There are many different intermittent fasting plans out there. I have included summaries of the books I have found to be most helpful in the Annotated Bibliography section of this book, and you can flip to that section to read about each one of them. Once you decide which intermittent fasting plan you want to try, I highly recommend that you research the plan for yourself by reading the original plan as written by its author. I have great respect for these authors, and each book on the list has shaped my thinking about intermittent fasting and why it is effective.
Personally, I have tried every type of intermittent fasting plan available. In fact, I started dabbling in intermittent fasting in about 2009. I never viewed it as a lifestyle, however, so I would try a plan briefly, and then fall off of the wagon. If you read my story in Appendix A, I have outlined it all there for you—the whole messy story. Instinctually I knew that intermittent fasting would be the answer for me as soon as I heard about it, but I never would commit or follow through, until I hit rock bottom in 2014.
I finally understood that intermittent fasting was a lifestyle and not another diet plan, and I experimented until I found what works for me. The best part is that I have a whole toolbox full of intermittent fasting strategies that I can pull out when I need them, to suit my current situation. I can pick and choose which strategies to implement based on how I want to live my life.
That’s important to understand from the beginning— intermittent fasting is a lifestyle. It isn’t something that you start today and then end when you get to some arbitrary “goal weight.” Something you start and then stop is a DIET. Intermittent fasting isn’t a diet—as I said, it’s a lifestyle. Before I get into the specifics of an eating window approach vs. an up/down day approach, I want to talk about hormones again.
