Intermittent Fasting: A Weight Loss Panacea or a Hyped Tool?

Anyone even moderately well-known on social media who talks about "health," nutrition, sports, or lifestyle is going to have a tremendous amplifying effect, while science is constantly being reviewed . Social media promotes messages with absolute clarity and without hesitation. Furthermore, if the message is communicated in sportswear—a short top and tight leggings for women, or shirtless for men—it conveys a double message: "If you want this body, do what I do." The staging, obviously, is not innocent.

This has led to intermittent fasting gaining popularity, but let's analyze this nutritional strategy. Fasting isn't so much a quantitative or qualitative strategy; it simply establishes periods of fasting with other periods of intake. During the periods when you don't eat , you don't eat anything other than infusions, coffee, or water (including sparkling water). In other words, you can't consume anything high in calories. Therefore, if you've seen posts claiming that having coffee with butter doesn't break your fast, the reality is that it does, and honestly, I think it can also take away your will to live when you start the day like that.

The fasting strategy is based on at least eight hours between the last and first meals of the day, and sixteen hours of fasting. There are two types of fasting, to put it simply: one is skipping dinner, and the other is skipping breakfast. It is recommended that meals include foods of good nutritional quality.

You can do it every day of the week or alternate days, but it's best to do it on busy days to avoid thinking about food. You can do low- or moderate-intensity exercise; however, if you're training at a high intensity, it's best to time it around mealtimes.

Fasting is based on the oxidation of fats during periods of ingestion. In the first few hours, the body uses glycogen from liver stores, and in the following hours, it uses stored fat to generate energy. Intermittent fasting reports improvements in melatonin and cortisol levels, body temperature, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and lipid profile, increasing HDL levels (sometimes called"good cholesterol ") and decreasing LDL levels (also called " bad cholesterol" ). The fact that it produces these benefits has led to its sale as a tool for the treatment of metabolic diseases, the improvement and prevention of cardiovascular disorders, and the treatment and improvement of cancer and its side effects. However, the fact that a tool can generate these benefits does not mean it is suitable for everyone, nor does it mean that everyone has to adhere to a practice that can generate a lot of anxiety around food.

Fasting has been marketed as a much more effective weight-loss strategy than a conventional low-calorie diet. It's supposed to help you lose more than a kilo over the long term compared to a low-calorie diet.

For people who have a negative relationship with food—that is, those who think about it a lot throughout the day and/or feel guilty about eating certain foods— fasting would be completely contraindicated . This practice will cause a lot of anxiety during the fasting hours, and will likely lead to a feeling of overeating or binge eating when it's time to eat. If you have an eating disorder, or have suffered from one in the past, it's a dangerous practice, as it reinstates dietary norms with food deprivation . Ultimately, intermittent fasting proposes a very severe time restriction, and the restriction will always have an impact on your life if imposed. It would also not be suitable for diabetics or pregnant women.

Nutrimedia , a project of the Ibero-American Cochrane Center and the Scientific Community Observatory at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, ​​has examined the veracity of hundreds of messages about fasting. Led by researcher David Rigau, it appears that weight loss is due more to simply reducing the time of day: this implies lower calorie consumption, since one of the main meals is not eaten, nor is any type of snack mid-morning or afternoon. Furthermore, if the fasting meals are eaten between 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., the effect may be slightly greater compared to the fasting model that includes dinner.

The four systematic reviews of clinical trials analyzed indicate that it is not yet possible to confirm that intermittent fasting has any benefits for myocardial infarction, stroke, and other cardiovascular events. This is what the science says, no matter how many people say Mass at the main altar on social media.

In my years of consulting—which are quite a few, going on 15—the people who can fast without any negative consequences on their relationship with food are those who already do it naturally, without knowing it. For example, people who wake up with a closed stomach and are unable to eat anything until lunchtime, or those whose workday is at night and go to work having eaten lunch as their last meal of the day. It can also be an option for those who eat late and get up quite early, so they go to bed early, without dinner, to rest well. For them, fasting is the natural way to eat.

When I see on social media the question of whether eating a certain food breaks the fast, I ask myself: Does living break the fast?

NOURISH WITH SCIENCE This is a section on nutrition based on scientific evidence and the knowledge verified by specialists. Eating is much more than a pleasure and a necessity: diet and eating habits are currently the public health factor that can most help us prevent numerous diseases, from many types of cancer to diabetes. A team of dietitians and nutritionists will help us better understand the importance of nutrition and, thanks to science, debunk the myths that lead us to eat poorly.