‘Alternate Day Fasting’ Is Just As Beneficial For Weight Loss As Going Low-Cal

While research has shown time and time again that low calorie diets work, it’s not a weight-loss approach that experts recommend sticking to long-term. Enter, alternate day fasting: a form of intermittent fasting that involves eating nothing one day and then whatever the person wants the next. The best part? It achieves the same health benefits but is a lot more manageable.

In a paper published in the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers presented the results of a clinical trial that involved 30 non-obese volunteers who practised the eating regime (known as ADF) for at least six months. Their ‘fast’ days lasted for 36 hours and saw them completely abstain from food, while their ‘feast’ days only lasted for 12 hours. During this time, they could chow down on anything that took their fancy, including pizza and cake.

After just four weeks, they found that ADF had lead to reduced the calorie intake, body mass index and improved the torso fat composition in all participants.

“Here, we show in a clinical trial that a related intervention, alternate day fasting, also leads to striking reduction in overall calorie intake over the course of the study but is more easily tolerated than continuous CR and provokes similar beneficial changes on the cardiovascular system and on body composition while being safe for a period of >6 months,” the study’s authors noted.

“We also found positive alterations in cardiovascular disease risk factors and in fat mass after only 4 weeks of ADF. In the future, this practice, which is already growing in use as a lifestyle intervention, could eventually accommodate modern healthcare in various settings.”

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