Intermittent Fasting vs. Crash Dieting

Having a clean, consistent diet when trying to achieve any type of fitness goal is key. Whether trying to gain healthy muscle mass or shredding a few pounds, 80% of your results all lead back to what you’re eating. There’s a lot of talk about intermittent fasting, but it can be very easy to confuse it with crash diets. Although the two concepts are very different but similar, check out our breakdown of both diets and which is more beneficial.

The Difference Between Intermittent Fasting and Crash Dieting

Crash Dieting

Also known as a fad or yo-yo diet, crash dieting is a method to avoid. Deriving your body of any kind of nutrients harms one’s health and can be dangerous depending on how an individual elongate it. Not only does it cause headaches and nausea, but it comes with several detrimental consequences to the body, including a weak immune system and metabolism rate.

Crash dieting is not beneficial to the body in the long term. Yes, it does deliver rapid weight loss results, but only because of water loss and lean muscle instead of body fat. Going on a crash diet is a temporary solution you can’t benefit from for long periods. Instead of choosing a crash diet for weight loss, consider intermittent fasting a healthy alternative.

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is a science-proven diet that goes beyond just weight loss benefits. Studies have shown that intermittent fasting is linked to improved mental health and heart health and fights chronic health conditions like cancer and type 2 diabetes. This diet method also contains anti-aging properties that can decrease inflammation and stress.

In a nutshell, intermittent fasting is when you eat during a specific timeframe and fast for the remainder of the day/night. There are many different ways to go about how to split your fasting periods. There are a few common ways people have successfully fasted:

16/8 Method

As a common fasting method, the 16/8 method involves fasting for 16 hours and having an eating window of 8 hours. It doesn’t matter what timeframe you choose for your 8-hour feeding window.

Alternate Day Fasting

This method is fairly simple. You fast every other day, and on those fasting days, you allow your body about 100 calories of consumption.

5:2 Diet

The 5:2 diet involves eating 500-600 calories twice a week. Choose 2 days out of the week for this fast and eat at a normal caloric intake for the rest of those days.

Warrior Diet

Popularized by fitness expert Ori Hofmekler, the warrior diet consists of eating raw fruits and veggies during the day and eating a bigger meal for dinner.