Intermittent fasting isn’t required to lose weight on the ketogenic diet, but it can help.
There are a few approaches that you can use when it comes to intermittent fasting:
- Skipped meals. This is when you skip a meal to induce extra time of fasting. Usually, people choose breakfast, but others prefer to skip lunch or dinner.
- Eating windows. Usually, this condenses your entire calorie intake between a 4 and 7 hour window. The rest of the time you are in a fasting state.
- 24-48 hour cleanse. This is where you go into extended fasting periods, and do not eat for 1-2 days.
The most popular strategies are skipping meals and using eating windows. Each one helps boost your weight loss results because they make it nearly impossible to eat so much keto food that you end up in a calorie surplus.
Although you will feel hungry at first, your body will adjust by activating autophagy and burning more fat and ketones for fuel. This will not only help you lose more fat, but it will improve your overall health as well.
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of intermittent fasting and how to implement it with your keto diet, check out this article.