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It’s in the name… you fast overnight and usually all morning and then consume your calories in an eight-hour window. This plan has became synonymous with the A-list beasts like Hugh Jackman and Terry Crews and the team at No1 highly recommend it due to its simplicity, and the ease of fitting it into your daily routine, not to mention the fantastic results our members have seen from implementing the plan…Ben Dewar going from 90kg 81kg in just 10 weeks!

Research suggests that almost half of Brits don’t actually eat breakfast anyway, and like other forms of fasting it limits your eating time to a strictly defined period. Not only does this naturally cap your calorie intake, but it also improves your body’s ability to burn fat by lowering your insulin levels.

The 16:8 has more scientific clout than most fasting diets; a University of Illinois at Chicago study found that it lowers blood-pressure and other various studies have showed that rates of fat loss while fasting were just as high, if not higher than many regular low-calorie diets. Furthermore, time restricted eating is proven to aid fat loss while simultaneously maintaining muscle.

Skipping breakfast may seem like the easiest way to implement the 16:8 plan, but you need to make sure you tailor your fasting window to your workout time, ie. if your training in the morning try and have breakfast soon after and then have an early dinner, likewise if your training late in the day skip breakfast and have a bigger lunch instead.

On rest days… just do whatever suits you. That’s the beauty of the 16:8 plan, unlike other fasts it does not require unwavering adherence and rigid structure, you can be flexible in maintaining a successful 16:8 plan!

While flexibility is enabled by the fast, Steve recommends as a basis for beginning if you are unsure, eating at 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 7pm, then fasting from 7pm to 11am the next day. You should still aim for a good macro split with fairly high protien if your training relatively intensely, ie. 3 times+ per week, your calorie intake will vary depending on your activity level and your goals.

OTHER TYPES OF FAST

The water fast is extremely simple, no food, no juice, just water. You eat a meal, ie, a late breakfast lets say at 10am, and then you simply drink water until 10am the next day. For other non-fasting days you eat as normal. Some may choose to water fast for 48 hours rather than just 24, or even 72 although that level of water fasting should only be undertaken under medical supervision. You will certainly lose weight, but the major drawback is you will also lose muscle so this is not something we at No1 recommend.

The juice fast is exactly what it says, nothing more than liquified fruits, roots and vegetables for a set period of time, anywhere from a day for beginners to a whole week for the hardcore. There are many benefits as well as weight and fat loss, for example kale juice is associated with a rise in HDL cholesterol (the good kind) and citrus and carrot are known to lower heart disease. Again however, a lack of protein and added high sugars likely to cause you to burnout in the gym! So again our coaches strongly suggest using 16/8 over a juice style fast.

The bulletproof diet… Taking the basis of the 16:8 but adding buttery coffee to an otherwise empty morning menu! The bulk of your calories in the set window should be high-fat, low-carb focused, ie. red meats, fatty fish, avocado and eggs. The focus on ketosis stimulation, the process by which a body starved of glucose burns its own fat stores instead aids fat loss alongside muscle mass retention. This can get really decent results but requires almost military precision to get right so unless you are super diligent the 16/8 fast wins for us.