Until 4 days ago I had never really heard of intermittent fasting, so I am by no means an expert. However, I have been doing a lot of reading and I think this is a pretty accurate "primer".
Intermittent fasting means to go without food, eat normally, go without food again on some sort of regular basis. The three most popular ways (and there is no "right" way, it's whatever fits your personality, goals and lifestyle) are Alternate Day Fasting, the 24 hour fast 1-2x a week, and the condensed window fast.
Alternate day fasting is just that, you eat every other day, and consequently you fast every other day. For this purpose a day = 24 hours. So you eat for 24 hours and you fast for 24 hours. You would probably still be eating something every day. If you want to know more link to the youtube video.
The 24 hour fast 1-2 x a week is outlined best in Brad Pilon's (check out his blog!) e-book Eat Stop Eat. You can pick any 24 hour window for your fast. I prefer to start my fast after dinner and complete my fast with dinner the following night, but again, it is whatever works best for you.
The "condensed window fast" is where you choose certain hours during the day to eat and you do not eat outside that eating window. The smaller the eating window the bigger the benefits. The largest eating window should be no more than 8 hours. I actually did this for 40 days this year, I did not eat before 10am or after 6pm. I lost about 5 lbs in those 40 days. I don't prefer the condensed eating window because I find that it leaves me hungry for some part of every day. And it is too restrictive for my lifestyle. But if it works for you then there is nothing wrong with it.
In the coming days I will post about the health benefits (other than weight loss) of intermittent fasting.
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