What is Intermittent Fasting?

I've been hearing a lot about "Intermittent Fasting" lately from various sources. Since I work in the fitness/health industry, I'd caught wind of it on some podcasts and had a few people in my specific company promoting it so I thought I would learn more.

I ended up stumbling across the BBC documentary East, Fast & Live. (Watch it here)
What attracted me to it was that I had been growing more and more frustrated with my own inability to give up certain foods or calorie count for long. Restricting these things only lasted a short while, then I would give up and overindulge. If you have had a lifelong addiction to food or have an emotional tie to eating, it can be hard to break.

What is it? Basically it's a period of fasting alternated with a period of eating. There are several different kinds but the main 3 are:

1. 5/2 or the Fast Diet - fast two non-consecutive days and eat 5 days normally each week
2. Fasting for most of the day then eating all of your calories in a set period of time ie 16/8 (fast for 16 hours, eat within 8 hours; some do 20/4 or even 22/2)
3. Alternate day fasting - alternate "down days" of 500 calories with days where you can eat what you want 

My husband and I are going to start with #3 because it will allow us freedom half of the days of the week. I think it will be easier to commit to the lower calorie days knowing that "tomorrow" we can have what we want.

So you may be wondering what's the point of practically starving every other day and going crazy the next, surely it will net out to be the same? Research has shown that on the Up Days of alternate day fasting, you only consume about 110% of your calories so over the week you can significantly decrease your total calorie consumption.  Plus during periods of fast, your body has used up the energy stores (glycogen) in your muscles so it has to tap into fat burning for energy.

Exercise isn't required but once we get the hang of it, we will incorporate.

And this isn't just about weight loss.  The research has shown great effect on disease and longevity with fasting.  If you think about it, our ancestors hunted and gathered and ate exactly this way. They only ate when they killed something and then would go long periods without food.  And if it weren't for animals who hunted them and lack of shelter, they would have lived much longer lives than we do today.

Stay tuned for updates on our adventure! We are going to try the various kinds of fasting to see what works for us. But long term, some form of this seems to make the most sense for us.