In the next article I cover my own experience.
Interest over time
What is Intermittent fasting / Time restricted eating?
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feeding/eating window – time during, which you consume food
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postprandial state – time referring to after food has been consumed
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post-absorptive state – time after a meal has been eaten and ingested, usually 8-12h after the meal
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fasting/ fasted state – a period of time during which you voluntarily or involuntarily abstain from food, mostly used in religious practices like Ramadan.
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16:8
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20:4 also called a warrior diet
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OMAD (One Meal A Day)
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5:2 consisting of two non-consecutive days of low calories (500-600) and five days of higher calorie days
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Extended fasts lasting 24+hours
- Alternate Day fasting – alternating between 24h eating and 24h fast
Benefits of Intermittent Fasting and Time Restricted Feeding
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weight loss,
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stabilized blood sugar,
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reduced inflammation,
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improvements in memory and stress resistance,
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slowed aging, and longer lifespan,
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improved metabolic health,
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improved hormonal health,
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make better eating choices.
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be more productive,
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get more time that would otherwise be spent preparing food and eating,
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it can help you make better nutritional choices
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experience the real hunger,
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reveal problems like food addictions.
Potential negatives of Intermittent Time Restricted Eating
Just like any other restrictive dietary approach, there are potential downsides to time restricted eating:
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It can lead to chronically low energy intake,
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Malnourishment,
- Exacerberate disordered eating tendencies.
- Lower performance in athletes, once again due to low calorie intake
- Dogmatic adherence to fasting can mask other issues,
- Digestive issues if you cannot handle bigger meals,
- Hormonal disregulation, especially in women,
- Can lead to restriction -> binge eating cycle,
- Over long term can cause blood sugar issues in some people,
- It is not a ‘get out of jail free card’ – you should still eat nutritious foods.
Some of the changes in body induced by fasting
Insulin
- Physical activity helps with blunting insulin and blood glucose after meal.
- Eating protein, fiber, and fat before carbohydrates helps with blunting insulin and blood glucose after meal.
- An Intermittent Fasting Ddiet may provide a significant metabolic benefit by improving glycemic control and insulin resistance in general population. (source)
Growth Hormone
Inflammation
Metabolic Flexibility
I suppose the effects of caloric restriction, whether continuous or intermittent will lead to the same metabolic flexibility.
Cognitive functions
Is it fasting / time restricted eating or calorie restriction that drives fat loss?
“Intermittent fasting is an equivalent alternative to continuous energy restriction for weight loss.”
Some studies concluded that continuous energy restriction and intermittent energy restriction give similar results (source, source), but fat loss happens as a result of caloric deficit. (source).
Our results suggest that an intermittent fasting program in which all calories are consumed in an 8-h window each day, in conjunction with resistance training, could improve some health-related biomarkers, decrease fat mass, and maintain muscle mass in resistance-trained males.
Intermittent fasting / time restricted feeding and lifespan
Caloric restriction (CR) extends healthspan and lifespan in multiple organisms (Colman et al., 2009,Mattison et al., 2012).

Escobar, KA, Cole, NH, Mermier, CM, VanDusseldorp, TA. Autophagy and aging: Maintaining the proteome through exercise and caloric restriction. Aging Cell. 2019; 18:e12876. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.12876
Conclusion
To conclude, timerestricted eating strategies are viable options for weight loss, improvement of health markers, and prevention of several neurodegenerative illnesses.
More long-term studies on humans need to be made to come to viable conclusions, which could prove some of research to be at least partially wrong.
IF and PF, as well as TRF have emerged as potential strategies for avoiding major dietary changes while achieving strong effects not just for one diseases risk factor but for an array of factors that constitutes the foundation for metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and possibly neurodegenerative diseases. (source)
However, if time restricted eating works for your life style, it is a good tool to keep your energy balance in check and possibly reap other benefits as well. As we can see in the studies presented, if you are overweight, practicing IF can improve your metabolic health. If you are lean however, you will benefit from a sustainable eating pattern with more frequent feeding pattern.
There are many fasting protocols to choose from, so it is up to your preference if you choose to change your eating schedule. There might be also differences between genders that need more research. Generally, men seem to be less prone to negative effects of fasting.
There is much more to cover
There is much more to cover like how yo break your fast or if it matters what time of day you fast and for how long or fasted training.
I will cover these topics in future articles as well as provide my experience with fasting.