, and much more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meredith Corporation
• Release date: Sep 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781547859597

Book preview

BUILDING A STRONG FOOD FOUNDATION

Intermittent fasting has shifted the rules around mealtimes. And if abided by carefully, it can yield lasting benefits to how we eat and help improve our relationship with food.

BY GINNY GRAVES

WHEN KELLY WENNER, a fitness trainer in Southern California, heard about intermittent fasting (IF), she was intrigued by its anti-aging benefits. (Research has shown that IF activates the SIRT1 longevity gene, for example.) So she decided to try a version of it known as time-restricted feeding, in which you eat only during a 6-, 8-, or 10-hour window. I gradually moved my ‘breakfast’ back to noon, and had my second meal at 6:30 p.m., she says. It improved my energy and focus and helped me slim down—but what surprised me most was the impact it had on my relationship with food.

Wenner had been eating six small meals a day, constantly counting calories, and trying to consume the perfect balance of protein and carbs. Food took up a lot of time and space in my brain. It was stressful. I never let myself get hungry—but I also never felt satisfied, and I struggled with cravings, she says. With intermittent fasting, food no longer controls or consumes me—and I no longer fear hunger. When I feel it, I have some water or tea and know it will pass. And when I choose to eat, two or three times a day, I have larger meals or snacks that are truly satisfying and fill me up.

In the early aughts, researchers from the National Institute on Aging began uncovering the health and weight-loss effects of IF, and over the past decade or so, the approach has captured the imagination of everyone from jaded weight-loss warriors to seasoned longevity seekers. People are drawn to it because it’s simpler than most diets, which often require you to eliminate whole food groups, weigh your food, or eat meal-replacement shakes, says Krista Varady, PhD, professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of The Every-Other-Day Diet: The Diet That Lets You Eat All You Want (Half the Time) and Keep the Weight Off.

As Varady’s book title implies, IF isn’t so much about what you eat as when—and there are two main approaches: time-restricted feeding (focusing on daily eating windows) and alternate-day fasting (in which you eat just 500 calories every other day or every few days). Eliminating the rules around what to eat eases meal stress and provides a refreshing sense of food freedom, proponents say. Having rules around food timing is simpler—and it helps people cut out common diet-derailing habits, like grazing throughout the day and mindlessly snacking at night, says Courtney Peterson, PhD, a nutrition scientist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who studies IF.

Paradoxically, the lack of prescriptive food rules can help some people make healthier choices. When I have an early breakfast, I often find myself eating peanut butter straight from the jar a couple of hours later, says Whitney Heins, a running coach in Knoxville, Tennessee. But when I wait till 11 a.m. to have breakfast, the eating window is shorter, and there’s less room for error or lack of self-control. Plus, I’m less hungry throughout the day when I have a later breakfast.

It sounds improbable that fasting would make you less hungry, but science supports the observation. People on time-restricted diets typically cut out 300 to 500 calories a day, says Varady, and alternate-day fasters are less hungry than usual on their feast days, which helps them have more control of what they eat. Intermittent fasters not only eat less but their levels of ghrelin, the main hunger hormone, are lower than [those of] people who eat an early breakfast, adds Peterson. One theory is that fasting helps blood sugar levels remain more stable, and a big trigger of hunger is plummeting blood sugar.

Intermittent fasting also allows you to get in touch with what true hunger and fullness feels like, basic biological cues that many of us have lost sight of in our snack-all-day culture. Before intermittent fasting, I’d eat every time I felt a hint of hunger, says Heins. Waiting to eat allows me to sit with that feeling and see if I’m truly hungry. Often the sensation passes, and I don’t actually need food until a couple of hours later. Being in touch with your physical sensations has real benefits. It bolsters mindfulness, which helps you make more conscious—and often healthier—food choices, says Uma Naidoo, MD, author of This Is Your Brain on Food.

What’s more, Peterson and her colleagues recently found that people who practice time-restricted feeding say they have more energy, less fatigue, and less depression—all of which could also bolster your ability to say no to chips and cookies and yes to kale and salmon. Intermittent fasting reduces food-related decision-making, and that might help some people feel more in control and give them momentum to make health changes, says Peterson.

IF isn’t for everyone, says Melissa Majumdar, RD, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. People with kidney disease, diabetes, or gout should check with their doctor or a nutritionist to be sure it’s safe to fast. You shouldn’t do it if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. And anyone who has a history of disordered eating should avoid it, because it could trigger a relapse, she says.

But many converts say they’ll never go back to all-day eating. I’ve been on an intermittent-fasting plan for almost five years, says Wenner. It has brought such positive changes to my life, I’m definitely sticking with it.

CHAPTER 1

Intermittent Fasting 101

Learn how fasting began and how it has gained traction, as well as dos and don’ts.

• Ins and Outs of Fasting

• Fasting Tips

• 250-Calorie Recipes

WHAT IS INTERMITTENT FASTING?

Its popularity is recent, but the concept has ancient roots. Here’s what to know about fasting and how to implement it into your lifestyle.

BY ASHLEY ABRAMSON

SOME FASTS FOCUS ON RESTRICTING FOOD FOR A FEW HOURS, WHILE SOME ALTERNATE BETWEEN DAYS.

IT’S WELL UNDERSTOOD that the standard American diet contributes, in some way, to public health problems. Plenty of research links too much saturated fat, refined sugar, and sodium—and not enough nutritious fruits and vegetables—to modern ailments like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.

According to a 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Eating behaviors can support or weaken health and strongly influence the quality and length of life.

While overhauling your diet is one important way to improve your health, your nutritional well-being may not be tied exclusively to what and how much you eat. The HHS and USDA report emphasizes that how often people eat plays an equally significant role in their health. And according to recent research, intermittent fasting (IF), an eating regimen that cycles patterns of food consumption and