Intermittent Fasting: Not So Fast

By Amy Campbell I'm sure that at least a few of you have heard or read about the latest trend in weight loss called "intermittent fasting." The very word "fasting" is probably less than appealing, as it pretty much means you don't eat or drink anything (except perhaps water) for a specified amount of time. Starvation is not exactly recommended among health professionals. But intermittent fasting is different. Is it something you should try? What is intermittent fasting, anyway? Intermittent fasting has been the talk of the town, so to speak, thanks to two recent books to hit the market: The Fast Diet by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, and The Overnight Diet by Caroline Apovian, MD. Intermittent fasting essentially means that you skip a meal or severely restrict calories on certain days of the week with the intention of losing weight, controlling blood glucose, and/or decreasing heart disease risk. But on the other days of the week, you can pretty much eat what you want (within reason, of course). For many people, this concept sounds appealing. Limiting calories for a couple days a week doesn't sound that bad if you can eat what you want the rest of the time. The Fast Diet, also called the The 5:2 Diet has you eat between 500 and 600 calories (women get 500 calories, men get 600 calories) for two days out of the week, spread over two meals of about 250 to 300 calories. These fast days should not be right in a row, and your food choices ideally should be more plant-based a...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs