 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. So every good story starts in the beginning. So what is intermittent fasting? Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern, I will call it instead of a diet, that cycles between periods of fasting and periods of eating. You have what are called fasting windows and you have eating windows. The goal is to take regular breaks from calories. That is it. That's what intermittent fasting is. These breaks can last from anywhere between 12 and 36 hours. This would argue that you get most of your fasting benefits if you try to get to at least a 16 hour fasting window, but a 12 hour window is a phenomenal place to start and then you can work your way towards that. Fast that exceed 36 hours aren't known as intermittent fast. Those are known as what are called extended fast. So the key is that it's not about what you eat, it's about when you eat. You delay, you don't have to deny. Intermittent fast doesn't even have to be a zero calorie fast. Now fasting purists don't believe this and would argue against that, but we're here to focus on weight loss. We aren't here to get good at fasting. We're here to get good at losing weight, especially in the beginning. So some protocols like modified or hybrid alternate day fasting protocols and the 5-2 protocol allow you to eat up to 25% of your calories on a fasting day. Again, you don't have to call it fasting. You can call that a fasting mimicking diet if you want. You can call it calorie restriction, but that's what it is. This is really good news, though, especially for people that want to try longer fast, 24-36 hour fast, but they have to take medication. So you can still fast just in your own way. I will cover the three types of intermittent fasting in the next video in the next lesson. This would be clean fasts, dirty fasts, and calorie restriction fasts or what you call fasting mimicking diets. So don't worry about that yet, but we will cover that really soon. Other protocols are practiced on a daily basis. I've been talking about fasts that last 24-36 hours so far, but with these daily fasting methods, you simply eat all of your calories in a set time window. The key examples would be what's known as 16-8, which means that you fast for 16 hours a day and then you eat in an 8-hour eating window. Then you have 24 fasting, also known as the warrior diet, where you fast for 20 hours a day and have a 4-hour eating window. Then you have OMAD, which stands for one meal a day, where basically you would eat a meal or you would fast for 22 or 23 hours and then have a one or two-hour eating window. So lots of different ways to fast. Fasting has been a practice throughout our history as a species. Sometimes our hunter-gatherer ancestors couldn't find anything to eat. As a result, humans adapted to be able to function without food for extended periods of time. This is why we have fat in the first place in that picture, that's a 5-pound blob of fat. That's why we have fat in the first place. So you could make an argument, well, I do make the argument that fasting from time to time is actually more natural than eating 3 meals a day or 3 snacks a day to stoke your metabolism. There's nothing natural about constantly eating because our ancestors would not have done that. They would have had periods where they didn't have food. Fasting is also done for religious or spiritual reasons. So there's biological reasons that fasting works with our bodies, but there's also religious or spiritual reasons to fast. Everything from Ramadan to Lent. Every major religion incorporates fasting in some way. Fasting in the end is a powerful tool, but a tool is only as good as the person that knows how to use it. So fasting isn't magic, but it is a great way for most people to get in a calorie deficit, lose weight as quickly and easily as possible, and then keep that weight off. So what does the science say? I'm going to cover tons of science in my program. I like to show you the actual studies so you can find them yourself if you want to. So here's this study, scientific evidence of diets for weight loss, different macronutrient composition, intermittent fasting, and popular diets. So what does this say? Let me take a sip quick. In the long term, current evidence indicates that different diets promoted similar weight loss and adherence to diets will predict their success. So it's not saying that fasting is better than other ways to diet, but if fasting is the best way for you to sustain your diet and stick to it, that adherence is what will lead to the success, but I don't care how you lose weight. Find the way that you can lose it safely and quickly and easily and keep it off for the long haul. I just think for most people, intermittent fasting is a great thing to try. All right. So what are your key takeaways here? Intermittent fasting focuses more on when you eat than what you eat. That's really good news for people that don't like to be on overly restrictive diets 24 hours a day. What are your action steps? Prepare to shatter some of the most common myths and misconceptions about intermittent fasting, and then think about any fears or concerns that you have about fasting. Write them down. Send them to me. Reach out to me. I want to help you with these fears so you can be confident that intermittent fasting is at least something that you should try and see how it works for you. Okay. I hope this helps. I hope you're ready for a fantastic journey. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.