If you’ve been toying with the idea of intermittent fasting, there are plenty of good reasons to give it a try.
The diet, which involves alternating long periods of fasting with regular eating, has a proven track record for weight loss. But that’s not all. More and more, research is showing that intermittent fasting can have positive effects throughout the body.
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How exactly does it work? There are a few different types of fasting diets out there. Time-restricted eating involves fasting for a period of 12 to 16 hours each day, like stopping eating completely at 6 PM and not eating again until 10 AM the next morning. (Here’s what happened when one woman tried this intermittent fasting method for a week.) The other, 5:2 fasting, involves eating 500 calories for two non-consecutive days of the week and eating normally for the rest of the week.
Experts can’t say for sure which style of intermittent fasting yields the biggest benefits. So if you’re considering giving it a try, pick the fasting type that seems like it would work best for your lifestyle. Then, get ready to reap the rewards—from your head to your toes.
SOURCES
Brain: Age (Dorder), Cell Metabolism, Psychiatry Research, John Hopkins Health Review; Skin: Rejuvenation Research; Heart: Circulation, Mayo Clinic; Belly: JAMA Internal Medicine; Muscles: Obesity Society; Pancreas: The British Journal of Nutrition, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; Liver: EMBO Molecular Medicine
