Intermittent Fasting (IF) is fast becoming one of the biggest trends within the health community but it is not a new thing. Humans have been fasting for thousands of years. Some religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism have some form of fasting included. Sometimes it is done out of necessity when there is no food available, for example.
IF is done, as its name implies, intermittently; this means you stop eating for a certain amount of time. It is important to remember that IF is not a pattern of diet but a pattern of eating. There is no calorie counting or changes to your food intake. Instead, you simply change when you eat.
Scheduling your meals is easy as we already “fast” every day when we sleep; we simply extend that fasting period longer than the time we sleep. You do not skip meals at all; you simply rearrange them.
IF doesn’t mean that you do not consume any water during fasting time either. You are allowed to drink tea, coffee and other non-caloric beverages on top of water during your fasting period.
There are many methods of IF that can be done with the most popular being the 16/8 method. This means you fast for 16 hours and eat for 8 hours. Read more about Intermittent Fasting methods here.