Trendy fasting: What is a 16:8 diet

Not so long ago, a new absolute trend appeared in the wellness industry – 16:8 fasting diet, which is also known as interval starvation. This diet is followed by both Hollywood stars and many famous fitness trainers.

16:8 intermittent fasting is a food system, adhering to which you can eat your favourite foods, but only at certain times of the day.

Intermittent fasting implies regular refusal of food for 16 hours while maintaining the overall caloric intake. You should eat food exclusively for 8 hours. At the same time, you can choose any time frame for eating – from 9 am to 6 pm, and from 12 noon to 8 pm.

According to experts, intermittent fasting causes the body to burn fat reserves. In particular, such a diet restores the body’s ability to use internal resources more efficiently and reduces sensitivity to carbohydrates.

The study, published in the scientific journal Nutrition and Healthy Aging, was the first scientific evidence that a time-limited meal not only helps to lose those extra pounds but is also a safe and even beneficial diet.

As a result, it turned out that those participants who observed the interval starvation consumed fewer calories per day than those who ate as usual for themselves. In particular, volunteers sticking to a 16:8 diet consumed 300 kcal less, and as a result, their weight and their blood pressure decreased.

“After 12 weeks, people lost about 3% of their weight and reduced the systolic pressure (upper number) by seven points. These modest results look promising for us, because usually it is much harder to hold the weight than to lose it, and the participants of our experiment managed to keep their weight after losing weight, ”concluded study author Krista Varady.