Intermittent Fasting: Just for fat loss?

Intermittent Fasting is purposely restricting calories and skipping meals over a large period of the day. Calories are consumed over a certain amount of hours (depending on the type of fast) during a specific window of the day.

You may have concerns when it comes to IF as it may seem counter intuitive not to eat when your body sends a hunger signal. Your body is an adaptive machine and is more than capable of adapting and meeting energy demands of your lifestyle even when undertaking IF. It takes more than 72 hours without food before your body reaches autophagy (muscle tissue used for fuel) for the average person. Unless you are incredibly lean and going through strenuous physical stress, your body does not want to use muscle as an energy source.

In order to lose weight you have to create a calorie deficit. IF allows a lot of people to do this. A side effect of IF is fat loss however it is not the main benefit. Many people have been using IF for this reason (fat loss) however it comes with a ton of other benefits such as improved hormone levels, increased sensitivity of hormones (insulin, ghrelin) and can even help maintain/gain muscle mass.