Intermittent fasting results may be different for each person. If you start a program that only allows you to eat in a certain time window you need to know that your results might differ.
You may be eating different foods, taking different training programs or resting longer when compared to other people.
Variables which influence intermittent fasting results
When you’re looking to improve your results you will always find yourself comparing your results to the ones of people in your situation.
It’s always good to motivate yourself and discussing your fitness and nutrition goals.
But you need to realize how your results might differ even if you think you are closely mimicking someone else’s intermittent fasting programs.
Here is why the results might differ:
Intermittent Fasting Benefits
Metabolism Effects
Metabolism is one of the biggest influencers when it comes to how we react to training or foods.
Generally speaking, you can be in one of the following categories: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph.
These metabolism types dictate how you will react to intermittent fasting. People with a fast metabolism will burn calories quicker.
They may also be impacted by the speed of digestion in the feeding window. If you have a slow metabolism and compare your results to a person with a fast metabolism you should expect different results.
Metabolism affects all important areas of the body. Your sleep may also be affected by the type of body you have.
Make sure you take this into consideration when choosing the right intermittent fasting program.
Sleeping pattern
Sleeping is an important factor in intermittent fasting. All people are in a fasted state when they sleep.
This basically means that you will get the chance to properly digest foods while you sleep. When you wake up you are already in a fasted state.
There are two options here. You either eat and have a fasting window in the evening or continue fasting and eat later.
Evidence suggests that the calories at the end of the day are the calories that matter. However, given that you haven`t eaten through the night you might find yourself in a situation where you do something opposite of what others are doing.
This may lead to different results which are largely influenced by your chosen feeding window.
Training time
There are many debates on the proper training time. Some people recommend you do it first thing in the morning while others say you need to do it in the evening.
Some athletes even train at night. Training in a fasted state is for sure different than training after a couple of meals.
Training in a fasted state has been used by athletes looking to get in shape for a competition. Boxers might be required to train in the morning before eating.
This burns the calories in the body and can lead to weight loss if done on a regular basis. It can be said that training in a fasting state can also help body definition.
You might be feeling weaker, however. Many athletes report a loss of strength and even concentration while training in a fasting state.
But this doesn’t have to be your case necessarily. This is because it will largely depend on what your personal background looks like. You might have been skipping breakfast for years.
In this case, going straight to the gym can have less of an impact than with a person just starting intermittent fasting.
Office Jobs and Active Jobs
How many people factor in the job as a major influencer in intermittent fasting results?
The fast is so vastly different for some people that we forget it’s often about which type of activities we also do throughout the day.
People with physical jobs are more likely to find weight loss and muscle definition. People with office jobs might find it harder to get the definition and they may even be the subject of the “skinny-fat” body.
This type of body looks thin but it actually comes with some fat in the abdominal area. This can be caused by many factors such as irregular eating or poor food choices.
People with demanding physical jobs like construction works may also find it difficult to adhere to an intermittent fasting program.
This is why their results might be different from the results of other people. On one hand, they try not to break the fast and on the other, they need to perform a demanding task which burns man calories and depletes strength.
Drinks While Fasting
Drinks have the ability to influence our overall look. If you drink sweet juice it might be days before you burn it completely.
This is when intermittent fasting has the ability to cleanse your body. But if you keep drinking the same things regularly, then you will be eventually impacted by these drinks.
For example, drinking alcohol can change your fasting results. Drinking some isotonic drinks may create thirst which will lead to you drinking more.
You have to take into consideration that salty drinks might retain water into your body. Ideally, you should only drink water, tea, or fresh juices.
But this is not always the case. Even if you fast but then drink highly caloric coffee-based drinks, your body will not be as inclined to be well defined as you would wish for.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t drink coffee. It is rather a signal that you have to limit everything which can be in excess.
Even eating healthy food every day will eventually make you avoid it as you will become oversaturated.
Your best bet is to stay away from drinks that come with sugar. If you manage to do it long enough you will start to see the results you want with intermittent fasting.
Final Calories
At the end of the day, you need to start calculating how many calories you had the chance to eat.
A 4-hour feeding window will certainly result in less than 2.000-2.500 calories which means you may even end up in a deficit.
This in itself is not that bad, but if you also reduce your physical activity, the small caloric decrease might not be visible in the long term with intermittent fasting.
This means that an on-off approach might be good for fasting. You can try it for up to two weeks and then go back to your regular eating patterns.
Many people tend to lower their activity levels during the fasted period which will also lower the calorie-burning process.
Make sure you take this into consideration when you compare your results.
It may also be worth writing down what you do through your fasting period as this way you will be able to compare the results against your own data.
Intermittent fasting results can thus be influenced by a wide range of factors. It would be wrong to always compare your results with other people as you might even have a different lifestyle.
The best bet is to write down what you eat when you eat and what you do throughout the day.
This way you can compare your fasting results to the previous data and have a better interpretation of progress.
In the end, you are trying to improve your body and it should be a personalized process.
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