Can Fasting Compensate for the Holiday Pounds?

Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

Most people overindulge during the holidays. This is despite how much of the year they’ve devoted to healthy eating. From Halloween right into the New Year, you’re faced with a range of tempting delicacies.

But new studies suggest that you may be able to have your cake and eat it, too.

So, where does the trick lie? Well, it is not in what you eat, but when you eat.

To explore the health benefits of fasting, researchers discovered that people who have a high risk for developing diabetes saw a significant improvement in their health when they ate their meals during a 10-hour window and then fasted for the remainder of the day.

Change your eating habits rather than your diet

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that intermittent fasting and traditional medications caused weight loss and reduced cholesterol and blood pressure. It also reduced abdominal fat and stabilized insulin and blood sugar levels for participants who already had metabolic syndrome.

A metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions that occur together and increase the risk of stroke, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes (1).

You may need more than just diet and exercise

Study (2), published in the journal Cell Metabolism, suggests that intermittent fasting may effectively treat metabolic syndrome already treated with medications.

According to the researchers, combining intermittent fasting with medications can help patients better manage their disease (3).

The researchers also emphasized the need for significant lifestyle interventions for metabolic syndrome that are easy for people to adopt.

Findings from the study suggest that restricted eating can serve as an “add-on” to drug treatment and prevent the need for medication.

Here’s how to do it

Intermittent fasting involves making significant reductions to your calorie intake on certain days and eating normally the rest of the time. For example, some people fast every other day, while others fast twice a week (the 5:2…