Kamak wrote:
I have to kinda question the study, since religious fasting does tend to cause a loss of weight because it's, well, fasting. Deprivation of food is of course going to cause you to lose weight even if you indulge at the end of the day if you change nothing else about your lifestyle (still going to work/school, keeping up with clubs).
It's still not considered completely healthy as a means for actual weight loss, especially if it's done improperly. It's part of the reason that in some places,
workers are less productive, and in some cases, people have been known to pass out or cause accidents (especially in the work place) with making this choice. It's certainly not going to make you at the top of your game, and you could hurt yourself in the process, so you shouldn't fast for extended periods or use it as a weight loss solution.
They got the idea from Ramadan, but that wasn't the actual study. They did it with police officers, Israeli police officers, and split them into two groups for six months. The first one loaded up on carbs in the evening and kept them light the rest of the day. The second just went about things as usual with carbs all day.
What they found is that for the people in the evening, they were much less hungry during the day because the hormone that causes hunger adapted to fit the new schedule.
Quote:
The researchers found that the innovative dietary manipulation led to changes in daylight hormonal profiles in favor of the dieters: the satiety hormone leptin’s secretion curve became convex during daylight hours with a nadir in the late day; the hunger hormone ghrelin’s secretion curve became concave, peaking only in the evening hours; and the curve of adiponectin, considered the link between obesity, insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome, was elevated. At the same time this dietary pattern led to lower hunger scores, and better anthropometric (weight, abdominal circumference and body fat), biochemical (blood sugar, blood lipids) and inflammatory outcomes compared to the control group.
Keep in mind that modern medicine has a lot to thank Muslims for. I could actually believe that Ramadan was used the way it is specifically because they already knew the benefits of that eating style.