INTERMITTENT FASTING TERMS
Curious about all the Intermittent Fasting “IF” terms you hear but not sure what they mean?
FASTING
Intermittent fasting:
It is a pattern of eating where you restrict the hours that you eat. In my book and around this site, we refer to this as “eating windows.” You open your eating window when you consume your first meal or snack of the day, and you close your eating window after your last calorie is consumed. There is no magic number of hours each person should remain in their eating window; some people have found that 8 hours work for them, for some it is 6 hours, and others will only eat one meal a day. There is more info on this below. But the gist of this lifestyle is that you are not restricting the types of food you eat but instead the hours in which you eat.
Fasting:
Fasting is just the time when you are not eating. The word in Greek means “not to eat.” Fasting has been a practice throughout human evolution. Ancient hunter-gatherers didn’t have supermarkets, refrigerators, or food available year-round. Sometimes they couldn’t find anything to eat. So they might eat a lot at one time and not for another.
Time-Restricted Feeding
Time-restricted feeding (TRF) came on the scene after intermittent fasting. Some people say that TRF and IF are often treated as if they are one and the same, but others say there are actually some major differences between the two. With TRF, all of your eating is compressed into about an 8-hour window or a 6-hour eating window. So they call it TRF if you are eating from—say, from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. The other hours, between 8 p.m. and at 11:49 a.m., you don’t consume calories, although you can have calorie-less drinks, like water and black coffee. But with intermittent fasting, some say it’s over 24 hours, or it can be alternate-day fasting, or it could be the adoption of a very low-calorie diet twice a week (5:2 fasting) and then eating normally on the other five days. In my opinion, I just say intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating are the same, but some people will argue differently!
Fasting Window:
The block of time each day in which you fast and don’t eat. Example: My fasting window is from 6pm-12noon.
Eating Window:
The block of time in which you are consuming food. Example: My eating window is from 12pm-6pm.
16:8:
A popular form of intermittent fasting in which you fast for 16 hours each day, and eat in an 8 hour window. (For example, eating from 12pm-8pm each day.)
18:6:
A popular form of intermittent fasting in which you fast for 18 hours each day, and eat in an 6 hour window. (For example, eating from Noon-6pm each day.)
OMAD – “One Meal A Day”:
A form of intermittent fasting in which you consume all of your calories for the day within one “meal.” This may be one meal lasting 30 min to an hour. Some people might only eat literally one meal, either breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Lately people say one meal a day of maybe a snack and a meal and that eating window extending over from, say, 2pm to 6pm. Maybe at 2pm you have a small snack, and then you just eat one meal at 5:30pm.
5:2:
A form of intermittent fasting developed by Dr. Michael Mosley, also known as the “Fast Diet.” It mandates 5 days of normal calorie intake, with two “fasting” days of 500 calories. I DO not recommend this diet.
ADF – “Alternate Day Fasting”:
A form of intermittent fasting in which days of normal eating are cycled with days of complete fasting or severe calorie restriction. I recommend this only in one way.
I have seen huge success with this if you say eat in this example
Monday : Eat in a 6 hour window
Tuesday : Eat in an 8 hour window
Wednesday: Fast all day
Thursday: Eat in a 10 hour window
Friday: Fast all day
Autophagy:
A process that occurs in the body during fasting, where your body is consuming your body’s own cells and tissues. It’s basically eating itself. The body begins using old, broken proteins in the body for growth and repair.
Bulletproof Coffee:
Bulletproof coffee typically refers to a concept, created by Dave Asprey, of adding fat (like grass-fed butter, coconut oil, or MCT oil) to your coffee during a fast. I believe this breaks your fast, and I love the brand of coffee Bulletproof coffee. However, it’s two different things: one is the BRAND of the coffee, and one is adding all of the different things like the MCT oil to now call it bulletproof even if you don’t make it bulletproof.
“Breaking The Fast”:
The concept of eating or drinking calories, which take the body out of the fasted state.
Extended Fast:
I like to say this is anything more than 24 hours. Like a 2-day fast, 3-day fast, or 7-day fast. (or longer)
FMD – “Fasting Mimicking Diet”:
A 5-day cycle diet developed by Dr. Valter Longo, intended to mimic the effects of fasting while still eating specifically determined nutrient-rich, plant-based, low-protein meals.
Insulin:
A hormone produced in the pancreas that regulates the amount of glucose in the blood. The lack of insulin causes a form of diabetes.
When you eat, your body sends a hormone released by the pancreas in response to food intake to take sugar out of the bloodstream and put it into the body’s cells. The release of insulin stops fat burning in cells.
Insulin Resistance:
A state in which the body’s cells become resistant to insulin, requiring the pancreas to produce more and more insulin to lower blood sugar and shuttle fat into cells. This can create a state of constant hunger and weight gain, as well as fluctuating energy levels and blood sugar swings. Insulin resistance is often involved in diabetes and weight gain.
Keto:
Some people think that you only say keto when you are reference to the “Keto” diet, in which you limit your carb intake to around 20 grams of net carbs per day.
However, when you are fasting, you are in ketosis.
Ketosis:
A metabolic state in which the body goes from sugar burning to fat burning. – It begins running primarily on dietary fats or body fat.
Ketones:
Ketones are chemicals your liver makes. You produce them when you don’t have enough insulin in your body to turn sugar (or glucose) into energy. You need another source, so your body uses fat instead. Your liver turns this fat into ketones, a type of acid, and sends them into your bloodstream. Your muscles and other tissues can then use them for fuel. You can buy tests to check your ketone levels. You can get there by fasting or eating a keto diet. Many people think it’s just from a KETO diet. That isn’t true. Both ways will get you there.
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