Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss Tips

I started intermittent fasting last year around the holidays and I wanted to share some tips about how to use intermittent fasting to accelerate your weight loss efforts.

First, a little background: I started fasting for a few reason:

• I wanted to eat more foods that are typically off limits on most diets.
• I wanted a break from calorie counting and measuring my foods...and just being all around anal with my diet.
• I wanted to enjoy going out and going to parties with friends and family around the holidays.

My history with intermittent fasting

Over the past few years I have carefully watched what I eat...In fact, you might say I was a little anal about it. I would weigh and measure foods, plan my meals, and track my calories...It worked, but quite truthfully, it takes a great deal of time to do all of this.

I've got a job, I occasionally travel for work, and I have family responsibilities, as well. All of this makes sticking to my diet a real bear. After all, you can't weight and count calories at a client lunch, in an airport, or at a party. That's one of the reasons why I hit a sticking point with my diet. I sat at 21% bodyfat for several months, despite all of my efforts. At times I would show progress and lose some fat. But then life would get in the way and I would be right back to where I was.

Circumstances were really causing me to have problems reaching my goal weight. What I needed was added flexibility to accomodate my life, rather than force my life to accomodate my diet. That's where intermittent fasting came in. By using strategic fasts I had additional flexibility to accomdate my lifestyle, my schedule, and my social life.

In fact, with proper timing of intermittent fasting, I could lose weight no matter how busy my schedule became. And, I saved a tremedous amount of time...I didn't have to plan any meals, I didn't have to prepare any meals, and I didn't need to constantly worry about my eating.

And, what was really great was that I could induldge quite a bit. I ate pizza, burgers, high fat foods. As long as I timed it right, I could eat stuff I never should be able to eat while dieting.

In the first month, I lost about 2 lbs. Which may not sound great, but I stopped exercising and had numerous holiday parties where I drank and ate - quite liberally...Realistically, I should have gained 5-10 pounds during that time...But I lost weight.

The next month I worked out a litte bit more...Suprisingly, I lost about 2 lbs, but it was mostly body fat. I got down to 18% bodyfat, which means I added a couple of pounds of muscle while losing fat. I would definitely not have expected to add muscle while doing any kind of fast.

Tips for losing weight while intermittent fasting:

1. Start slow. Try a 12 hour fast to begin with and then stretch it a little more each time.
2. Drink plenty of water. Thirst leads to hunger and that can be a problem, if you want to maintain your fast. Plus, it makes you feel better.
3. Fast on non-workout days. When you workout, you'll need more calories to recuperate. And, you'll be hungry post workout as your body craves food to replenish what its lost.
4. Fast after your pig out days. A good way to balance out your high calorie days is to follow the next day with a fast.
5. Have high calorie days periodically. Continued fasting combined with a low cal diet is not optimal. Refeeding will keep your body guessing and you will see better results.
6. High GI carbs make fasting more difficult. After eating high GI carbs your body will crave more carbs to compensate for the rapid crash in glucose. This will make you feel more hungry and can make a fast more painful.
7. Drinking alcohol makes fasting more difficult. You'll have more food cravings and it intensifies any feelings of hunger.

Intermittent fasting can be a very useful tool for losing weight. Do it in moderation and at appropriate times, and you will see some very rapid results.