What are the health benefits of intermittent fasting?
Friday 4th April 2014
Powerful changes take place in your body when you fast.
The reduction in insulin levels resulting from not eating any carbohydrates during the fasting period reduces insulin-resistance – a phenomenon associated with a host of diseases.
Your body benefits from taking a break from consuming proteins while you’re fasting; this reduces levels of hormones that drive cell growth and encourage cancer.
Your fasting body increases its use of fats for fuel – and this generates substances (ketones) that our brains thrive upon, and improving the functioning of our nervous systems.
A key feature of many modern diseases is the phenomenon of insulin resistance (also known as metabolic syndrome). Insulin resistance occurs when the body’s cells do not respond properly to the signal from insulin to take up glucose from the blood stream and convert it into glycogen or fat (which is the body’s way of keeping blood sugar down to safe limits). Because blood sugar does not lower sufficiently, the body has to produce more insulin to bring blood sugar down. High insulin levels are an indication of insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance is found in many diseases, including:
Obesity
Diabetes
Cardiovascular disease and stroke
High blood pressure
Kidney disease
Polycystic ovary disease
Gout
Alzheimer’s disease.
Fasting and exercise are two great ways of lowering insulin resistance and this is the foundation for many of the health benefits of both.
When and what should I eat during intermittent fasting?
We have used the experiences of our FastDay community members, together with scientific research studies, to create a guide for how you can get the most out of the intermittent fasting way of eating by knowing when and what to eat when you fast.
There are no rules, and flexibility is one of the best things about intermittent fasting. You can still eat the food you love, and won’t feel you are constantly ‘on a diet’. Treat this as a set of suggestions not rules – and do what works best for you.
For most people, fasting all day and then having a good evening meal is the best plan for a fast day. You will have a small calorie allowance on fast days of 500–600 calories. A single 500 calorie meal can be quite substantial, but if you try to spread the calories over breakfast, lunch and dinner, you will only be able to have mini-meals. Most people find that eating just a small amount only cures the hunger pangs for a short time and actually makes them hungrier for the rest of the day, so it is generally best to avoid snacking on fast days and save your calories until you can have a proper meal.
As well as being easier for most people, waiting to eat until the evening is also more effective for weight loss, as you will have fasted for longer. This has been shown by a survey conducted on the FastDay Forum to investigate the factors that influence weight loss on the 5:2 diet. The analysis of our survey questionnaire found that fasting for more than 20 hours on a fast day resulted in a greater weight loss than fasting for less than 16 hours. There are several potential scientific explanations for why this might be.
Some snacks allowed: you may find you hit a bit of a low point at around 4pm. A salty drink or a small snack may be the answer. If you have problems with not sleeping well on a fast day, saving some calories for a snack before bed may be the answer.
You make the rules here: if fasting all day doesn’t suit you, don’t feel you need to follow this advice. You might find that you prefer to eat a small breakfast, skip lunch and then have dinner. Or perhaps you like to skip breakfast, have a small lunch and dinner. Or maybe a big lunch and an evening snack suits you best. With the intermittent fasting Way of Eating, whatever works best for YOU is always the right answer!
Timing your eating window: if you are following an ‘eating window’ intermittent fasting method, such as 16:8, you already know when you should eat: during your eating window. But, you do need to decide when that window should start and finish. Theoretically, if you are following the 16:8 plan you could open your eating window at 4pm and finish your last meal at midnight. However, it may be wise not to leave it so late to finish eating. The reason is that our bodies are designed to go into rest and repair mode at the end of the day: eating late in the evening interferes with the rhythms of our bodies’ hormones and might affect our health. It is not really known whether eating late slows weight loss or affects our health in other ways but until we know more, it is probably best to try to avoid eating late at night. This allows your body to digest your meal and start the process of preparing for the night-time repair phase. However, as always, if you prefer or need to eat later and it works for you, then you should do so.
How can you make the most of your calorie allowance on a fast day?
1) Choose higher protein meals, which help you to feel full for longer. As protein is fairly high in calories you cannot have a huge amount for your 500 calories but make protein your main source of calories.
2) Fill up your plate with low calorie vegetables: they fill your stomach, taste good and do you good. Steam them, oven-roast with a teaspoon of oil, or stir-fry and add some spices or flavourings to make a really delicious filling meal. Or have them raw in a big salad.
3) Keep carbohydrates to a minimum: they are high in calories and make you feel hungry again quickly. Examples of carbohydrate-containing foods to avoid are: potatoes, sweet potato, pasrsnips, rice, pasta, bread, some fruits (bananas, grapes, melon, prunes, raisins, dates and other dried fruits), breakfast cereals, fruit juice, corn-on-the-cob/sweetcorn and anything containing sugar, honey or other syrups.
4) Don’t be afraid of fat: although fat is high in calories, it helps you to feel full. Include small amounts of fat in your fast day food.
Although the recommended calorie allowance of 500 calories for women; 600 calories for men is not so strict that it really matters if you go over or under the allowance by a little, you will need to weigh or measure at least the high-calorie ingredients in your recipes and work out the calorie content.
What about ready-made meals? A ready-made meal can be a great no-fuss solution. As with home-cooked meals, look for options that are low in carbohydrate and sugar and high in protein and vegetables.
FastDay makes fasting easier
At FastDay, we have made it easy to plan your fast day food with our great calorie-counted recipes suitable for a fast day in our FastDay Recipe collection (and some for non-fast days).
How should I eat on non-fast days?
Intermittent fasting is the best Way of Eating for food lovers! On non-fast days you are free to eat whatever you like. Though, of course, if you want to lose weight, perhaps not as much as you fancy. And, strange though it may seem, the fast days will probably reduce your appetite on non-fast days rather than increasing it.
You may find you are not particularly hungry on the day after a fast day. There’s no need to eat a lot if you don’t feel like it! It is fine to wait until you are hungry before eating on a non-fast day.
Your tastes may change so that you no longer feel cravings for sweet, sugary foods.
You will understand hunger better and find you snack less and can wait for meal times without worrying about when it will be time to eat.
These kinds of changes won’t happen immediately. Your hunger on non-fast days may vary greatly. You might find that you have non-fast days when you are really hungry and eat a lot. Many people experience this in the early days. Don’t worry if this happens, just concentrate on sticking to your planned fasts. After 6 weeks of fasting, if you are still having problems with overeating, and you are not losing any weight, you might want to consider whether to change your fasting method or to make other changes. Our pages on Troubleshooting may be helpful here, or visit our FastDay forum for some personal advice from the community.
You should aim to eat normally on non-fast days. The joy of intermittent fasting is that you can spend most of your time feeling free of anxiety about food, while controlling your weight and living in a healthy way. Some people restrict their calories on their non-fast days in an effort to speed up weight loss. While this may work in the short term, it is probably not such a good idea in the long term. If you do not have your days of normal eating you will likely feel deprived of your favourite foods and develop ‘diet fatigue’. If intermittent fasting is to become your Way of Eating for life, it’s important you do it in a sustainable way.
What’s the best way to measure success with intermittent fasting?
Jumping on the weighing scales once a week might seem like the obvious choice for monitoring your weight loss progress, but this is not the only method, nor even the best: your body weight can vary by up to 2kg up or down at random on any given day without any change in the amount of fat you are carrying. This huge variation makes it very hard to work out whether the change in weight you see on the scale is ‘real’ in terms of fat loss or not. What’s more, if you are using intermittent fasting in order to improve your health, your scale weight does not tell you very much about your ‘internal’ health.
At FastDay, we have some ideas about how to measure your success more reliably.
Are you losing weight?
1) Measure your waist
If you are trying to lose weight for health reasons, the most important fat to shrink is that which sits around your internal organs (called visceral fat) and gives you a big belly. It has long been known that fat in this area increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes and other diseases, whereas fat that is carried under the skin, on your bottom, thighs, or lower abdomen, is not so dangerous. For this reason, it is recommended that your waist should measure less than half of your height. In fact studies have found that 35% of men and 14% of women have a normal body mass index (BMI) – more of this later – and yet have dangerous amounts of visceral fat.1 Intermittent fasting has been found to be one of the most effective ways of reducing visceral fat, so measuring your waist is a great way of monitoring your progress.
Where is the best place to measure your waist? your natural waist which is about halfway between your navel and your ribs (between the points marked L2 and L3 on the diagram below) is the best place to assess changes to your visceral fat.2 You should not pull the tape measure really tight, but have it resting lightly against your skin. While you might try to suck in your waist as far as you can, you can only do this once, so whether you do or you don’t, keep that the same each time you measure and you will have a good guide as to how much your visceral fat is reducing.
2) Weigh yourself every day (or most days) and take an average
Weighing yourself once a week seems to be the standard method of monitoring weight loss in diet clubs and groups around the world, and yet this is possibly the worst way of judging how you’re progressing. It is better to weigh yourself every day, and then take an average of several days’ measurements.
Why a weekly weigh-in does not tell the whole story:
The amount of water held in your body varies enormously: if you have eaten salty food or high carbohydrate food, your body tends to retain water and, if you weigh daily, you will quickly see the relationship between eating carbohydrates or salty foods and an increase on the scales. Water retention can also be caused by hormonal changes in your body, and by normal muscle damage due to exercise also tends to lead to water retention. You will also find that the food retained in your system contributes to variations in your weight. So, if you have an indulgent non-fast day with salty snacks, and lots of carbs, you should not be surprised to find your weight has increased by as much as 1kg (2.2lbs) or more overnight. This is not a ‘real weight gain and that 1kg gain is clearly not fat.
Fasting has the opposite effect, and causes a loss in water as your body uses up your glycogen reserves. Glycogen is four parts water to one part glucose, so when you burn glycogen you release a lot of water. In your early fasts you will likely burn a lot of glycogen until your body adjusts and turns to the fat stores. Thus, you may well see a big drop in weight after your first week of fasting. Only a little of this will actually be fat loss.
Your day-to-day variation in weight might be as much as 2kg, if you weigh once a week you will have no idea whether your weight on that day is at the top end of the range or the bottom. With the average rate of weight loss with intermittent fasting being around 0.5kg a week, the change in fat is completely lost in this daily variation.
If you take a look at the graph shown below which illustrates one person’s daily weights (shown as blue dots) over a 1 month period, you can see that their weight varied enormously between days. If this person did not weigh every day they might think that their diet was not working and they had plateaued or gained weight, whereas their trendline shows that they are still losing weight. Weighing daily and working out the trend line avoids this emotional rollercoaster.
Alternatively, weigh yourself monthly instead of weekly
If you dont want to weigh yourself most days, go for monthly instead. A month is long enough for the true fat loss from fasting to have made a difference (on average, fasters lose about 2kg/4lb per month). This means you should see the weight loss on the scales despite the possible day-to-day variations.
So, does this mean the scales are no use at all? Well, not quite, they can still be used but you need to know some tricks:
Don’t panic about weight fluctuations, they are completely normal.
Weigh every day and plot your results on a graph and see how the trend is downwards even if the day-to-day variations are large.
Or, weigh once a month which should be long enough for the real loss in fat to show up against the background variation.
Look at the overall trend. If you lose 4kg in the first 2 weeks, and now it’s week 4 and the scale hasn’t moved, you’ve still lost an average of 2kg per week, which is higher than you might expect, so be happy!
Weigh yourself at the same time of day wearing the same clothing, ideally first thing in the morning after visiting the bathroom. This will help to minimize the variations.
Weight loss is not a steady, smooth path, but full of ups and downs, plateaus and sudden drops. When the scales don’t move, the tape measure might, so it’s best to monitor both weight and measure.
3) Body fat
When we say “I want to lose weight” we really mean “I want to lose fat”, so why not measure body fat rather than weight? Body fat analysers either as part of a weighing scale or as a separate device are widely available. They are not particularly accurate but they will show whether your body fat is decreasing. The body fat analyser works by detecting how long it takes for a tiny electrical pulse to travel through your body. The electrical impulse travels faster through water than fat and so the machine uses the speed to calculate how much fat your body has and gives you the result as a percentage of your body weight. Because it is a percentage figure, if you have a lot of water in your body your body fat percentage will be lower than if you are hydrated, so, like weighing, it is best done at the same time of day and under the same conditions each time. The body fat analysers are particularly inaccurate if you have over 50% body fat, so bear this in mind if it applies to you.
FastDay Progress tracker
Track all your changes in weight, waist size, body fat with the FastDay Progress Trackers! Our trackers allow you to track your weight and other measures of success with a trendline so you can really see how you are doing. You can set your mini-goals and your final target and celebrate as you hit each victory. The progress tracker will also work out how many calories you would normally burn in a day and so give you an idea what your non-fast day calorie count should look like. The progress tracker will work out your body mass index for you as well.
You can also see the weight loss stats for our community as a whole and investigate how people like you have done by filtering the stats according to starting weight, gender, type of fasting. This will give you an insight into how fasting might work for you.
1) Blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, even a relatively small decrease in weight (as little as a 5–10% drop) should lead to an improvement in blood pressure.3 You can get your blood pressure checked at your doctor’s as well as some pharmacies. However, measuring your blood pressure when at the doctors at a random time of day can give inaccurate readings. The best time to measure blood pressure is in the morning and evening. Your blood pressure should rise as you wake up and continue to rise during the day before falling again in the evening. It is important to be relaxed and warm, sitting comfortably, not talking, not having recently exercised or eaten and with the blood pressure monitor at the same height as your heart when you take your blood pressure. This is easily done with a home blood pressure monitor. Blood pressure monitors are easily available to buy. You can choose between one that fits around your upper arm or one which fits around your wrist. Ensure you follow the instructions that come with the device on how to use it properly. Take at least three readings, a couple of minutes apart, each time you measure and ignore the first reading. Take an average of the second two and make a note of the readings. There are some good smartphone apps available for recording blood pressure readings which will show you your averages for morning and evening and even allow you to email your readings to your doctor. Ideally you should have a blood pressure of under 119/70 but anything under 139/90 is OK.
2) Blood glucose/glucose tolerance. One of the first signs of increased diabetes risk or pre-diabetes is an increase in blood glucose levels after having consumed a dose of glucose (the glucose tolerance test) or when fasting (fasting blood glucose). These tests can be done at your doctor’s or you can purchase a blood glucose monitor. Unless you have been told you are pre-diabetic, having your own monitor is probably not necessary. A normal fasting blood glucose level is between 70 and 100 mg/dL (or 3.9 and 5.6 mmol/L), whereas levels between 110 and 135 mg/dL (6.0 to 7.7mmol/L) is considered ‘impaired glucose tolerance’ and a sign of pre-diabetes.
3) Blood cholesterol tests. Most doctors consider that blood tests for cholesterol are a good indication of a person’s risk of heart disease and diabetes. Recently, however, the complexities of the many different types of cholesterol in our blood has begun to be appreciated.4 It appears that total cholesterol is not a particularly good measure of health risks. It is thought that the ratio between total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein (HDL, sometimes called ‘good cholesterol’) levels might be more relevant, but even that is not certain. A ratio of HDL:total cholesterol of under 3.5 is thought to be a suitable target. Other research suggests the ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol might be a good measure. While there is so much confusion about what blood tests are best, it is hard to advise whether measuring blood cholesterol has any value for monitoring success with intermittent fasting. Nonetheless, if you have been told that you have high cholesterol, you may wish to have them tested from time to time to see if intermittent fasting reduces your levels. Be warned, however, that during the fast itself cholesterol levels can be temporarily raised if your fast is longer than around 10 hours, so it is best to have the blood taken on a non-fast day.
4) IGF-1. One of the key potential benefits of intermittent fasting is that it may reduce the levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). IGF-1 is thought to be linked with an increased risk of cancer and it is hoped that lowering IGF-1 levels will reduce that risk.5 Lowering protein intake and restricting calorie intake have been shown to reduce IGF-1 levels. Intermittent fasting seems to have the same effect as restricting calorie intake, but if your protein intake is high that can prevent IGF-1 levels from falling. The availability of IGF-1 testing appears to vary between different countries. It may be quite expensive in some countries. The normal range of IGF-1 varies greatly between individuals and normally decreases with age. What level of IGF-1 is acceptable from the point of view of reducing cancer risk is uncertain but cancer seems to occur more frequently in those whose IGF-1 levels are higher. Because of all these uncertainties, testing IGF-1 levels will be unlikely to be of much use in monitoring success.
The idea of fasting can sound daunting, and your first few fasts will probably be the hardest.
But the good news is that it quickly gets easier. After the first few fasts you learn that hunger is only a fleeting feeling and can soon be quelled with a drink of water, tea or coffee. Our community tell us that they soon find hunger pangs just a mild inconvenience. Once you have got used to it, most fasts will be quite easy and something you may well look forward to.
Our bodies are well-designed to cope without food, whatever your mother might have told you!
No one knows for sure why some people have no problems starting fasting, while others find their first fasts difficult. It may be because of a phenomenon called metabolic inflexibility, which means that the body has become used to having a constant supply of sugar and carbohydrate from our food so that it does not need to access its fat stores. Your body gets out of practice at turning your fat stores into energy. As a result you struggle the first few times you fast, and feel bad. Among low carbohydrate dieters the same effect is called ‘low carb flu’.
The kinds of problems you might experience during your first fasts are:
Intense hunger that will come and go throughout the day. Hunger does not build and build, but comes in waves which you will learn to ride out.
Headaches are very common in the early days, make sure you are drinking enough and if they are bad, take a pain-killer
Light-headedness: a few people have a ‘spaced-out’ or light-headed feeling. Often, all that is needed is a salty drink or food.
Feeling very tired, especially mid-afternoon, is because your body has not yet learned to access your fat stores for fuel. A salty drink can help with this too.
Becoming short-tempered can be a problem towards the end of the fasting time, especially as the time to eat approaches, planning your food ahead of time can help, and being aware that you may be short-tempered can help you to be calm around your friends and family.
Insomnia is common on the night of your first few fasts.
Constipation/diarrhoea on the day after your fast may occur as your body reacts to the new way of eating.
Fortunately, we have some tips and tricks that can help reduce or eliminate these problems.
All these problems (should you experience any) will ease really quickly as you do more fasts. If it all gets too much, though, it is absolutely OK to ease yourself into fasting more gently by, for example, allowing yourself more calories or making the fasting time shorter. Each new fast day, cut your calories a little since the last one and/or lengthen the fasting time a little until you are able to complete the fasts according to your chosen method.
You are not alone
Whether you find your first fasts easy or difficult, you are always welcome to visit the FastDay Forum for advice, support, inspiration, recipes or just to chat about fasting.
The short answer is: yes! In fact, exercise on fast days will help use up your fat stores. Many fasters tell us they feel great, and full of energy, when they exercise on a fast day. Further, scientific studies have revealed that exercising while fasting is more effective than exercise on normal days – in terms of developing fitness and in the health benefits gained from exercise.
If you want to lose weight, exercise alone is not the answer. Numerous studies have found that exercise has very little effect on body weight.1 However, when you combine exercise with fasting it can boost weight loss.2 When you are fasting, your body turns to fat for fuel, so if you exercise in this state, you will burn more fat than if you exercise in the ‘fed state’.3 Exercising while fasting can also improve the way your body handles carbohydrates, reducing your risk of diabetes.4
Working out before breakfast has been found to improve performance.5 The changes that take place in your muscles and metabolism to improve your fitness happen more quickly5 and muscle growth is improved.6
Exercise while fasting can improve muscle repair
A study in mice found that exercise in the ‘fasted state’ improved the repair processes (autophagy) compared with exercising in the ‘fed state’.7
Exercise can stop hunger pangs
Experienced fasters know that exercise on a fast day is a sure way to quell the hunger pangs. Scientific research has confirmed this.8
The benefits of combining fasting with exercise apply to both weight-training, high-intensity and moderate/low intensity exercise. The experts in exercise science would probably say that ideally, for maximum health benefits, you should do all of these! However, as with intermittent fasting, the best kind of exercise to do is the kind that you enjoy and can keep doing.
There are some types of exercise that are harder to do when you have been fasting for a long time, and so may be difficult if done towards the end of your fast day. High intensity exercise like sprinting can only be done properly if you have enough carbohydrate stored. This is because while fat is a great fuel for your body to use, it cannot be burnt fast enough to provide the energy needed for high intensity exercise. Towards the end of your fast, and even some way into your next feeding period, your carbohydrate stores (i.e., glycogen) may well be low and you may find high intensity exercise hard to do. High intensity interval training (HIIT) is very beneficial to health, however, so try to make time for this early on in your fasting period (see below).
Low intensity exercise, like walking, doesn’t need stored glycogen and can be done at any time.
If you are interested in running, the FastDay forum has a keen group of runners, who will welcome you.
High intensity interval training
If you don’t have the time or inclination to spend hours in the gym or out running, or simply wish to maximize the health benefits of your exercise, you should consider including high intensity interval training (HIIT) into your life.
Research has found that a 3 bouts of 20 seconds of high intensity exercise done three times a week can have as many beneficial effects on the body as an hour of running on the treadmill.9
Indeed, the author of the Fast Diet book, Dr Michael Mosley was so impressed with the results of his experience of HIIT that he wrote another book: Fast Exercise which explains the science behind HIIT and guides you through how to do it.
Let your body adapt to fasting first
While exercise and fasting are great companions, it would be wise not to exercise heavily on your first fast or two. Until you have tried fasting you won’t know how your body will react. If you find no problems with fasting without exercise, then go ahead and try working out when fasting.
Stand up and walk!
Walking is almost always a good idea. It is good for you, gets you outside and distracts you from food.
How much you stand up and walk about rather than sitting can have a major impact on your health and can also help weight loss.10 Scientists call all the standing up and moving around that you do that isn’t formal exercise ‘NEAT’ (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). Overall, NEAT contributes more to how much energy you use than formal exercise. So, if you can increase your NEAT levels you can lose weight faster, and research shows that people who are on their feet more are generally healthier than those who spend all day sitting.
If you don’t feel like doing formal exercise on a fast day, remember that NEAT could be a neat way of increasing the benefits of fasting.
Increasing NEAT on both fast and feast days is a great idea. One way to see how much NEAT you are getting is to use an activity tracker or pedometer. You can buy a tracker, such as the FitBit, or use a smartphone app, such as Moves. These devices monitor how many steps you take each day. A commonly used target is to try to achieve 10,000 steps per day. Our FastDay forum has an enthusiastic FitBit group who compete with each other to get to the top of the steps leaderboard.
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Scales
Scales are all the same, right? Wrong. The technology within a simple set of bathroom scales has developed hugely, so that not only can they now weigh you more accurately, but they can also calculate your heart rate and body fat, sync with your apps and even track the air quality inside your house. Check out our favourite scales below.
Withings Smart Body Analyzer
Price: £129.95
This set of scales really can do it all. The position control feature will help you properly position your body for accurate measurements, which can then automatically sync with over 100 apps (including MyFitnessPal, and RunKeeper). It will also record your heart rate and your body fat percentage, so you can use a variety of different metrics to track how your body changes as you get healthier with FastDay. Amazingly, it can also track the carbon dioxide concentration in your home, giving you an indication of how well ventilated your home is.
Withings scales also look great – their sleek, futuristic devices are more akin to Apple products than a set of bathroom scales. The only drawback is the high price tag – but at least you know at that price you are getting unbelievable quality.
The Eatsmart Precision scale can measure weight, body fat, muscle mass and water weight – although the latter 3 are mostly derived from algorithms which take in your weight, height, gender and age. They do also include the result of a very low electrical current which the scale generates between your feet, but that only ‘fine-tunes’ the algorithm.
Whilst the EatSmart Precision Scale does generate a lot of data, frustratingly it doesn’t automatically sync with either your computer or your phone – so you have to manually record the results. However, it is significantly cheaper than other smart scales.
Like other smart scales, the Omron can not only measure your weight, but also, through clever algorithms, your body fat, muscle mass, water weight body age and resting metabolism. Unlike other scales, the Omron Body Composition Monitor has a detachable LED screen, which makes entering data and reading results easy.
Annoyingly, the Omron doesn’t sync data with your computer or any fitness apps – although it does store results for 180 days so you can track your data without manually recording it. Aesthetically, it also lags behind the competition – although its detachable LED screen is neat, the connecting cable is bulky and is probably best hidden away.
If you’re a FitBit fan, this is the scale for you. This smart scale automatically syncs your weight, body fat percentage and a bunch of other cool metrics with your FitBit account. After the first set-up, it automatically syncs with your account after each time you weigh yourself and plugs your measurements in, so that you can see them on phone, tablet and computer.
Like other FitBit devices, its design is sleek and elegant. The only issue is that it isn’t yet compatible with other apps – but FitBit have made it open to developers so hopefully it should be able to sync with other apps soon!
Before embarking on your FastDay journey, we’d suggest that you do a ‘health audit’ through a simple blood test. These can help identify a range of different health issues, from cholesterol build-ups to key vitamin deficiencies. They can also be used to monitor your progress through fasting – as you lose weight and become healthier, then the results should be visible through your blood tests results (this is of course what Michael Mosley did in The Fast Diet!). If you want to learn more about this area, read our article on monitoring progress.
These tests have never been simpler. You can either go to a testing clinic in person or just send off your sample in the post. Your blood sample then gets sent off to a lab, which report back in approximately a week with a detailed report. Below we’ve reviewed some of the best-known firms that run tests. Most of them run hundreds of different tests, so where possible we’ve focused on their ‘standard’ blood test – however, if you want to test anything specifically then it’s worth exploring the other options. While it isn’t necessary, it is something we would consider for your peace of mind! It also can act as a great motivational tool, to try and improve your results before your next test. Below we review some of the biggest companies doing blood tests in the UK and in the US.
Medichecks.com
Location: UK
Cost: £82
Test: At home
Medicheck’s signature test is called the ‘Essential Blood Screen’, and reveals your blood glucose level, any mineral deficiencies, haematology profile, and cholesterol levels. They send you a ‘self-prick’ kit, for you to draw your own blood sample, which you then send off in the post to them. Results are normally available in email form 24 hours after they arrive at the lab. As part of the service after receiving your results you get a telephone consultation with a medical advisor to help you interpret them.
Medichecks website is easy to use, and they do a great job in explaining how their different tests work, and what you should expect from the results. This sample report clearly explains your results and highlights any issues. If you have any more questions, than the telephone consultation should help sort that out! Medichecks claims to be the UK’s leading provider of online blood tests, and it is easy to see why.
Location: UK Cost: £115 Test: In Spire Healthcare Hospitals (32 in the UK)
At Privatebloodtests, the standard test is called the ‘Comprehensive PLUS V Blood Test’, and checks your haematology profile, your cholesterol and blood glucose levels, and your kidney health. Medical professionals conduct all the tests, and if any of your results are abnormal then the report will come with a GP’s recommendation.
Privatebloodtests also carries out many other types of test, from fertility blood tests to tests for heavy metals, so if you need anything in particular its worth exploring their options. The only downside seems to be that you have to go their hospitals in person – they don’t offer a do-it-yourself version. Also, their website is slightly confusing, so probably best to do your research elsewhere!
Annoyingly, homebloodtests.co.uk don’t appear to have a ‘standard’ blood test. However, unlike some of the other websites we’ve reviewed, they do offer various different home swab, home urine and home stool tests – so if you have something very particular you want to test they may be the option for you!
Location: US
Cost: $99
Test: In associated clinics (over 3000 nationwide)
Directlabs.com has a variety of different standard tests to fit your need. Their comprehensive wellness profile covers blood, cholesterol, glucose levels and mineral deficiencies, while their gender-specific tests can check for any infertility or hormonal problems.
The main drawback of directlabs.com is that they don’t offer the option of drawing samples at home. Furthermore, in a small handful of states due to regulations they aren’t allowed to operate – so you may find that the nearest clinic is some ways away!
Healthchecksusa have gender-specific standard wellness tests, which as well as testing your blood, glucose, cholesterol and mineral levels also check for any hormonal or infertility problems. Furthermore, they can also run urine analysis tests for more specific issues.
Whilst some of healthcheckusa’s tests do come with a 60 minute telephone consultation, their standard tests do not, so if you do have any questions you will need to go to your local doctor. Also, like directlabs.com, they don’t offer tests at home.
Exercise trackers are the new must-have gadget for any keen runner or gym-lover. Although the exact features vary device-to-device, they can record your steps taken, level of high-intensity activity, calories burnt and your heart rate. We’d recommend them not only for the ‘gym bunnies’ but also for more casual exercisers – it’s a great motivating tool trying to hit your daily step target each day.
The most popular devices are reviewed individually below:
FitBit Flex
This classy wristband tracks your sleep, steps and general activity, all the while syncing flawlessly and automatically with your phone and FitBit account. Its silent alarm feature has also proven remarkably beneficial in many relationships; the band will just vibrate silently on your wrist, waking you up but leaving your partner to sleep on!
Despite only weighing 8 grams, the Withings pulse can measure your heart-rate, count your steps, calories burned, total elevation and record your distance covered. When you’re feeling less active, it can also track your sleeping patterns. Furthermore, the battery on average use lasts for two weeks, and even has a ‘power save’ feature where it continues tracking but with the screen turned off.
The app automatically syncs with Withings own-brand app, but if you are already using other apps such as MyFitnessPal, it’s easy to sync the data with those too. The one drawback is that the heart-rate monitor doesn’t feed continuous data – so if you want to track your heart rate over the course of a run, then this is not the exercise tracker for you. However, if you would like to record your sleep patterns, steps walked, distance covered and take your heart-rate before and after exercise then this app comes highly recommended.
The Polar H7 is a simple heart-rate monitor that can send live data to your phone through Bluetooth. It can easily sync with your phones, tablets and computers, and with a variety of different apps – including Polar’s own app, Polar Beat. It also has a very decent battery, lasting 7 days.
The one drawback to the Polar H7 is that it lacks other features. Similarly expensive products can also track your movement through GPS, record your total run distance and monitor your top speeds. However, if all you want is a heart-rate tracker, than the Polar H7 is a good, simple option, because of its high battery life and its ability to sync with all sorts of different apps.
As the name suggests, this little device fulfills all sorts of roles in one. It contains a heart rate monitor, stride sensor, digital coach and post-workout analysis through Adidas MiCoach. Mid-run, the pacer can update you on your progress either through speaking your stats aloud or through intuitive colour zones, which means no more fiddling around with your tracker mid-run. When back at home, the pacer can sync your results to adidas.com/micoach, where you can track your exertions.
However, syncing isn’t automatic, and while the adidas app is good, its frustrating that you don’t have more options. Finally, the battery only lasts for one day, which means that you need superhuman levels of organization to ensure that a run is never hindered by a dead tracker!
The Jawbone UP, unlike some of the other devices featured here, is designed to be worn 24/7, to give you a complete picture of your day. It can track your sleep, your movement, and, with the assistance of the partner app, track your food intake too. The battery also lasts for 10 days, so you don’t have to be charging it constantly.
However, there are major drawbacks with the Jawbone. Unlike other trackers, the Jawbone UP doesn’t have any LED screen – so if you don’t have your phone on you, there is no way of seeing any of the app data. Even more problematically, Jawbone UP appears to be trying to fulfill many different roles, but none of them well. Users have complained about the accuracy of the pedometer, the sleep monitor and the food database, as well as its durability after 6 months of use. For its price, the Jawbone UP does a huge amount of different things, but none of them flawlessly.
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Recommended Reading
Recipe books
What’s 5:2 without food? Even on fast days we still need to eat! These fantastic recipe books make fast days so much better.
The Fast Diet Recipe Book – Mimi Spencer
Mimi was co-author, with Michael Mosley, of the original Fast Diet book. This book is packed full of recipes, meal plans, and kitchen advice. The recipes are delicious and are accompanied by beautiful photos, as well as useful nutritional information.
As well as containing 85 recipes, Kate Harrison’s book also has brief sections on ‘How to 5:2’, as well as ‘5:2 Lives’ for when you need inspiration. However, if you are a fan of recipe books with lots of photos, then Kate’s book may not be for you.
Jacqueline’s book covers over 100 recipes, as well as multiple menu plans. The recipes are simple yet delicious. Our community tell us that Jacqueline’s recipes are among their favourites.
The 5:2 Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Fasting – Angela Dowden
Angela’s 100 recipes are neatly broken down into 100 calorie, 200 calorie and 300 calorie meals, as well as tons of great advice for healthy and low-calorie snacks.
This series of books covers a wide range of dietary requests; there are specific books for 5:2 family meals, for cooking for one, curries, vegetarian dishes and slow cooker recipes. If you are looking for a 5:2 recipe book with specific characteristics its worth checking out The Skinny 5:2 Diet Series.
Your 5:2 Diet Days Tasty Recipes for One – Lucy Lonsdale
This little recipe book recognises an essential fact – that often 5:2 meals are only for one! Rather than trying to scale down portions, this book gives plenty of wonderful recipes perfectly suited for one person.
The Fast Diet – Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer
The Fast Diet follows Michael Mosley’s investigation into intermittent fasting, as he goes around interviewing scientists and exploring the evidence behind the phenomenon. The book is easy to understand, even for readers with non-science backgrounds, and it also contains some sample meal plans to get you going. We’d recommend this book for newcomers to intermittent fasting, for providing a clear, balanced and authoritative opinion on the benefits of intermittent fasting.
The Every Other Day Diet – Dr. Krista Varady and Bill Gottlieb
Dr. Krista Varady headed the team that conducted the principal scientific research on intermittent fasting in humans, off the back of which she created The Every Other Day Diet. The book explores her studies, as well as coming with 40 pages of recipes. As one of the principal researchers, Varady is very well situated to discuss the benefits of intermittent fasting – if you’d like to explore the original science behind intermittent fasting then we’d recommend her book.
Brad Pilon discovered intermittent fasting as a way to lose fat and gain muscle. In Eat Stop Eat he recommends two 24-hour fasts a week as the best way to lose weight whilst building muscle – so if your goal includes building muscle through intermittent fasting then Eat Stop Eat might be the most informative source for this type of fasting.
The 8-Hour Diet – David Zinczenko and Peter Moore
Known best as the 16:8 diet, this diet book suggests restricting your daily calorie intake to 8-hour windows 3 days a week, which essentially just acts as an alternative take on intermittent fasting. If that sounds more up your street than calorie restriction over a 24-hour period, then this might be the book for you!
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Gifts
Do you have a gift to buy for someone who is a faster? A fasting buddy? Or your significant other?
We have collected some gift ideas we recommend for the faster in your life. (Don’t worry, we’re not going to suggest you buy them some weighing scales)
Coming soon: programs
FastDay will soon be launching programs. And they are going to make great gifts: something useful, interesting and enjoyable for a faster in your life.
Programs will be like doing a class at the gym, or like having a personal trainer – but all done virtually so they are much cheaper – and focused on fasting. Here are some examples:
LWNGF Lost Weight Now Get Fit. A program for people who have succeeded in losing weight and are now ready to move to the next stage of a healthier lifestyle by doing some exercise and getting fit.
40 beats 30. Be healthier & lighter in your 40s than you were in your 30s. A progam in which our coaches and experts help you make it happen. A great gift for a forty-something!
The Lab: a weight loss group for the scientifically inclined, led by a real expert on the science.
Stop Snoring. The perfect gift for Dad! A program to help him lose enough weight to get healthier and to stop that infernal snoring…
Learn healthy shopping and cooking: a program of classes to help you learn how to shop and cook in a healthier way. A great gift to help someone on their journey to a healthier and freer life.
Recipe books make great gifts. FastDay has compiled a great selection of recommended recipe books for fasters.
Exercise trackers
An exercise tracker makes a fantastic gift for someone who likes gizmos – especially if they enjoy exercise, or are thinking of exercising more. We are sorry if you end up having to listen ALL the time to your significant other talking about how many steps they have done today. Check out our recommended exercise trackers.
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Useful stuff for maintainers
Exercise
Many of our maintainers see exercise as the next step – now that they have successfully lost some weight.
We suggest registering an interest in our program, coming soon, called LWNGF: Lost Weight Now Get Fit. Register your interest (no commitment) FIXME
Many members of our community have taken up High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), as recommended by Dr Michael Mosley in his book Fast Exercise.
Invite your friends to do fasting with you, and support each other
Congratulations on being a maintainer! We hope to help you create a permanent Way of Eating for life.
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Useful Stuff when you are Getting Started
You may want to invest in some Useful Stuff to help you get started with fasting.
We are all different, so there is no single ‘starter kit’ that makes sense for people starting out with fasting. We recommend that you consider four investments to help you succeed:
Books, especially recipe books if they are your thing
Smart weighing scales to help you keep track of your progress
An exercise tracker, like a FitBit, to track how active you are, and help you understand the calories you burn
Blood tests to check to some key aspects of your health, and to act as the ‘before’ measure. You can test again after 3–6 months of fasting as the ‘after’ measure – and compare the differences.
Books
Many people start out by buying The Fast Diet, and who are we to argue? The book is an excellent introduction to intermittent fasting.
If you want more depth on ways of fasting, and, especially in the areas of science and nutrition, we recommend FastDay’s own Fasting section written by the excellent Caroline Rees. It’s incredibly useful (and free).
Many of us love cookery books, and there are now lots or recipe books available to help you cook for your fast days. Check out our definitive list of the best fast day recipe books.
Weighing scales
You will want to have a set of weighing scales. Even if you already have a basic set, its worth exploring the ‘smart-scales’ out there, which can sync automatically with your phone or computer, and record body metrics such as body fat percentage. Our favourite is the Withings Smart Body Analyzer, although it is pricey. A cheaper option is the EatSmart Precision GetFit Scale. Find out more about smart scales.
P.S. You should have a tape measure too to measure your waist, as your waist size is even more important for your health than your weight.
Exercise tracker
Exercise trackers are great, even for people who don’t exercise!
If you run, cycle, or work out you probably already use an exercise tracker, such as a FitBit, Nike Fuelband or Jawbone UP.
If you are not a keen exerciser, you should still consider getting one of these great little devices. Why? They allow you to track your heart rate, activity levels (are you doing your 10,000 steps of activity every day?) and monitor your sleep patterns.
Once you have been doing fasting for a few months, you may well wish you had done a blood test before you started! It is great to be able to look at a ‘before’ and ‘after’ blood test – and see how much difference fasting has made to some important health markers in your blood.
You might also find it valuable as a health check – testing blood glucose levels, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and other health markers.
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What is The Two-Day Diet?
The Two-Day Diet was developed from scientific studies1,2 conducted by UK researchers, Dr Michelle Harvie and Professor Anthony Howell at the Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, part of The University Hospital of South Manchester. Being overweight significantly increases a person’s risk of developing breast cancer and so Dr Harvie and Prof Howell spent years researching and developing a diet to help people not only lose weight easily but keep it off. The diet involves two consecutive semi-fasting days with a very low carbohydrate intake. However, unlike 5:2/The Fast Diet or Eat Stop Eat, the non-fast days require you to follow a Mediterranean diet. Dr Harvie and Prof Howell have published a book which guides you through choosing the right foods on fast days and non-fast days.
How do I do it?
Fast days: on two consecutive days a week eat a very low carbohydrate diet. There is no calorie counting but you must choose from a restricted list of low carbohydrate foods.
Non-fast days: eat a healthy Mediterranean diet, with a focus on vegetables, nuts and seeds and unsaturated fat.
FastDay says: the semi-fasting days actually work out at a ‘generous’ 1000 calories, which makes it sound easier, but it is more complicated to follow and involves dieting on the other 5 days as well. The scientific research did not use the exact same diet as is recommended in the book, and did not show such rapid weight loss as has been observed with the 5:2 diet, perhaps due to the higher calorie allowance on the semi-fasting days. However, the scientific studies behind the diet are interesting and suggest that the two consecutive days of very low carbohydrate intake may be more important than the fasting aspect in this diet.
The Every Other Day Diet is the name given to the ADF method of intermittent fasting recommended by Dr Krista Varady of the University of Illinois, USA. Dr Varady has undertaken several studies of the benefits of intermittent fasting for overweight subjects. The results from her studies encouraged her to create the Every Other Day Diet.
Dr Varady has published several scientific papers reporting on the effectiveness of ADF for weight loss and improvements of risk factors of cardiovascular disease.1
Fast days: every other day eat just 500 calories, preferably at lunchtime but you can choose what suits you best.
Non-fast days: eat whatever you like.
FastDay says: Less flexible than fasting for only 2 days a week and harder to plan ahead for social events as you need a diary to work out which days are fast days. Scientific studies show good results.
Forum member nursebean says: “ADF has given me the structure I needed and I am seeing marvellous results. I started doing Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) or Eating Every Other Day on the 18th January…I had gone up to 12 stone. Today, the 17th March I weigh 11 stone 4. I can see a pattern emerging and if I’m right, I should weigh 11:2 on Sunday (my weekly weigh-in this week) and then next Saturday remain the same. The following Sunday I should be 10:13! YES ADF is working for me…I LOVE ADF!!!”
What is the eating window method of intermittent fasting?
If you like a daily routine with no need to plan your life around your fast days, you might prefer fasting for a shorter time, but do so every day.
There are several fasting methods that use this idea. They each use the concept of an ‘eating window’ during which you can eat whatever and as much as you want. The rest of the day you fast with no or nearly no calorie intake. The eating window can be as short as 4 hours or as long as 10 hours, and of course this means that your daily fast may be as long as 20 hours or as short as 14 hours. The longer the eating window, the more calories you are likely to consume that day, so you can adjust your fasting time to get the results you want.
The best-known ‘fast every day’ approach is of course practiced by followers of Islam during the month of Ramadan. Every day for a month no food or drink is consumed during the hours of daylight, giving a daily fast of around 12 hours. There has been extensive scientific study of Ramadan fasting, which has shown that most people improve their health during the month and may well lose weight (though this depends largely on how much they indulge at the daily feast at sunset). Studies have also revealed no loss of performance among athletes practicing Ramadan fasting.
Forum member carorees says “I like an eating window because I don’t mind missing breakfast: it means I can sleep longer! It’s such an easy way to cut out a load of high carbohydrate calories and it stops me from snacking in the evening. I don’t have to count calories and I don’t have to plan a different evening meal from the rest of the family. If I want to speed up my weight loss I just shrink my eating window by eating lunch later.”
What is the Eat Stop Eat method of intermittent fasting?
Eat Stop Eat was created by Canadian, Brad Pilon, who discovered fasting as a way to improve body composition (that’s to say: lose fat and gain muscle) during his graduate research at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. In the course of his studies he discovered that a lot of his beliefs about what and when we should eat for health were, in fact, wrong. He set out to create a system “to help you lose fat and gain muscle as simply as possible.” It is very simple, but the speed of weight loss might be slower than with 5:2 (above) as there is no calorie restriction.
How do I do it?
Fast days: on one or two days a week (preferably not consecutive), take no calories for 24 hours. The 24 hours can start/end whenever you like (most people tend to start their fast after their evening meal and then fast through until the next day’s evening meal).
Non-fast days: eat whatever you like, in normal, sensible amounts. In fact, pretend the fast days haven’t even happened. There are no calorie restrictions on either fast days or non-fast days.
FastDay says: If you prefer to fast for 24 hours with no calories, then this is a very easy fasting method – no meal planning and no calorie counting. Weight loss is not guaranteed, but this could make it a good choice as a maintenance strategy, with fasting this way once or twice a week.
The 8-hour diet restricts eating to an 8-hour period with fasting for the remaining 16 hours (at FastDay we call this 16:8 fasting). The eating window can be whenever you like – perhaps 11am to 7pm or 1pm to 9pm. The authors of the 8-hour diet book, David Zinczenko and Peter Moore, claim that eating this way for as few as 3 days a week could be enough to trigger weight-loss. However, for most people, it needs to be done nearly every day, and for some an 8-hour eating window is too long, allowing too much eating for weight loss. If your daily calorie requirements are low (perhaps you have a very inactive life, or you are small and light), then a daily 8-hour eating window might not be enough for weight loss. Some people combine this way of eating with one or twice weekly longer fasts/low calorie days to boost weight loss.
How do I do it?
Fast days: restrict your eating to an 8-hour time period (most people simply skip breakfast and eat nothing after their evening meal). The number of fast days will be between 3 and 7 per week.
Non-fast days: eat whatever and whenever you like. The number of non-fast days will be between none and 4 each week.
FastDay says: easy for people who don’t like to eat breakfast. If you need to speed up weight loss (or slow it down) just change your eating window. Currently there is little scientific research specifically about the health benefits of this way of eating.
Forum member ballerina says: “I do 16:8 every day because it suits me so well. On Mondays I try and do a liquid only fast but if I get really hungry then I eat. The flexibility of IF is what makes it sustainable long term for me. I can’t bear to have to count calories, or points, or whatever. Not having breakfast and not snacking late into the evening is just so easy, why would I do something else?”
The Fast Diet (also known as The 5:2 Diet) means five days of normal eating and two days of semi-fasting. We say semi-fasting because even on fast days you are allowed 500 calories for women or 600 calories for men.
The Fast Diet was created in 2012 by UK television presenter, Dr Michael Mosley, who investigated fasting as a way to improve his own health and hopefully to lose weight too. He interviewed scientists around the world who are studying fasting and came up with a method he felt would be easy to follow and sustainable. We think he succeeded! Together with Mimi Spencer, Dr Mosley wrote The Fast Diet book which was published in early 2013 and remained top of the Amazon best seller list for most of the year. It has now sold more than a million copies worldwide.
Dr Mosley settled on fasting two days per week, even though this has not been the subject of scientific studies (most studies so far have used fasting every other day), because he felt it was easy to do, and was enough to give gradual weight loss. Above all, he felt this method of fasting would be sustainable. He could see himself being able to carry on this Way of Eating for the rest of his life. By contrast, some of the fasting methods used in scientific studies were, he felt, not sustainable in the long term. And he knew, of course, that any weight loss would be only temporary if the new Way of Eating could not be continued into the maintenance phase.
Fast days: on two days a week (preferably not consecutive days), eat just 500 calories if you’re a woman or 600 calories if you’re a man. You can divide up your calories into mini-meals or have just one meal – whatever suits you.
Non-fast days: eat whatever you like, in normal, sensible amounts.
FastDay says: It really is that simple! Although there are no rigorous scientific studies on 5:2 as yet, its sustainability and the fact that people who have tried it have lost weight and improved their health, makes it a great choice.
Forum member Sallyo says “I do 5:2 because I can. It’s straight forward and easy now that I have learned what 500 calories amounts to. Other days I enjoy food, eat whatever I like. I love food. On 5:2 I don’t feel deprived at all and I haven’t changed anything about how I eat except on 2 days a week. I am strict on those days and don’t enter any deals or negotiations with myself. It’s a fast day so it’s off the menu unless it’s in the plan.”
Leangains is another form of daily 16 hour fasting/ 8-hour eating window (16:8), invented by Swedish bodybuilder and personal trainer, Martin Berkhan in the mid-2000s as a way to lower body fat while building muscle. It is specifically tailored to fitness and strength training, and for those wanting to get as lean and strong as possible. Great emphasis is put on proper pre- and post-workout nutrition. There are also specific guidelines with regards to calorie cycling, food composition and meal timing. Thus, if you are interested in strength training and body composition, it is probably best to read up about Leangains on Martin’s comprehensive website.
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What is Fast-5?
Fast-5 was created by Dr Bert Herring while working at the National Institutes of Health in the USA and claims to mimic the eating schedule of ancient humans who ate without benefit of food storage or refrigeration. It is based on a 5-hour eating window (so at FastDay we call this 19:5 fasting), taken whenever you wish, but generally involves keeping to a normal-timed dinner combined with a late lunch (e.g. eating between 2pm and 7pm). Because of the very restricted eating window, most people should lose weight using this system, but the short eating window may make it harder to fit into daily life.
Fast days: restrict your eating to a 5-hour time period.
Non-fast days: eat whatever and whenever you like.
FastDay says: it is best to start with a longer eating window and cut down gradually until you get to 5 hours. Although the creator of the diet does not suggest any non-fast days, we think that fasting every day for long periods may be too stressful for the body. Scheduling some non-fast days may be wise.
Forum member barbarita says: “I started out on 5:2 because it was the first type of IF I encountered. I started it because of the health benefits but was pleased to lose weight also. From the beginning I didn’t bother with calories, eating nothing on the fast days and going by appetite on other days. When I came across Fast-5 I recognized I was really in tune with it. Eat nothing for 19 hours then eat as you please in the remaining five. No rules, no BMR, no TDEE no recipe books, no counting, no weighing (except me!). No books except a free e-book. Freedom from everything except the clock.”
The Warrior Diet created by Ori Hofmekler is essentially the same as Fast-5 but focuses on having just one large meal a day in the evening which is allowed to last for as long as 4 hours (i.e., 20:4 fasting). Like Leangains it is aimed at people wishing to do muscle building and hence also includes nutritional guidelines.
Be healthier. Lose weight. Eat the foods you love, most of the time.
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