Intermittent fasting is not a diet, it's a pattern of eating which involves cycling periods of fasting and regular meals. It is not mandatory on keto, but it can significantly improve your results and help you get into ketosis.
Before you start intermittent fasting, be sure to consult a doctor, especially if you have bowel diseases. Most people can successfully and safely practice intermittent fasting. But there are those who should avoid it or do it under the supervision of an experienced clinician: pregnant and breastfeeding women, women trying to get pregnant, kids, people who are underweight or malnourished, anyone with a history of eating disorders, and those who are taking medications that lower blood sugar.
The most common types of intermittent fasting are:
16:8. This is by far the most popular fasting method. It involves fasting for 16 hours each day and eating in 8 hours. For example, you eat between noon and 8 pm. There are many other variations of this such as 14:10, 18:6, and 20:4.
One Meal A Day (OMAD). As the name implies, you eat only one meal per day with no snacking.
Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF). In this method, you fast every other day but eat normally on your non-fasting days. There are several versions of this plan, some of them allow you 500-600 calories on the fasting days.
5:2. You eat as usual for five days per week and fast or eat very low calories (around 500 calories) two days a week. The two days do not have to be consecutive.
Eat-stop-eat. It’s based on fasting for 24 hours once or twice per week. You eat as usual for the rest of the time, which means proper execution reduces total weekly calorie intake by about 14% to 29%, something that supports weight loss.
We recommend starting small by introducing intermittent fasting into your life. To begin with, stick to 14:10 three days a week. As soon as it gets easier, you can try to increase the fasting period and/or increase the number of fasting days per week.
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