Intermittent Fasting, Intermittently?

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Intermittent Fasting (IF) is a very well-evidenced, healthful practice for most people. But, do we still get benefits if we only practise it every second day?

  • Today’s main feature looks into which kinds of IF are best for which benefits, and how intermittent intermittent fasting (so to speak) is indeed better than no fasting, while still having room for improvement for the motivated.

• We’ve sometimes featured sponsor Brad’s Deals, the free coupons-and-savings service, and this time, their focus is on Target:

  • Check it out to see the best ways to get the most out of your shopping experience there and save money while you do!

• Today’s featured book is about eating to improve menopause symptoms and postmenopausal health.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

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Q&A Thursday

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝Have you come across any research on alternate-day intermittent fasting—specifically switching between one day of 16:8 fasting and the next day of regular eating patterns? I'm curious if there are any benefits or drawbacks to this alternating approach, or if the benefits mainly come from consistent intermittent fasting?❞

Short and unhelpful answer: no

Longer and hopefully more helpful answer:

As you probably know, usually people going for approaches based on the above terms either

• practise 16:8 fasting (fast for 16 hours each day, eat during an 8-hour window) or

• practise alternate-day fasting (fast for 24 hours, eat whenever for 24 hours, repeat)

…which latter scored the best results in this large meta-analysis of studies:

Effects of different types of intermittent fasting on metabolic outcomes: an umbrella review and network meta-analysis

There is also the (popular) less extreme version of alternate-day fasting, sometimes called “eat stop eat”, which is not a very helpful description because that describes almost any kind of eating/fasting, but it usually refers to “once per week, take a day off from eating”.

You can read more about each of these (and some other variants), here:

Intermittent Fasting: What’s The Truth?

What you are describing (doing 16:8 fasting on alternate days, eating whenever on the other days) is essentially: intermittent fasting, just with one 16-hour fast per 48 hours instead of per the usual 24 hours.

See also: International consensus on fasting terminology ← the section on the terms “STF & PF” covers why this gets nudged back under the regular IF umbrella

Good news: this means there is a lot of literature into the acute (i.e., occurring the same day, not long-term)* benefits of 16:8 IF, and that means that you will be getting those benefits, every second day.

You remember that meta-analysis we posted above? While it isn’t mentioned in the conclusion (which only praised complete alternate-day fasting producing the best outcomes overall), sifting through the results data discovers that time-restricted eating (which is what you are doing, by these classifications) was the only fasting method to significantly reduce fasting blood glucose levels.

(However, no significant differences were observed between any IF form and the reference (continuous energy restriction, CER, i.e. calorie-controlled) diets in fasting insulin and HbA1c levels)

*This is still good news in the long-term though, because getting those benefits every second day is better than getting those benefits on no days, and this will have a long-term impact on your healthy longevity, just like how it is better to exercise every second day than it is to exercise no days, or better to abstain from alcohol every second day than it is to abstain on no days, etc.

In short, by doing IF every second day, you are still giving your organs a break sometimes, and that’s good.

All the same, if it would be convenient and practical for you, we would encourage you to consider either the complete alternate-day fasting (which, according to a lot of data, gives the best results overall), or time-restricted eating (TRE) every day (which, according to a lot of data, gives the best fasting blood sugar levels).

You could also improve the TRE days by shifting to 20:4 (i.e., 20 hours fasting and 4 hours eating), this giving your organs a longer break on those days.

Want to learn more?

For a much more comprehensive discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to intermitted fasting, check out:

Complete Guide To Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting – By Dr. Jason Fung

Enjoy!

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One-Minute Book Review

The Galveston Diet: The Doctor-Developed, Patient-Proven Plan to Burn Fat and Tame Your Hormonal Symptoms – by Dr. Mary Claire Haver

We’ve previously reviewed “It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones” by nutritionist Nikki Williams, and noted at the time that it was very similar to the bestselling “The Galveston Diet”, not just in its content but all the way down its formatting. Some Amazon reviewers have even gone so far as to suggest that “It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones” (2017) brazenly plagiarized “The Galveston Diet” (2023). However, after carefully examining the publication dates, we feel quite confident that the the earlier book did not plagiarize the later one.

Of course, we would not go so far as to make a counter-accusation of plagiarism the other way around; it was surely just a case of Dr. Haver having the same good ideas 6 years later.

Still, while the original book by Nikki Williams did not get too much international acclaim, the later one by Dr. Mary Claire Haver has had very good marketing and thus received a lot more attention, so let’s review it:

Dr. Haver’s basic principle is (again) that we can manage our hormonal fluctuations, by managing our diet. Specifically, in the same three main ways:

• Intermittent fasting

• Anti-inflammatory diet

• Eating more protein and healthy fats

Why should these things matter to our hormones? The answer is to remember that our hormones aren’t just the sex hormones. We have hormones for hunger and satedness, hormones for stress and relaxation, hormones for blood sugar regulation, hormones for sleep and wakefulness, and more. These many hormones make up our endocrine system, and affecting one part of it will affect the others.

Will these things magically undo the effects of the menopause? Well, some things yes, other things no. No diet can do the job of HRT. But by tweaking endocrine system inputs, we can tweak endocrine system outputs, and that’s what this book is for.

The style is once again very accessible and just as clear, and Dr. Haver also walks us just as skilfully through the changes we may want to make, to avoid the changes we don’t want. The recipes are also very similar, so if you loved the recipes in the other book, you certainly won’t dislike this book’s menu.

In the category of criticism, there is (as with the other book by the other author) some extra support that’s paywalled, in the sense that she wants the reader to buy her personally-branded online plan, and it can feel a bit like she’s holding back in order to upsell to that.

Bottom line: this book is (again) aimed at peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women. It could also (again) definitely help a lot of people with PCOS too, and, when it comes down to it, pretty much anyone with an endocrine system. It’s (still) a well-evidenced, well-established, healthy way of eating regardless of age, sex, or (most) physical conditions.

Click here to check out The Galveston Diet, and enjoy its well-told, well-formatted advice!

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Wishing you the best of health every day, in every way,

The 10almonds Team