Intermittent Fasting For Dummies. Janet Bond Brill

Introduction

      Congratulations, you’ve come to the right place if you want to lose weight and body fat, get more fit, and improve your health! Fasting has been used throughout history to promote weight loss and increase longevity. Intermittent fasting, currently one of the world’s most popular health and fitness trends, is a newer style of fasting that has gained considerable recognition in recent years, because many people find these regimens easier to follow than traditional, highly restrictive, calorie-counting diets. It’s an uncomplicated concept, which makes it simple to follow without the deprivation associated with other diets. Translation: Intermittent fasting equals freedom! Intermittent fasting is not a diet in the conventional sense, but rather an eating pattern — a timed approach to eating.

      That’s why intermittent fasting has generated such a positive buzz — anecdotes of its effectiveness have proliferated around the globe. With intermittent fasting having become the go-to lifestyle, as a lifestyle research doctor, I needed to understand the science. So, I read the data and discovered a mountain of rock-solid scientific evidence showing that intermittent fasting, when combined with a healthy diet and lifestyle, is a remarkably effective approach for losing body fat, especially stubborn belly fat; maintaining or even gaining muscle; and treating or preventing many diseases and conditions that plague Americans.

      What makes this health trend so popular? It’s not really a diet, per se, but a new style of eating and living that after you get the hang of, it can allow you to attain your health and wellness goals and still embrace life and eat the delicious, healthy foods you love. You’ll find out that it’s not so much about what foods you should eat but more so, when you eat. As they say, “timing is everything.”

About This Book

      Intermittent Fasting For Dummies gives you all the tools you need to follow an intermittent fasting plan. Discover why simply changing the timing of your meals to allow for periodic breaks in eating can make such a positive difference in your body. With all the conflicting information about intermittent fasting out there, you may be wondering what’s real and what’s fake advice.

This handy guide puts all the important information together in plain English, laying out easy-to-follow guidelines for the different methods as well as describing what intermittent fasting can do for you — help you lose the fat for good, get healthier, fight disease, and hopefully increase your longevity. Remember, you are in charge, and you decide what will work for you.

      By helping you eat fewer meals, intermittent fasting can lead to an automatic reduction in calorie intake. Additionally, it will positively change your hormone levels and flip the switch on your metabolism to facilitate all kinds of healthy bodily processes.

      Specifically this book discusses the five most popular methods of intermittent fasting. Each type is effective, but may not be the right fit for everyone. You’ll find out how to practice the different varieties of intermittent fasting as well as determine which method works best for your specific lifestyle.

      This book is different from other books available about intermittent fasting because it’s researched and written by a trusted expert in nutrition, health, and fitness — a registered dietitian and nutritionist — me! You can have confidence that the plans in this book are safe and based on sound science.

Foolish Assumptions

      When writing this book, I made the following assumptions about you: