All right, if you're looking to slim down or just
get healthier,
you might want to rethink how many hours a day
you're eating between that first cup of coffee in the
morning and that bedtime snack you could actually be eating.
This sounds like a lot
eating up to 16 hours a day.
But we're not eating constantly
for 16 hours, right? OK,
but if you're thinking, you know what,
maybe I want to try out this intermittent fasting.
Well, the Fox Medical Teams.
Beth Galvin takes a look at how you do it.
Intermittent fasting has become really popular.
You basically set a window in which you eat and
then you fast overnight.
And it sounds pretty simple,
but it can be really effective if you can avoid
a few common mistakes.
If you're like most Americans,
you are a grazer, eating up to 15 or 16
hours a day.
But every healthcare internist, Dr.
Sharon Bergquist says by shrinking your eating window and increasing
the hours you fast overnight,
you may be able to not just lose weight,
but lower your blood pressure and cholesterol and stabilize your
blood sugar.
And I think it's really important to know that there
isn't an absolute right or wrong way to fast.
The most common type of fasting is time restricted eating,
when people eat during a certain window
and they fast the remaining hours.
So you eat within an
810 or 12 hour window and then fast the rest
of the time.
The most common time window that people pick
is usually evening or late afternoon time windows.
That can lead to our first common mistake with intermittent
fasting,
timing our eating window too late in the day.
Most of the studies that found a benefit to this
type of fasting involved early eating windows and in some
of the studies were actually seeing worsening of cholesterol and
blood pressure in these same measures with later windows.
If you like eating later,
say between noon and 8:00 PM,
Doctor Bergquist says front load your calories,
eating your biggest meals early in the day,
so by evening you're only doing a bit more like
a snack for dinner.
And that still maintains a lot of the benefits of
doing the time.
Restricted eating even though you're doing a later window.
Another common mistake, not getting enough protein in our fasting
window.
When people don't get adequate protein,
their studies showing that most of that weight loss is
coming from loss of muscle.
So you really want to make sure your windows wide
enough to get adequate protein.
Fasting can also make it harder to stay hydrated,
which brings up another common mistake,
not getting enough fluids because we draw fluid from our
food,
so you want to step up your water intake.
Some of the most common side effects from fasting are
that,
of course people feel hungry,
but headaches are also common.
And by staying well hydrated,
you reduce the hunger and you reduce the headaches.
And there's one more mistake,
Doctor Bergquist says not listening to our bodies.
If your body is telling you that an 8 hour
eating window or even a 10 hour window is too
restrictive,
it's okay to expand that window.
It's finding what works for you.
For your Fox medical team,
I'm Beth Galvin.