This is your ultimate guide to intermittent fasting.
Before we preach the gospel of intermittent fasting, we start by discussing more dominant eating patterns. From the three square meals a day to the six smaller ones, we’ve got you covered.
Fundamentally, this article is about much more than intermittent fasting. It’s about the optimal eating pattern.
Key Questions To Warm You Up
Have you ever wondered how often we should be eating? Is it five to six small meals a day or three square meals? Could it even be one or two meals?
Separately, have you heard about intermittent fasting but aren’t quite sure what it exactly entails? Should you be doing 16:8 or 5:2 fasts? Maybe OMAD? Variations are freaking endless …
Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Where did this idea come from and is it biologically and scientifically substantiated?
At the most fundamental level, is there an optimal eating pattern for sustainable weight loss, longevity and health? What would such optimal eating pattern look like?
SM To The Rescue
Sapiens Maximus answers all of these questions & more. In this piece, we dig deep. We challenge a status quo dominated by misinformation and malinformation.
As always, we don’t stop at providing you with workable, concrete guidance that you could implement in your daily life. We provide you with something much more valuable: the cause and effect relationships underpinning such guidance.
Keep an open mind. Don’t believe this article. Don’t believe its detractors. Believe the data. When the data is scarce, unreliable or contradictory, experiment sensibly.
Content Breakdown
2. Biological Necessity or Social Artefact?
3. From Necessary To Preferable?
4. Intermittent Fasting As The Optimal Eating Pattern
5. Intermittent Fasting as a Powerful Weight Loss Tool
6. Intermittent Fasting: Further Benefits
7. Key Challenge When Doing Intermittent Fasting: Increased Hunger
8. Types of Intermittent Fasting
10. FAQs
11. The Bottom Line
1. Status Quo
For most of our lives, we have been taught that a healthy lifestyle is based on three square meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Recently, we have also been witnessing a trend of having five to six smaller meals instead of three larger ones. For example, you might have heard of the so-called “3-Hour Diet”.
While fasting protocols have been gaining momentum, they are still not as dominant as these other patterns.
This is how things are. However, is this how things should be?
Where did these dominant eating patterns come from? Have we always eaten at least three meals a day?
2. Biological Necessity or Social Artefact?
Homo Sapiens mistakes prevalence for validity. Familiarity for necessity. We are so accustomed to eating at least three meals a day that we hardly ever question its legitimacy. If anything, we intuitively feel that more is better – more food and more nourishment lead to better health. If we challenge three square meals a day, it’s when we are considering eating more – or at least, eating more frequently.
The origin of our predominant eating paradigm is not, however, dictated by our biological needs. It seems that three meals a day and the increasingly popular six smaller meals are more of cultural artefacts than biological necessities.
Emergence of 9 – 5 + Meal Frequency
According to Paul Freedman, a Yale University history professor and editor of Food: The History of Taste, the development of the three meals a day is inextricably linked to the emergence of the 9-5 job.
Following the industrial revolution, fundamentally, predictability and routine became paramount. Homo Sapiens had set working hours, and limited flexibility or discretion with how to spend daily time. Evidently, this carried over into the times Homo Sapines was able to eat. Three square meals were perceived as good opportunity for structuring leisure time, and a chance to fuel Homo Sapiens’ hard labour.
Similarly, the switch to snacking and six smaller meals is affected by the evolution of our working lives. As our lives get busier and the boundaries of the 9 – 5 fade (especially in the so called “digital economy”), we opt for on the go options & grazing throughout the day.
Three Square Meals A Day: A Colonial Legacy?
Similarly to Freedman, historian Abigail Carroll argues that the three square meals a day is far from a biological necessity, but rather a colonial artefact.
In Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal, Carroll makes the case that eating three meals a day originally stemmed from European settlers’ interactions with Native Americans.
In particular, Europeans considered the less rigid eating patterns of native tribes as uncivilised – undifferentiated from eating patterns in the animal kingdom.
In contrast, three square meals a day and the associated structure were signs of civility and sophistication.
Meal Frequency: An Evolutionary Perspective
Academic literature aside, from an evolutionary perspective, it is hard to argue that our eating patterns are biologically determined.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors and some hunter-gatherer communities today (from the Inuit to tribesmen in Africa) did not and do not necessarily consume three meals a day – let alone six. Instead, they could go for several hours or even days without eating depending on food availability.
Such communities are not low on energy. Fragile. Weak. Quite the opposite – their survival depends on them being strong and lively especially during times of food scarcity & fasting. These are the times when extra effort is needed to survive. If having three + meals a day was a biological necessity, our ancestors would have been doomed. To the state the obvious, the chances you’d be reading this article right now would be close to zero.
Yet here is modern Homo Sapiens: overweight, unhealthy, AND terrified to skip a meal or feel a bit of hunger for fear of starvation.
Big Food and the multi-billion dollar snack industry have succeeded. They know what they’re doing – & we don’t.
Sapiens Maximus tribe: IT’S FINALLY TIME WE CHANGE THE DYNAMIC.
3. From Necessary To Preferable?
We have already seen that eating three + square meals is not biologically necessary.
However, some might argue that increasing meal frequency is biologically preferable. There seems to be a number of popular arguments as to why eating more frequently is advantageous to our health.
The science supporting these claims is, however, unconvincing. Whether it’s three square meals a day or more, we tend to attach undue weight to some factors (thermic effect of food) while neglecting more important ones (role of our hormones in sustainable weight loss and longevity).
Below, we discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of TWO key arguments put forward in favour of eating more frequently.
Red Herring #1: Eating More Frequently Boosts Your Metabolism
One key argument for eating more frequently is that doing so boosts our metabolism – thus leading to burning more calories. This is however misleading.
Let’s start with the basics.
Digesting a meal raises your body’s metabolism slightly through a phenomenon known as the thermic effect of food. In other words:
(1) You eat;
(2) Your body’s metabolism rises so you can digest; and
(3) Your body expands calories to fuel the digestion process.
For advocates of more frequent meals, consuming meals more frequently = the body burning more calories through the thermic effect of the body digesting food.
However, this is not quite right.
What matters for the thermic effect of food is not the number of meals, but rather the the total amount of food consumed. This is a key factor determining the amount of energy expended during digestion.
To illustrate, it makes no difference from a thermic effect standpoint if you have 6 meals of 300 calories, 3 meals of 600 or one meal of 1800 calories. The total amount of calories consumed is the same – and so is the associated amount of energy expended for digesting this food.
Red Herring #2: Eating More Frequently “Stabilises” Your Blood Sugar
Advocates of more frequent meals argue that eating more often balances blood sugar levels, and by extension reduces cravings. This intuitively makes sense. Eating smaller meals more often, the argument goes, avoids the substantial spike in blood sugar and subsequent crash associated with bigger meals.
However, this argument is too simplistic to the point of being misleading. This is one of the times when discussing what you eat in addition to how you eat is essential.
Back to Basics: Blood Sugar Levels
When you eat, you get a spike in “blood sugar” (a.k.a glucose). Different foods spike blood sugar to different levels.
The Glycemic Index represents the effect different foods have on our blood sugar levels. You can read Healthline’s excellent article on this here.
For example, if you are following the standard Western diet rich in foods high on the glycemic index (primarily starchy carbs and sugars), your blood sugar will substantially increase every time you consume a meal.
With three square meals a day, you might be giving your body enough time to burn off the consumed glucose which leads to an energy crash before the next meal.
In contrast to three meals, six meals could prevent too many dips by keeping your blood sugar levels chronically high.
While this can be attractive in the short term, having prolonged high blood sugar levels has a number of key health drawbacks.
At a very basic level, it solidifies your body’s dependency on sugar for energy and further prevents it from tapping into your body fat for an alternative fuel source.
Eating Frequency, Blood Sugar & Insulin Resistance
In addition, high blood sugar levels lead to higher levels of a key hormone called insulin. Higher levels of insulin make healthy, sustainable weight loss much more difficult.
With time, chronically elevated insulin levels are likely to cause insulin resistance.
Why should you care? For one thing, scientific studies associate insulin resistance with a host of diseases – from type-2 diabetes to PCOS and beyond.
In Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease–and How to Fight It, Dr. Bikman persuasively argues that insulin resistance is at the root of the metabolic diseases epidemic (which includes heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and obesity) sweeping through the world today.
“Balancing”our blood sugar by keeping it elevated is hardly an optimal long-term strategy. Especially when it is likely to lead to insulin resistance and sub-optimal health more generally.
SO, where does that leave us exactly?
4. Intermittent Fasting As The Optimal Eating Pattern
At Sapiens Maximus, based on the available data, we firmly believe that the optimal eating pattern incorporates some form of intermittent fasting.
What is intermittent fasting, you might ask?
Intermittent fasting is an umbrella term for various meal-timing schedules that alternate between voluntary fasting and feeding over a given period of time. Refer to the below section for the most popular types of intermittent fasting (for example, the 16:8 fast).
Crucially, it is important to understand that intermittent fasting is not a diet but a pattern of eating. It does not prescribe what you should eat but when you should eat. As such, you should keep in mind that bad nutrition may trump any health benefits discussed in this article. Even if your eating pattern is optimal, your health is likely to suffer if your nutrition is subpar.
At the risk of stating the obvious, what to eat and how to eat are inextricably linked. Fundamentally, they both try to help your body transition from its glucose dependency to burning fat for energy.
Below, we discuss intermittent fasting’s key benefits. Since this is a key point of interest, we start with intermittent fasting’s role in sustainable weight loss before discussing further benefits.
5. Intermittent Fasting as a Powerful Weight Loss Tool
To be exact, intermittent fasting does not merely help you lose weight, it helps you lose fat.
If we take a step back, why does Homo Sapiens obsess about weight loss? “Weight” changes (or lack thereof) on the scale don’t mean much. You could lose muscle and gain fat while maintaining the exact same weight. Conversely, you could lose fat and gain muscle. Weight fluctuations don’t account for body recomposition.
At Sapiens Maximus, we specifically focus on fat loss (and muscle gain where relevant). Fundamentally, the ultimate focus is on becoming healthier. In many instances, becoming healthier is your way to optimally shedding the unwanted pounds – not the other way around.
In this context, scientific studies have shown that IF is a powerful weight (fat!) loss tool. If your diet is on point, with IF, you WILL see the circumference of your waist go down.
The key question is: why? What, if anything, is magical about IF for weight loss?
Intermittent Fasting & Weight Loss: Cause + Effect Relationships
(1) Caloric Restriction
One reason IF works for weight loss is because it is likely to lead to caloric restriction. Overeating with one or two meals a day is more difficult than doing so with 3 – 6 meals.
HOWEVER, IF goes well beyond the simple “calories in calories out” model. Reducing weight loss to a simple equation of calories in – calories out is helpful, but too simplistic.
What determines if the “weight” lost from caloric restriction is coming from your fat reserves or not? Losing weight (which can include losing muscle mass) is different from losing fat.
A key factor in sustainable, healthy weight loss is proper hormonal regulation.
(2) Intermittent Fasting & The Hormonal Response
A good starting point is that fasting dramatically lowers insulin levels. This is key for sustainable, healthy fat loss.
If you are feeling adventurous, buckle in for this mini-crash course on the science of weight loss.
First things first: what is insulin?
Insulin: A Brief Overview
You might have heard about insulin in the context of diabetes. That’s because diabetics have abnormal insulin regulation – whether due to insulin levels that are too high, or too low.
Energy Storage: Glycogen & Fat
However, fundamentally, insulin is a hormone made in your pancreas, which is secreted whenever you consume a meal. As you should know by now, some meals spike insulin more than others depending on where they are on the glycemic index.
The reason insulin rises when we consume a meal is because insulin is an anabolic, energy-storing hormone. It helps store excess energy in two distinct ways.
Glycogen – Carbohydrates consumed are broken down into individual glucose (sugar) units, which are then stored in the body as glycogen. Our body’s ability to store glycogen is limited compared to its ability to store fat.
Fat – Once the body’s capacity to store glycogen is reached, the liver starts to turn excess glucose into fat. This process is called de-novo lipogenesis (literally, “making new fat”). Contrary to glycogen, and as we could see from morbidly obese people, there is almost no limit to the amount of fat the human body can accumulate.
Insulin, Hormone Sensitive Lipase & Fat Burning
When insulin is high, our body is in energy storage mode. This entails the lowering of Hormone Sensitive Lipase (HSL) – which is an essential hormone for breaking down fat cells. In simple terms, high insulin = inhibited HSL = inhibited lipolysis (i.e. fat breakdown).
Three square meals a day isn’t optimal from this standpoint. Five/six meals a day is even worse. This is particularly the case when such eating patterns are coupled with starchy carbohydrates and sugars as these would lead to continuously high insulin levels. This in turn is associated with inhibited HSL activity, and importantly inhibited fat burning.
The Metabolic Switch: Glycogen To Fat
In order for our bodies to switch from energy storage to energy consumption, we need to be able to maintain sufficiently low insulin levels.
When our insulin levels are low, our bodies start going through our glycogen stores for energy. When our glycogen stores are depleted, and given sufficient time, our bodies switch to burning fat for fuel. In simple terms, low insulin = high HSL = lipolysis (fat burning).
In most people’s minds, IF benefits stop at weight loss. However, there is a whole world of benefits that they are leaving untapped. Keep on reading to discover intermittent fasting’s impressive resumé of health benefits. From inflammation to autophagy, we’ve got you covered.
6. Intermittent Fasting: Further Benefits
IF Benefit #1: Intermittent Fasting Reduces Inflammation
Evolution has designed each of our bodily functions to have a valid, beneficial purpose. No bodily function is random or categorically bad. This includes inflammation – despite the bad rep it has developed.
When your body is functioning as it was intended to, inflammation is the key process through which your body fights against diseases and infections. The problem arises, however, when inflammation becomes chronic.
Scientific studies have linked chronic inflammation to a wide range of diseases, from stroke and heart-disease to type-2 diabetes.
Here’s the good news: studies have shown that fasting is one way you could control and reduce inflammation. One way fasting does so is by reducing the number of inflammatory cells called monocytes.
Closely connected to the anti-inflammatory benefits, studies have also shown that fasting enhances heart health. See the next section for a fuller discussion.
IF Benefit #2: Intermittent Fasting Enhances Heart Health
While heart health might not seem relevant to most of our young readers, a Sapiens Maximus adopts a long-term approach and plans ahead. In this context, heart health is key since cardiovascular disease is currently the world’s #1 killer – causing 16% f the world’s total deaths.
Studies establishing intermittent fasting’s position as a heart healthy eating pattern are mounting. While scientific studies shedding light on the underlying cause and effect relationships are scarce, these are rather intuitive.
The key point is that by making you healthier, intermittent fasting reduces a number of key risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease. For example, studies have shown that intermittent fasting reduces (i) triglycerides; (ii) inflammation and (iii) insulin resistance – all being risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
IF Benefit #3: Intermittent Fasting Combats Type-2 Diabetes
A growing body of scientific evidence shows that minimising sugars / carbohydrates in your diet is one effective way of combating type-2 diabetes.
Contrary to popular belief, type 2 diabetics can in many instances take their fate into their own hands with proper nutritional and lifestyle changes. An excellent book on this is Dr. Jason Fung’s Diabetes Code.
So, where does fasting fit into the picture? The core component of an effective nutritional intervention for type 2 diabetes is, simply put, lowering insulin levels and more fundamentally combating insulin resistance.
As such, especially in the context of type-2 diabetes, intermittent fasting and low carbohydrate diets are two sides of the same coin. Both approaches combat insulin resistance.
The body of scientific evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of intermittent fasting in combating type-2 diabetes is compelling – and growing. See for example here, here and here.
While medication might have a role to play, lifestyle and dietary interventions are certainly worth exploring. Swallowing a pill, while occasionally necessary, might not always be an optimal long-term solution. This is especially the case if more fundamental lifestyle changes could be made that would dispense with medication altogether.
IF Benefit #4: Intermittent Fasting Boosts Autophagy
You might have heard about autophagy before – almost certainly in the context of fasting. This is a hot topic at the moment, and justifiably so.
So what is it? Autophagy is the body’s process of disposing of broken down cell machinery (organelles, proteins and cell membranes) to make way for new healthier ones. Phrased differently, it’s the body’s way of hitting the reset button and cleansing itself.
Evidently, the process has wide ranging health benefits. These include (1) combating neurodegenerative diseases (see this and this) and (2) potentially cancer (see here and here).
Fasting is, arguably, one of the most effective methods to boost this invaluable cleansing process. Studies on this are clear (see here and here).
So, how does this work? At a very basic level, intermittent fasting boosts autophagy by increasing glucagon levels. In case you’re asking yourself what the heck glucagon is: glucagon is a polypeptide which plays an essential role in inducing autophagy (surprise surprise).
Interestingly, glucagon is inversely correlated to insulin. That is, whenever insulin is elevated, glucagon levels are inhibited – and so is autophagy. By fasting, we enhance autophagy by lowering insulin (and stimulating glucagon).
IF Benefit #5: Intermittent Fasting Enhances Brain Function
As the cliché goes, a healthy body and a healthy mind go together.
By having all of the benefits discussed so far – from reducing inflammation to boosting autophagy – it should be reasonably clear that IF boosts brain function.
Intermittent fasting doesn’t only boost brain function indirectly, per the benefits discussed so far such as reducing inflammation and boosting autophagy. Studies have also shown that IF boosts a superbrain protein called brain-derived neutrophic factor (BDNF). If you have have read our article on the ultimate guide to the benefits of physical exercise, you should already be familiar with BDNF.
BDNF is a key player in the strengthening of connections between synapses. For example, in one experiment, researchers sprinkled BDNF onto neurons in a petri dish. Astoundingly, this led to enhanced synaptic efficacy and responsiveness – thus creating an optimal environment for better learning.
It is therefore hardly surprising that Harvard psychiatrist John J. Ratey labels BDNF as “Miracle-Gro for the brain”. Phrased differently, BDNF could be thought of as a super brain fertiliser.
Intermittent Fasting & The Brain: An Evolutionary Perspective
The positive relationship between fasting and brain health shouldn’t come as a surprise. From an evolutionary perspective, it was not uncommon for our ancestors to go through prolonged periods of restricted eating due to scarcity.
If their brains suffered because of this, chances of our ancestors (i) strategising, (ii) hunting and (iii) locating food would have been very slim. Our brains have evolved to be able to thrive while fasted. If this hadn’t been the case, as already mentioned, you wouldn’t be reading this article right now.
Would you be able to reap the rewards immediately? Probably not if you’re one of the overwhelming majority hooked on Big Food’s six meals a day plans. Often coupled with unhealthy processed foods that slowly wreck havoc on your system over the years.
Your body and brain need time to heal themselves & operate in the way that evolution intended them to. Focus on doing the right thing TODAY – that’s always the best we could do.
IF Benefit #6: Intermittent Fasting Promotes Longevity
While fasting’s effect on longevity remains to be proven in humans, studies have shown that fasting improves lifespan in most other species.
In any event, living longer is inextricably linked to living healthier. If you are healthy with minimal to no risk of the major killers – from heart disease to type-2 diabetes – it’s hardly surprising that you are more likely to live longer.
As discussed in this article, fasting is one of the most powerful things you could do to clean up your life and improve your health. It wouldn’t be unreasonable, therefore, to assume that fasting could help with longevity.
IF Benefit #7: Intermittent Fasting Simplifies Your Lifestyle
One of the biggest advantages of intermittent fasting is its simplicity and convenience. You don’t need to constantly think about food – especially when you have powered through the cravings phase.
You are no longer enslaved to “maintaining your blood sugar levels” and eating every two to three hours. Instead, you could focus on what matters to you, have more energy, use your time better all while ameliorating your health.
As an added benefit, you could implement intermittent fasting with any diet – from vegan to carnivore and everything in between.
7. Key Challenge When Doing Intermittent Fasting: Increased Hunger
OK – let’s say you’ve decided to give IF a try. A word of warning: it probably won’t be easy in the beginning. Main challenge? Increased hunger.
Missing a meal and/or abandoning snacking is a lot of people’s worst nightmare precisely because of this.
It’s not only physically uncomfortable. It’s also the perfect route through which your brain can start manipulating you. Telling you perfectly crafted stories as to how this new eating pattern you are adopting is unhealthy and/or “unnatural”. How your body needs the meal you are craving.
Body Knowns Best?
We want to believe that our body knows best – whatever that means. And while our intuition could often provide us with highly valuable insights, it could also be misleading when our system is (and has been) out of balance.
Why is modern Homo Sapiens overweight and hungry?
Why is Homo Sapiens, with an abundance of stored energy, unable to go for few hours without craving food? Surely, the cravings and hunger can’t be justified when our body already has more than what it needs to operate (in the form of excess energy stored as fat).
Fat and Hungry: What Has Gone Wrong?
The misleading cravings and hunger are caused by (inter alia) Homo Sapiens’s complete dependence on glucose for energy and his inability to tap into fat stores when needed.
Another part of the equation is Homo Sapiens becoming leptin resistant which could result from excessive fat accumulation. As you might have guessed, leptin is the satiety hormone.
Being leptin resistant means that your body and brain have difficulty recognising satiety. This could lead to the anomaly of feeling hungry when you don’t biologically need to consume food.
The way our system is supposed to function, as already discussed, is for our bodies to switch to burning fat for energy when glycogen is depleted.
However, due to our chronically elevated insulin levels, even when glycogen is depleted, our body finds itself unable to tap into its fat stores.
Fat As Jailed Energy
Where does that leave us? Low on energy. Ravenous. More specifically, desperate to “top up our blood sugar”. So we do. And the never-ending saga of inhibited fat burning continues. Fat is commonly described as stored energy. This, however, is a euphemism. For most of us, when stuck in the glucose dependency zone, fat becomes jailed energy.
Excessive Hunger: Proposed Solutions
(1) Know that (per the above) hunger can be misleading. Just because you’re hungry doesn’t mean you’re lacking nutrition or biologically need to eat.
(2) Know that hunger is temporary. Our body has been operating sub-optimally for most of its life. It takes time for it to adapt & transition. So, when you adopt a new fasting regimen, give it time. Once we maintain low insulin levels and our bodies transition into burning fat, physical hunger and cravings become much less of an issue.
(3) When you do eat, make sure you are minimising simple sugars / carbohydrates. Your body quickly burns through these, leaving you ravenous. So make sure your nutrition is on point. Swap simple sugars and carbs with whole, minimally processed (fibre rich) foods. Make sure you also load up on proteins, as studies have shown that protein keeps you fuller for longer.
(4) Drink plenty of water. There is not a whole lot of scientific evidence backing this up, but we know from experience that it works. Give it a try. When you’re done drinking, drink some more.
(5) Get enough sleep. As discussed in our cornerstone sleep article, inadequate sleep wreaks havoc with your appetite. It increases levels of hunger inducing ghrelin, while lowering levels of hunger suppressing leptin. So make sure you get your ZZZs.
8. Types of Intermittent Fasting
We have generally been discussing fasting in general terms. However, now that we have made the case for fasting, what are your practical options when implementing IF?
Discussing all types of fasts is, of course, nonsensical. Since fasting is merely the voluntary act of abstaining from food, you could adopt endless combinations of fasting and feeding times.
We discuss the most popular fast variations below. You should adopt whatever fasting schedule works best for your circumstances and lifestyle.
We discuss some key points in relation to each fast to help you in your decision-making process.
IF Type #1: 16:8
This is the most popular fasting schedule and, arguably, the most convenient. It entails fasting for 16 hours and eating in an 8 hour feeding window.
This often takes the form of skipping breakfast but some people prefer to skip dinner. If skipping breakfast sounds like heresy to you because you have been brainwashed into believing that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, make sure to check our FAQs section at the end of this post.
16:8 is a good starting point for anyone interested in intermittent fasting as it does not represent too drastic a change from three square meals a day. However, if you are used to having six meals a day or to continuously grazing, you might want to transition to three square meals a day (with zero snacking) before you try the 16:8 fast.
Overall, the Sapiens Maximus team believes this is the most sustainable intermittent fasting variation for most people. Coupled with a healthy diet, the 16:8 pattern could provide long-term sustainable health results without being too extreme.
20:4
The 20:4 option, as the name suggests, consists of fasting for 20 hours each day and eating within a 4 hour window.
This could be perceived as the next level up from the popular 16:8 fast. As such, we would not recommend anyone interested in fasting to jump into a 20:4 eating pattern before being comfortable with the 16:8 pattern first.
Always keep in mind – less frequent meals does not mean more flexibility in eating unhealthy foods. It is essential to remain strict with the foods you consume and to provide your body with the nourishment it needs.
OMAD (23:1)
This is the most extreme variation among the short fasts (i.e. < 24 hours). It consists of having a one hour feasting window where you could have your one meal a day.
OMAD was popularised as a way for you to eat whatever you want and still lose weight. At this point, it should be clear to you how nonsensical and damaging we think this approach is.
If you decide to experiment with OMAD (which you should NOT do lightly), it is even more important to pay attention to what you eat and follow Sapiens Maximus guidelines on proper, nutrient dense healthy nutrition.
Sorry to break it to you: the eating pattern you adopt is never a justification for eating poor quality food.
Similarly to the previous fasting variations, we would recommend you ease into OMAD should you wish to give it a try. This means being progressively comfortable with three square meals (no snacking), the 16:8 and the 20:4 variations before you even consider trying OMAD.
Other
There are other types of fasts worth briefly mentioning. These include the 5:2 fast (five regular eating days and two fasting days where you could eat up to 500 calories per day) and extended fasts (24 hours, 36 hours and beyond). Depending on levels of interest, we might examine these types of fasts (particularly extended ones) in upcoming articles.
9. Who Should NOT Fast
Moderate variations of intermittent fasting, such as the 16:8, generally have an outstanding safety profile. Homo Sapiens has done various forms of fasting for thousands of years and fasting is now widely practiced across many communities for religious and health purposes.
Having said that, you need to exercise good judgment whenever you’re trying to implement a fasting routine. A key element we discussed is that fasting helps with the metabolic switch – that is, the transition from burning sugar for energy to burning fat. If you are underweight or anorexic with barely any body fat, fasting might not be the best for you.
Similarly, if you have particular medical conditions such as type-2 diabetes or heart disease, you might need to work closely with your physician to ensure than any fasting routines don’t cause any complications, especially if you are already on medication.
If you are pregnant or trying to conceive, you might want to be extra careful when implementing fasts as they generally illicit hormonal responses that might undermine your efforts. In those instances, you might just need to eat more/more frequently.
Health Disclaimer (Yes, We Are Putting This In The Title)
While we provide you with solid and actionable advice, any advice is for educational and informational purposes only. Evidently, it does not take into account the infinite variations in individual circumstances and health profiles.
When it comes to your health, you should always do thorough independent research and, where necessary, consult your physician to discuss your individual health circumstances.
Now that we have this out of the way, let’s dive into some IF FAQs.
10. FAQs
We said in the introduction that the article provides you with more than answers. It provides you with the knowledge and science underpinning the answers. As such, you should be able to answer most of the below FAQs for yourself at this point.
What kinds of liquids can I drink during the fast (if any)?
Water and black coffee. More generally, beverages that don’t spike your insulin (so certain kinds of tea would also be fine).
Not only is it possible for you to drink the aforementioned beverages but it is also advisable. Hydration is key. Black coffee tends to blunt hunger which would also help with cravings during your transitional phase to burning fat.
Can I workout while fasted?
It depends on the kind of fast but the answer is generally yes.
This is especially the case with shorter fasts (< 24 hours) where working out is not only possible but also recommended.
Working out expedites burning your glycogen stores so that you could transition into burning fat. It also has a number of synergetic effects with fasting such as increasing insulin sensitivity (as extensively discussed in our cornerstone article on the benefits of exercise).
However, if working out fasted, ensure you are properly hydrated and that you are not low on electrolytes.
Will fasting cause muscle loss?
It depends on a number of factors including your level and type of physical activity. Generally speaking, whenever people lose meaningful weight they also tend to lose some muscle mass.
However, key point to note: fasting enhances a number of hormones that could maintain and further develop your muscles – most notably human growth hormone (HGH). As such, generally speaking, losing muscle is not a concern with shorter (< 24 hour) fasts.
Will fasting slow down my metabolism?
Not necessarily. In fact, some studies suggest that short-term fasts (within 24 hours) could increase your basal metabolic rate initially due to higher levels of epinephrine. However, studies show that longer-term fasts could slow down your metabolism, which makes sense since your metabolic rate is tied to (inter alia) your food consumption.
Isn’t breakfast the most important meal of the day?
No. There is nothing magical about breakfast.
The narrative that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” has been forced on us and seems to be based on a number of observational studies (that is, studies that don’t merit much scientific credence). Might be worth dedicating an entire Sapiens Maximus article on cereal companies’ influence on the development of this narrative.
Scientifically, one key reason put forth for this statement is that in the morning, your blood glucose levels are low as you would have been fasting all night. As such, according to Big Food and scientists who don’t know any better, you need to top-up your blood sugar levels. As we have extensively discussed in this article, this is not necessarily the case.
It might make sense to skip breakfast – at least from a fat loss perspective. This is precisely because you would have been fasting all night and progressively depleting your glycogen stores. Skipping breakfast can give your body sufficient time to transition into fat metabolisation.
11. The Bottom Line
Different eating patterns work to different extents. You could technically get good results with three square meals a day or six smaller ones – especially if the quality of your food is on point. However, this article is about the optimal eating pattern as assessed against a number of key metrics – from sustainable weight loss to longevity and better overall health.
In this article, we made the case that Homo Sapiens’ optimal eating pattern is inextricably linked to intermittent fasting. We have not been designed to crave food every couple of hours. We have not been designed to be overweight – let alone overweight and hungry. Somewhere along the line, from three square meals a day to the exponential growth of the multi-billion dollar snacking industry, Homo Sapiens has lost the way.
This article cuts through the noise, the misinformation and malinformation. It is true that further high quality research is needed in some instances. However, bear in mind that the solution presented is not the latest fad diet. It’s an eating pattern that has accompanied Homo Sapiens on his evolutionary journey for the last 300,000 years.
Intermittent Fasting: Who Would Benefit?
We conclude with a question. Something for you to think about. If you incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle, who would benefit?
We know who would NOT benefit: Big Food & the multi-billion dollar snacks industry.
The only beneficiary, if anyone, would be you (& the Sapiens Maximus community – because your win is our win).
As always, we wish you good luck on your journey to strength in adversity, calm amidst the storms, relentless resilience and uncompromising health.
Your self-proclaimed family,
The Sapiens Maximus team
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