ever, and not in a good way.
Why is the 8-Hour Diet different? Among the first pieces of anecdotal evidence that researchers in this field began noticing was how popular fasting had become in the body-building community: It worked to help the overly buff achieve that cut, muscular look that won competitions—and didn’t erode muscle size or quality. In fact, muscle strength and athletic performance seemed to improve. While the exact mechanism is still being studied, we do know that intermittent fasting increases natural levels of human growth hormone, or HGH—the stuff that aging athletes inject illegally to help them stay young and strong.
What it means to you: Limiting your food consumption to 8 hours a day triggers your body to burn fat for energy; standard dieting leads you to burn muscle. Take your pick.
Doesn’t fasting cause your metabolism to slow down?
No. It will actually accelerate it. If it didn’t, our species (and other carnivores like us) would never have survived into the modern era.
Think of it: Your ancient ancestor is out cruising the plains of Africa during a time of food shortages. She’s hungry and needs a meal. If hermetabolism slowed down, she wouldn’t be able to chase the prey she spots down by the water hole. But she is up for that chase, because her body, metabolically primed for the hunt, is burning stored fat in the absence of food, just like yours is on the 8-Hour Diet. Her pattern of feasting and fasting, just like yours, also maintains muscle mass—it aids in the hunt but also boosts metabolism for the big charge. Sure, if you try live on rice cakes, grapefruit, and Diet Coke for days on end, your metabolism will slow down—the fatal flaw of traditional diets. But that won’t happen on this plan. You should eat good food, and plenty of it—but just within the allotted 8 hours.
Don’t our bodies store fat in response to periods of hunger?
No, but they do store fat in response to standard dieting. Here’s why. When you go on a standard diet, you may lose weight initially. But when your body senses that there’s a real dearth of food available—when you go day after day taking in fewer calories than your body needs—all that deprivation sets off a kind of hormonal panic in your body. Your body starts to reduce its production of leptin, the hormone that suppresses appetite, and boost levels of ghrelin, the hormone that encourages hunger. You become famished because your body wants you to go into calorie-storage mode.
So now you’ve got overwhelming signals of hunger, thanks to your hormonal system. Plus, when you do give in and hit the buffet, your body is primed to store those calories as fat, because it’s been told by your “diet” that food is scarce, and it might be a long time before you eat again, so you’d better pack on some easy-to-store, slow-to-burn fat. And you’d better hold on to that fat no matter what!
Intermittent fasting, however, isn’t based on deprivation. It’s a pattern of eating, not purgatory, and it reinforces to your body that it will get plenty of healthy calories every day so there’s no reason to store fat—in fact, it can start burning fat for energy. Studies show that it also causes a surge in hunger-limiting leptin. So if you really want to ditch the weight, ditch the diet and change your eating schedule instead.
What’s the difference between “intermittent fasting” and “caloric restriction” or “disordered eating”? Am I setting myself up for an eating disorder?
Absolutely not. First, the definitions, which will help you understand why the 8-Hour Diet is just about the opposite of an eating disorder.
Intermittent fasting is a regularly scheduled, planned abstinence from food. There are lots of ways to do it: Some people do it one day a week or on special occasions, not eating from sundown one day until sundown the following day—the common method in religious observance. Others follow a method called alternate-day
Why is the 8-Hour Diet different? Among the first pieces of anecdotal evidence that researchers in this field began noticing was how popular fasting had become in the body-building community: It worked to help the overly buff achieve that cut, muscular look that won competitions—and didn’t erode muscle size or quality. In fact, muscle strength and athletic performance seemed to improve. While the exact mechanism is still being studied, we do know that intermittent fasting increases natural levels of human growth hormone, or HGH—the stuff that aging athletes inject illegally to help them stay young and strong.
What it means to you: Limiting your food consumption to 8 hours a day triggers your body to burn fat for energy; standard dieting leads you to burn muscle. Take your pick.
Doesn’t fasting cause your metabolism to slow down?
No. It will actually accelerate it. If it didn’t, our species (and other carnivores like us) would never have survived into the modern era.
Think of it: Your ancient ancestor is out cruising the plains of Africa during a time of food shortages. She’s hungry and needs a meal. If hermetabolism slowed down, she wouldn’t be able to chase the prey she spots down by the water hole. But she is up for that chase, because her body, metabolically primed for the hunt, is burning stored fat in the absence of food, just like yours is on the 8-Hour Diet. Her pattern of feasting and fasting, just like yours, also maintains muscle mass—it aids in the hunt but also boosts metabolism for the big charge. Sure, if you try live on rice cakes, grapefruit, and Diet Coke for days on end, your metabolism will slow down—the fatal flaw of traditional diets. But that won’t happen on this plan. You should eat good food, and plenty of it—but just within the allotted 8 hours.
Don’t our bodies store fat in response to periods of hunger?
No, but they do store fat in response to standard dieting. Here’s why. When you go on a standard diet, you may lose weight initially. But when your body senses that there’s a real dearth of food available—when you go day after day taking in fewer calories than your body needs—all that deprivation sets off a kind of hormonal panic in your body. Your body starts to reduce its production of leptin, the hormone that suppresses appetite, and boost levels of ghrelin, the hormone that encourages hunger. You become famished because your body wants you to go into calorie-storage mode.
So now you’ve got overwhelming signals of hunger, thanks to your hormonal system. Plus, when you do give in and hit the buffet, your body is primed to store those calories as fat, because it’s been told by your “diet” that food is scarce, and it might be a long time before you eat again, so you’d better pack on some easy-to-store, slow-to-burn fat. And you’d better hold on to that fat no matter what!
Intermittent fasting, however, isn’t based on deprivation. It’s a pattern of eating, not purgatory, and it reinforces to your body that it will get plenty of healthy calories every day so there’s no reason to store fat—in fact, it can start burning fat for energy. Studies show that it also causes a surge in hunger-limiting leptin. So if you really want to ditch the weight, ditch the diet and change your eating schedule instead.
What’s the difference between “intermittent fasting” and “caloric restriction” or “disordered eating”? Am I setting myself up for an eating disorder?
Absolutely not. First, the definitions, which will help you understand why the 8-Hour Diet is just about the opposite of an eating disorder.
Intermittent fasting is a regularly scheduled, planned abstinence from food. There are lots of ways to do it: Some people do it one day a week or on special occasions, not eating from sundown one day until sundown the following day—the common method in religious observance. Others follow a method called alternate-day
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