Today we return to Examine.com and their review of a meta-analysis looking at various combinations of “intermittent” fasting regimens and their effectiveness when the goal is to lose body fat.
As you probably know, I’ve used fasting as my number one fat loss tool among my clients, including top-level bodybuilders since 2008. Amongst overweight clients I’ve used either two 36-hour fasts a week (5:2) or an every other day fasting (alternate-day) approach. For bodybuilders I typically used a reverse diet approach with one full day of fasting a week, and more food on prioritized training days. And yes, that’s me in the featured image, one is from 2008 and the other from 2016. Both are after two animal-based ketogenic diets with days of fasting.
Anyway, let’s see what they found.
What was studied?
“The efficacy, and comparative efficacy, of different combinations of intermittent fasting regimens and types of exercise for reducing body weight and body fat.”
As I’ve explained many times, short-time fasting is the superior method for sustainable fat loss and maintaining or even gaining muscle mass. The logic is simple, as you do not reduce your energy (food) intake on normal (training) days, which decreases the likelihood of not getting enough nutrients when otherwise reducing food intake and thus developing nutrient deficiencies as we typically see with everyone doing retarded traditional diets. And when you fast, after 16 hours or so, your body protects you by increasing hormones, especially growth hormone. It can also focus on detoxing, healing, and repair as the digestive system can rest. However, the moment you eat something this protection is reset — and that is why low “calorie” diets or starvation is so bad, while fasting is the complete opposite. This is why complete idiots on staged survival shows lose so much weight and muscle mass as they eat anything they can get hold of instead of fasting, collecting food, and then have one or two big meals and then fast again, which would preserve muscle mass and keep energy levels high.
For more on this, please read my articles “The World’s Easiest Fat Loss Strategy Is The Carnivore Diet With Scheduled Fasting,” “Fat Loss Made Simple – Forget About Calories and Cardio,” “A Fast-Mimicking Diet Is Nothing Close To Fasting! Full physiological breakdown” and “Dry Fasting – The Best way to Fast?”
Who was studied?
“A total of 570 men and women (average ages of 20–53; average BMI of 21.3–36.8).”
So, slightly overweight to obese men and women in their prime.
How was it studied?
“A network meta-analysis of 9 randomized controlled trials was performed. The following 12 interventions were evaluated:
- Control
- The 5:2 diet (5:2)
- Alternate-day fasting (ADF)
- Time-restricted eating (TRE)
- High-intensity interval training (HIIT)
- Moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT)
- Resistance exercise + aerobic exercise (EX)
- 5:2 + EX
- ADF + MICT
- ADF + EX
- TRE + HIIT
- TRE + MICT
The intervention durations ranged from 7 to 12 weeks.”
From a quick look, it’s obvious that Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF) will be superior for fat loss, especially if combined with either Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training (MICT) or Resistance Exercise + Aerobic Exercise (EX.)
With that said, I would have preferred a combination of resistance training and high-intensity interval training, which is superior to resistance exercise + aerobic exercise. Or simply resistance training, as aerobic exercise is useless in terms of stress and reward.
“To rank the interventions in terms of relative effectiveness, the Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking (SUCRA) curve was used. SUCRA values range from 0% to 100%, and the higher the SUCRA value, the higher the likelihood that a treatment is in the top rank or one of the top ranks.”
The Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking (SUCRA) curve is a statistical tool used in network meta-analysis to rank and compare the efficacy of different treatments or interventions across multiple studies. In the context of fat loss studies, SUCRA can be applied to compare various fat loss interventions, such as dietary approaches, exercise programs, or pharmacological treatments.
The SUCRA score is a numeric value ranging from 0 to 100% that represents the probability of a treatment being in a certain rank compared to other treatments. A higher SUCRA score indicates a higher likelihood that a treatment will be ranked higher in terms of efficacy. For fat loss studies, this could mean a higher likelihood of a particular intervention leading to greater fat loss.
The SUCRA score is calculated by summing up the cumulative probabilities of a treatment being ranked at each position, normalized by the number of treatments minus one.
What were the results?
Note that the results were divided into “weight loss” and “fat loss,” which are two entirely different things. Weight loss can be from loss of water weight, muscle weight, bone density, and loss of body fat, or two or all of them, while fat loss is simply fat loss, which is the desirable outcome.
“The results were as follows:
Body weight: Compared to the control, ADF + MICT, TRE + HIIT, ADF + EX, 5:2 + EX, 5:2, ADF, and TRE reduced body weight. Among the different interventions, ADF + MICT exhibited the highest efficacy (SUCRA of 88.1%; weight loss of 4.4 kg/9.7 lb), followed by TRE + HIIT (SUCRA of 84.3%; weight loss of 4.3/9.5 lb kg), and ADF + EX (SUCRA of 69.2%; weight loss of 3.5 kg/7.7 lb).”
As Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF) should be most effective for fat loss, it should also bring one of the largest reductions in total body weight, but only with a small margin. And as you can see, Time-Restrictive Eating produced almost the same weight loss, which also indirectly tells us that it was much less potent in actual fat loss — as fasting will reduce glycogen stores and water weight.
“Body fat: Compared to the control, ADF + MICT, ADF + EX, 5:2 + EX, ADF, and EX reduced body fat. Among the different interventions, ADF + MICT exhibited the highest efficacy (SUCRA of 92.7%; body fat loss of 3.7 kg/8.2 lb), followed by ADF + EX (SUCRA of 78.5%; body fat loss of 2.9 kg/6.4 lb), and 5:2 + EX (SUCRA of 77.6%; body fat loss of 3 kg/6.6 lb).
The certainty of evidence was graded as high for all of the analyses.”
As predicted, Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF) combined with Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training (MICT) produced the largest loss in body fat with 3.7 kg (8.2 lb,) followed by Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF) combined with Resistance Exercise combined with Aerobic Exercise with a loss of 2.9 kg (6.4 lb,) and Two Days a Week of Fasting (5:2) combined with Aerobic Exercise with a loss of 3 kg (6.6 lb.)
This is not surprising as studies with resistance training and fasting usually allow more food on days of eating, than studies simply looking at fasting and regular exercise for fat loss. Still, we can see that fasting 2 or 3 days a week and eating to satiation on the other days will produce excellent results in fat loss, far superior to any “restrictive” and retarded diet of counting “calories” that don’t even exist. And as we can see, the “time restricted eating” for fat loss, as in consuming less food every single day, while it produced a great weight loss, did not even get mentioned in the fat loss summary. In other words, simply reducing food intake resulted in greater loss of muscle mass — and this is because fasting protects muscle mass, while reducing food is the same thing as starvation.
Of course, for consistent results while maintaining optimal health, it’s vital that you follow our natural animal-based diet when trying any kind of fasting method for fat loss, as it’s the only way to get all essential nutrients in a bioavailable format.
You should never do any kind of fasting if you consume a diet that mostly consists of plant-based or processed foods, as that will make you even more malnourished which can really hurt your body and health. Always have a base of animal foods, and preferable, animal food only, as is species-appropriate.
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
Coaching and Consultation
And if you found the article and my insights helpful and enjoy my daily free information, please consider donating to help pay the webhosting bills and keep the site running. And if you’re interested in discussing and sharing information with likeminded people, consider joining our uncensored community at Ungovernable.se. Thank you!
