Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

to eat carbs, fats, proteins, and even dessert. You can eat breakfast—or skip it. You can drink alcohol—with the right approach—and you are even required to eat dessert on cheat days. All of the other dietary facts that are supported by science remain consistent with intermittent fasting. All that changes is that you choose an eating “window” that works best for your schedule, and simply shrink the number of hours that you eat. It’s an adjustment, but one with many benefits and something you should try before you assume it’s not going to work for you.
    We realize that you might have some reservations. For most people, the main reservation is the fear of going into starvation mode or the idea that not eating for long periods of time is unhealthy. But we can assure you that you won’t starve by going twelve hours, sixteen hours, or even thirty-six hours without food. The biggest blocks during the fasts will be mental. And we’ll provide you with tricks and techniques to go longer periods without food, making your hunger pangs a thing of the past.
    In the end, we just want people to look good, feel great, and live healthier lives. And that’s what intermittent fasting offers. For people looking to drop weight, intermittent fasting can help people reduce food intake by 30 percent without increasing hunger. And because you’re eating smaller amounts and less frequently, your body can look elsewhere in your body for energy, which encourages cellular repair. That is, a cell will turn to its own damaged proteins for energy. While that cycle would be bad in the long term, keep in mind you’re only fasting for brief periods; when you eat again your body will be rejuvenated. All told, this phenomenon—which, again, stems from caloric restriction—can generally help prevent both disease and age.
    We’ve already provided plenty of evidence of these health benefits. But to further deliver the point, researchers at the University of Utah found that people who fasted just one day per month were 40 percent less likely to suffer from clogged arteries. In the survey-based study, more than five hundred people had their regular habits assessed. These habits covered eating schedules, including fasting; choice to smoke or not; and consumption of or abstinence from caffeine or alcohol. And only one trait—fasting—was correlated with lower rates of heart disease. Even when adjusted for age, weight, cholesterol, diabetes, or high blood pressure, the difference between fasters and non-fasters still remained.

    THE EASY GUIDE TO INTERMITTENT FASTING
    We just offered a lot of information on why intermittent fasting is an incredibly effective way to eat and has more health benefits than any other diet plan. Quite simply, it seems as if we were designed to eat this way. And while it might be hard to believe, your body will adapt in less than a week, and the hunger pangs that you used to experience will disappear and be replaced with freedom and control.
    But just in case you’re feeling a little confused, these are the only rules:
    1. Fast: Go without eating for a period of time. Most days, this will just be sixteen hours.
    2. Eat: Select an eight-hour window— any eight-hour window—and use that as your eating time. You could start eating at 9:30 A.M . and then have your dinner at 5:30 P.M . For us, that means we start eating at two P.M . and end at ten P.M .
    3. Be flexible: If you want to eat at ten A.M . one day or have a business breakfast planned, go for it. Ideally you’d just eat from ten A.M . to six P.M . Or if you don’t want to start eating until four P.M ., do that.
    The best part about intermittent fasting is that it’s designed to work for you. The restrictions are only related to overcoming your mental blocks and learning to control your hunger, which will become invaluable skills once you learn that your symptoms of hunger are more because of the eating schedule you’ve created than actually needing food.

    Put it all together, and you start to see that intermittent fasting is not only misunderstood but is also the best plan for any type of person. When combined with exercise, it creates an optimal hormonal environment that will produce even greater results. And even if you choose not to exercise (although it’s not what we’d recommend), intermittent fasting has been proven to be an effective weight-loss technique and a strategy that can mimic many of the health benefits of exercise, including