Intermittent fasting is a dietary tool that can help athletes and routine gym-goers alike achieve their target macros. By only consuming food within a specific timeframe each day, dieters can potentially balance the amount of calories they ingest while maintaining a more manageable lifestyle that avoids the pitfalls of noshing sporadically.
On July 20, 2023, Dr. Layne Norton published a video on his YouTube channel wherein he dissects a 2023 meta-analysis in Nutrients about intermittent fasting‘s effect on appetite. (1) Is there a version of intermittent fasting better than another for managing appetite? Check out Dr. Norton’s breakdown below:
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The meta-analysis Dr. Norton analyzed compared various forms of intermittent fasting, including time-restricted fasting (limiting the windows of time per day one eats), alternate-day fasting, and 5:2 dieting (consuming routine calories for five days per week and only a quarter of daily calories on the remaining two days), against continuous energy (read: calories) restriction.
Dr. Norton didn’t waste time getting to the point: the meta-analysis did not find evidence that “intermittent fasting interventions affect hunger, fullness, desire to eat, or prospective food consumption differently than continuous energy restriction.” While some individuals might feel like their appetite is better curbed while intermittent fasting, that’s not significantly true on average based on a larger sample of over 1,000 participants.
While not significant enough to make a firm stance, the meta-analysis also found that those who followed continuous energy restriction better adhered to the diet intervention than those who followed a form of intermittent fasting. Across five studies, three slightly favored continuous energy restriction over intermittent fasting for adherence, and the remaining two were even between interventions.
According to Dr. Norton, the current research suggests that intermittent fasting is not statistically more beneficial than continuous energy restriction for purposes of fat loss or body composition. Since neither diet is better or worse than the other regarding fat loss, the takeaway is simple:
Do what you want.
Given the data, the better diet to follow is the one that the dieter finds easier to adhere to over the long term to achieve their goals. To lose weight, a calorie deficit is necessary, but how that deficit is best achieved is a personal preference.
Reference
- Elsworth RL, Monge A, Perry R, Hinton EC, Flynn AN, Whitmarsh A, Hamilton-Shield JP, Lawrence NS, Brunstrom JM. The Effect of Intermittent Fasting on Appetite: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2023; 15(11):2604. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15112604
Featured image: @biolayne on Instagram
