Intermittent fasting: does it work for weight loss? Despite studies, many of them done on guinea pigs, that explain why intermittent fasting leads to weight loss (improvement in insulin sensitivity and other metabolic parameters), many people believe that by doing intermittent fasting they can lose weight by eating what they eat. they want while they are not fasting. In reality, intermittent fasting works for two reasons, but they always lead to the same result, namely:
– you eat less, so you get fewer calories every day and you lose weight.
This happens in two ways:
–  by reducing the time you eat.If we fast for 16 hours, it means we only have 8 hours to eat. And without a doubt we can’t eat continuously for that amount of time, so this means that in eight hours we will in all likelihood be able to have two meals and at most one snack. Against the three meals and the two or three snacks that maybe we usually do.
– satisfying ourselves with less food in general:when we abstain from eating, the body uses fat as its main energy source instead of carbohydrates. This generally, after the body gets used to it, allows us not to feel hunger pangs during the fasting window, but also to fill up more easily when we finally eat. At first we will want to go hungry for food, but as the body gets used to it, the portions consumed when we can eat also tend to be reduced.

Aside from that, intermittent fasting itself doesn’t make you lose weight. For example, if we eat only once a day, but eat 5,000 calories, we will not lose weight. Beyond the advantages I have described to you, there is no magical mechanism that makes us lose weight with intermittent fasting : I repeat, in fact we tend to eat less. Nor does fasting accelerate metabolism the way we think, turning us into fat burning machines that can then afford to eat anything. Also because at some point the body will get used to the new regime.There are actual improvements in metabolic parameters, so this helps, but certainly in the time window in which eating is allowed we cannot stick a birthday cake between two pizza daisies believing that we will lose weight anyway.
And best of all: for many it can be a stressful practice, and it goes without saying that not everyone will benefit from it.
But if we want to try, here’s an easy way to do intermittent fasting.