[INTERMITTENT FASTING 101]

One of the most popular recent trends in nutrition is definitely intermittent fasting ⏱. This comes down to eating only for a limited time period during the day and fasting for quite a long time after that. Some forms even extend this to not eating for a day, followed by a few days of normal eating. The pattern is clear: prolonged periods of no caloric intake. (note that it does NOT say you should lower total caloric intake per se, but only limit the number of hours you get them in)
Intermittent fasting has been shown to have positive effects 📈on triglyceride levels, cholesterol, blood pressure, hormone levels and overall weight, although the number of available studies so far is very limited (and the number of long term studies is even lower).

I have been doing 8/16 (8 hours of eating and 16 of non eating) intermittent fasting now for probably around half a year and after some initial hard days, I must say I’m happy I made the switch. The biggest benefit for me is the mental freedom it gives you in your non-eating periods. You don’t even have to think about eating. I was surprised about how easily I wanted to grab something to nibble (and that was usually not the healthiest thing). Snacking was more programmed in my system than I ever thought. By doing intermittent fasting, those opportunities were severely limited. 🍕🌭🍰
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I would recommend this for people who want to lose weight, for the simple reason that the number of hours where you will be allowed to eat are just so much smaller, which will often times result in less calories in and weight loss as a result.