An eating pattern that involves periods of normal eating and food restriction, intermittent fasting could increase your lifespan, reduce your risk of disease, and help you lose weight.

According to some experts, this eating pattern also offers beneficial effects on metabolism, which makes it a healthier way to achieve weight loss compared to the standard calorie restriction.

Intermittent Fasting Helps You Lose Weight

For some people, intermittent fasting is a simple, effective way to lose weight. What’s more, it is also easy to stick to.

This eating pattern has been shown in studies to be just as effective as traditional calorie restriction when it comes to weight loss.

Moreover, it has also been concluded in a recent review to be a better approach to weight loss in overweight and obese people than very low-calorie diets.

In fact, it has been found in a 2014 review to help people lose a notable 3–8% of their body weight in a 3- to 24-week period.

In addition, it may also benefit your metabolic health and metabolism.

There are a few different forms of intermittent fasting. Some people practice the 16/8 intermittent fasting, the 5:2 diet, or alternate-day fasting.

Intermittent Fasting Increases Several Hormones Involved in Fat Burning

Hormones are chemical substances that travel to the other parts of the body to coordinate complex functions, including metabolism, fertility, and growth.

These chemicals play a key role when it comes to weight regulation as they have a strong influence on your appetite, how much fat you store or burn, and the number of calories you eat.

Intermittent fasting may help improve the balance of some hormones involved in fat burning, and this could make it an effective tool for weight loss.

Insulin

Insulin plays an important role in fat metabolism.  It stops your body from breaking fat down and also tells your body to store fat.

Chronic high insulin levels makes it difficult to lose weight. Plus, high levels of insulin have also been linked to diseases like cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

Studies have shown that this eating pattern is just as effective as calorie-restricted diets when it comes to lowering levels of insulin.

Norepinephrine

A stress hormone that improves attention and alertness, norepinephrine is involved in the “fight or flight” response.

This hormone has several effects on your body, such as telling the fat cells in your body to release fatty acids. It also helps break down fat.

Increased norepinephrine levels in the body can stimulate the release of fatty acids from fat cells for burning as fuel, thereby enhancing the overall rate of fat loss.

Fasting increases the amount of norepinephrine in your bloodstream.

Human Growth Hormone

Human growth hormone promotes fat loss, and fasting has been shown to increase blood levels of human growth hormone.

In fact, levels of human growth hormone in men have been shown in some studies to increase by as much as five-fold while fasting.  The same effect has not been shown in women though.

On top of promoting fat burning, increases in blood levels of human growth hormone also preserve muscle mass and provide several other benefits.

Short-Term Fasts Can Cause High Metabolism

Skipping meals is believed to cause your body to adapt in order to save energy by lowering its metabolic rate.

It is well established that long-term fasts may cause slow metabolism. However, short-term fasts have been shown in studies to actually increase metabolism—not slow down.

In fact, a 3-day fast has been found in one study in 11 healthy men to increase participants’ metabolism by 14%.

The effect is partly due to the increase in the hormone norepinephrine, which is beneficial for fat burning.

Intermittent Fasting Reduces Metabolism Less Compared to Continuous Calorie Restriction

As you experience weight loss, your metabolic rate drops. This is partly due to the fact that losing weight leads to muscle loss. However, it can’t always be explained by muscle mass loss alone.

Severe, long-term calorie restriction can cause a drop in your metabolic rate, as your body enters adaptive thermogenesis or the so-called starvation mode. Your body does this to maintain energy balance and prevent starvation.

Starvation mode partly explains why many people who lose weight end up experiencing weight regain.

Since intermittent fasting has short-term effects on hormones, it can possibly reduce the drop in metabolic rate that stemmed from long-term calorie restriction.

In fact, losing weight on an alternate-day fasting has been shown in one small study to not reduce metabolism over 22 days.

However, quality research examining the long-term effects of intermittent fasting on metabolic rate is necessary before making any recommendations.

Conclusion

Intermittent fasting can be safe and effective for most healthy individuals.  It may even improve one’s health.

Although encouraging findings were observed in some research, intermittent fasting’s effects on metabolism are still being studied.

Short-term fasts have been suggested in early research to improve metabolism as much as 14%. In addition, multiple studies suggest that intermittent fasting does not reduce much of your muscle mass. If such is the case, then this eating pattern has several important weight loss advantages compared to diets based on continuous calorie restriction.

In the end, intermittent fasting can be beneficial for many people wanting to lose weight. But always keep in mind that long-term, healthy weight loss stems from a sustainable, healthy intake, so make sure to choose an eating plan that suits well for your personal and health needs.