Another one for you, intermittent fasting (IF). It’s basically skipping breakfast, usually you refrain from eating until 1pm, then you’re allowed 8 hours to eat (until 9pm). However it doesn’t have to be this time, what’s important is that you have an 8 hour eating window during the day, you choose what hours suit you.
Most people have three meals a day, these are breakfast, lunch & dinner. By removing one of these meals you will remove a third of your daily calories. Again like many other diets out there you do end up increasing your calorie intake for lunch and dinner however overall you will still be consuming less calories. Therefore it will help create a calorie deficit, which is how you lose fat. Voilà how intermittent fasting works.
The pros to IF, well turns out the majority of time you’re feeling hungry you actually might not be. You’re hungry but you’re outside the allowed eating window so you wait. Next thing you know your hunger has gone. Our hunger is not always that we require food, it can purely be psychological which means allow some time to pass and your hunger will have stopped.
When following IF it’s also possible for you to feel more ‘alert’ in a fasted state rather than a fed state. We’ve all felt lethargic after a meal and not want to move anyway, I think its not an increase in alertness but rather just feeling normal vs being in a food coma.
Training in a fasted state or a fed state will make no difference, your EAT (calories burned doing exercise) only accounts of 10% of your daily calories burned so realistically if there was any difference it’s minimal. Currently there is no concrete evidence to support exercise in a fed state is more beneficial so until then. If you want to eat, then do if not don’t. Use common sense and what best suits your situation.
To conclude, I think it’s personal preference if you don’t feel hungry in the morning then don’t eat, if you do then eat. IF can be a tool to use but the main thing is to create a calorie deficit, however you wish to do this. Finally I’ll leave you with this, sometimes a diet works for someone not because of what they do but because they’ve been consistent at something. You’ve just got to find what you can be consistent with, then it doesn’t become a diet it becomes life.
Thanks
Cameron
Additional Sources
James Smith: Fasted Cardio
Jeff Nippard: The Science Behind Intermittent Fasting (14 Studies) | Nutritional Science Explained