By You can change your life and health by following this lifestyle strategy
I am very passionate about weight loss and leading a healthy lifestyle. I went towards a healthier life for years — when I didn’t even need to. But alas, I’m on the other side now, encouraging and educating how important it is to take charge of your nutrition quality and the type of exercise you do regularly. After many years of unsuccessful attempts, being somewhat of a yoyo dieter, I have found the most suitable way to stay lean and healthy and achieve my weight training goals. The method I will discuss was mentioned in a study that caught my eye. Maybe you suffer from obesity or are more overweight than you would like. Perhaps after trying many diets, you finally gave up hope in the fight against weight gain. Whilst I looked around for a better solution, one thing I needed was something I could integrate into my lifestyle that changed my body shape and provided me with better health. At the time, I suffered from many gut issues that disrupted my life quality. I would look at the short-term gains in the past, which perhaps was why I failed so much. Strategies for weight loss and longevity require a certain kind of process involving the body, mind and spirit as a holistic being. Cutting calories was not sustainable; neither was leading a lifestyle as a bodybuilder. I needed something more straightforward — and fast. The following research at the University of Adelaide shows that obese women lost more weight and improved their health through intermittent fasting. A strictly controlled diet was also in place, which increased their chances of success. Any strategy should include some strict eating during a particular timeframe. This particular study contained 88 women over ten weeks. “Continuously restricting their diet is the main way obese women try to tackle their weight.” So says Dr Amy Hutchison, who lead this study. Studies show that long-term adherence to a restricted diet is challenging for many people, so this study looked at intermittent fasting on weight loss. Obese women who followed a diet in which they ate 70% of required energy intake while intermittently fasting lost the most weight.
Other women in this study did the following:
- Fasted intermittently without reducing food intake
- Reduced their food intake but did not fast
- They did not restrict their diet at all.
All of these situations left women unsuccessful with weight loss. This study also checked the effects different diets had on women’s health. Women who restricted their eating and fasted intermittently improved their health more than those who only changed their eating or fasted intermittently. This study has proven that restricted eating while intermittent fasting improves your health, significantly reduces weight, and decreases your markers for heart disease. Participants who fasted intermittently ate breakfast and then stopped eating for 24 hours into the following day. Then, they spent 24 hours eating. The next day after a full day of eating, they began their fasting regime again. Participant’s who succeeded the most lost 0.5–1kg per week for each week during the study! What a profound change that is to regular diets! While this study sheds light on how beneficial intermittent fasting is, rather than your conventional food-restricted plan, the underlying signal for limiting people’s appetite is the key to long and short-term weight loss. Although further research is needed to prove this, I can say from my experience that fasting has lowered my appetite naturally, without much effort. Studies are underway on how effective long-term fasting is for both men and women. So stay tuned for that one, as I will post something on this.
Key takeaways
Research shows that fasting for 24 hours every second day and eating 70% of your required energy is the key to losing roughly 1kg per week. You can quickly achieve this high weight loss level while decreasing susceptibility to disease. Although I have not kept tabs on my weight while fasting, I like to restrict my dinner every night, which works best for my lifestyle. 24-hour fasts seem like a very realistic goal, given that you can spend the next day eating regular meals (although restricted in a sense). Perhaps you could apply these findings to your life, lose weight, and return to health. Please view the research paper here in more detail.
If you would like some help with Intermittent fasting, download this app for meal options, exercise plans, and fasting prompts. I’m affiliated with them and LOVE this app.????
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