Intermittent fasting is not just eating less

Intermittent fasting is not just eating less. Nowadays it seems that many people live to eat and this attitude has led to the worldwide epidemic of obesity and its related pathologies. For this reason and given the difficulties in losing weight, there is also an opposite orientation which is not to eat, to fast.

Fasting has existed in all traditions, as a form of spiritual improvement through an ironclad method of physical discipline. But now it is used as a means to lose weight and avoid illness. Intermittent fasting consists of reducing food intake to 2 or 1 per day and increasing the hours without eating. This translates into forms of fasting called 16/8, 12/12, 20/4….

It can also be done every day of the week or alternate days or on weekends. The most frequent is the one that consists of having dinner at 20/21h and not eating until 14h of the following day, which would be like the well-known 16/8. What is eaten at mealtime varies but it is usually fruits, vegetables, meat, legumes and always with plenty of water.

The slimming depends on the time and how it is done, because it is based on burning fat reserves and producing ketosis. This is a very good source of energy but it takes 2-5 days to start producing it and it is quite irregular, so people eat in the non-fasting periods and food cravings do not disappear in many occasions.

In addition, there is a lack of micronutrients (vitamins, salts, minerals…) and there is usually no medical control. It is also necessary to consider the current way of life with continuous stress and conditions very different from the “spiritual fasts” typical of other cultures.