Ashley Rowen
2. Intermittent Fasting Helps You Lose Actual Fat, Unlike Most Diets
When someone says they want to lose weight, they actually mean they want to lose body fat.
Ideally you don’t want to lose muscle mass, nor do you want to lose much water (such as when you first cut carbs or if you do a detox). This type of weight loss does not reduce fat stores and serves no good purpose.
Research indicates that fasting helps you lose more fat mass and less muscle mass or water weight than very low calorie diets or weight loss cleanses and detoxes.
This review study found that intermittent fasting helped people cut 4-7% from their waist circumference over a period of 24 weeks. That means they lost actual belly fat, which is the harmful fat around the organs.
These findings are in line with a more recent review study that looked at all the current evidence.
The researchers found that compared to following a very low calorie diet (800 calories or less) a type of intermittent fasting called alternate day fasting caused an average of 8.4 lb (3.8 kg) extra fat loss.
Summary: When you lose weight, you want it to come from fat stores and not muscle or water. Research indicates that intermittent fasting causes more fat loss than a very low calorie diet.
