{"id":69057,"date":"2022-06-11T06:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-11T10:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=69057"},"modified":"2022-06-22T09:43:46","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T13:43:46","slug":"how-to-lose-weight-intermittent-fasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-lose-weight-intermittent-fasting\/","title":{"rendered":"Intermittent Fasting: How to Lose Weight Naturally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you tried dieting for weight loss but found that the excess weight always comes back? Are there weight loss methods that work long-term?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dieting for weight loss rarely works in the long term. When the diet is over, many people find that the weight comes back. Some people even pack on more excess weight than they had before the diet. If this sounds like you, it’s time to leave a dieter\u2019s mindset and instead adopt an intermittent fasting (IF) mindset.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how to lose weight with intermittent fasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Overcome Dieting Confusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In his book Fast. Feast. Repeat.,<\/em> Stephens explains that <\/strong>decades of contradictory advice about how and what to eat has created immense confusion, a tangle that she calls \u201cdiet brain\u201d: When you no longer have any clue how to eat \u201cproperly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNutritionism\u201d and Diet Confusion<\/strong>

In In Defense of Food<\/em><\/a>, Michael Pollan argues that when Americans began looking to medical experts to guide how we eat, we lost touch with tradition that once guided us to eat well. Pollan explains that the doctrine of \u201cnutritionism,\u201d<\/a> or looking for the magic nutrient-based solution to health problems, produced conflicting views about what is healthy. 

This is because such research focuses on nutrients rather than the whole-food contexts in which they exist. Because studies have concluded that certain nutrients are problematic instead of certain foods, we\u2019ve had trends such as the low-fat era, the anti-cholesterol era, the anti-carb era, and so on\u2014and oddities like low-fat ice cream.

Pollan stresses that so long as we remain confused about diets and nutrition, we\u2019ll struggle to reclaim our health and to change our lifestyles for the better. To change this, his rule of thumb is to eat real, mostly plant-based food in moderation<\/a> and to listen to your body<\/a> to know when you\u2019re full.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Recent research suggests that there\u2019s no such thing as a universally optimal diet. Instead, different individuals seem to respond differently to the same foods<\/strong>. This is called \u201cbio-individuality.\u201d For instance, you might do well with whole wheat bread while a friend doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephens explains that this gives us good reason to stop thinking about dieting as a moral issue. As she explains, dieting causes you to think in terms of \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d behavior, and we\u2019ve learned to punish ourselves for being \u201cweak,\u201d if we fail at dieting. But since there\u2019s no universally perfect diet, there\u2019s nothing to fail at. You\u2019re simply learning how your body works, and you can stop worrying about whether you\u2019re \u201cfalling off\u201d the diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: The idea of bio-individuality originates from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition<\/a>, a for-profit organization that teaches a course in \u201cHealth Coaching\u201d and advocates for bio-individuality. In the update we\u2019ve linked, the IIN explains that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun to study the value of precise, individualized health plans<\/a>\u2014lending credibility to the concept. They also note that the studies used to produce the standard blanket diet recommendations\u2014such as the food pyramid\u2014used only 3% of participants from African or Hispanic ancestry<\/a>.)   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn to Eat Intuitively<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since there\u2019s no perfect diet, Stephens says we can stop worrying about the conflicting diet advice. Instead, learn to intuitively regulate your eating by getting back in touch with your body\u2019s natural appetite signals<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghrelin signals when we\u2019re hungry, and leptin signals when we\u2019re satisfied. As infants, we can easily sense these signals and know when we\u2019re hungry or full. But we lose touch with them as we age, making it easy to overeat and gain weight. According to Stephens, intermittent fasting helps you tune back into your appetite signals. When you\u2019ve tuned back in, you can use those natural signals to eat what feels best to you and to \u201cstop when satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: The notion of \u201cintuitive eating\u201d originates from a 1982 book called Diets Don\u2019t Work<\/em><\/a> by Bob Schwartz. He advocated, simply, to eat only when you\u2019re hungry, to eat slowly, and to stop eating when you\u2019re full. The idea was popularized in 1995 in Intuitive Eating<\/em><\/a> by Evelyn Trible and Elyse Resch, who detailed how to overcome the \u201cdieter\u2019s dilemma\u201d\u2014the conflicting desires to be thin and to binge on treats\u2014by rejecting the \u201cdiet mentality.\u201d Given the similarity of these terms to Stephens\u2019s (\u201cdiet brain\u201d), it\u2019s likely she lifted her ideas from this earlier work.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When tuning back in, it takes time for your appetite signals to reset. To help get you there, Stephens offers the following tactics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n