Intermittent fasting may not help you lose belly fat:
Intermittent fasting may not help you lose belly fat: Study
Intermittent
fasting is one of the most talked about diet trends. The fasting method
requires people to perform short term fasts at regular intervals, where
they limit the calorie consumption drastically for certain days of the
week or during the specific window of the day.
Proponents of the diet claim that it is great for weight loss and helps you stave off heart disease.
But doctors and experts have warned that the diet is not for everyone. Most men who have tried the diet have reported positive results. But for many women, any type of Intermittent fasting, be it overnight 16 hours fasting or capping the calories at 500 for two days a week have backfired.
Common side effects Intermittent fasting
Intermittent
fasting has various side effects, which also includes rebound
overeating, bad sleep and muscle loss. As per a new study published in
the journal Cell reports, there can be another side effect of
intermittent fasting, your visceral fat also called belly fat may
potentially not go away and may build resistance to fasting.
The study
For
the study, researchers in Australia examined various fat tissue types
in mice to see how the tissue responded differently to every other day
fasting, also called alternate day fasting.
Mouse physiology is similar to humans, but their metabolism is much faster, allowing scientists to observe changes more rapidly than in human trials and also examine issues that are difficult to sample in humans.
Analysis
It
was found that when in a fasted state, the belly fat adapted to protect
its energy stores. During fasting, the fat tissues provide energy to
the rest of the body by realising fatty acid molecules. However, the
belly fat became resistant to this release of fatty acids during
fasting. There were also signs that belly fat and subcutaneous fat
increased their ability to store energy as fat and likely to rapidly
rebuild the fat store before the next fasting period.
Verdict
In
other words, if you have been trying every other day fasting and have
not seen any results, it can be because you have highly adaptable
visceral fat.
The findings of the study may not be applied to different diet regimes such as the 5:2 diet, which is common in people wanting to lose weight.