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A 2011 study compared a portion-control strategy to an intermittent-fasting strategy.

Personal experience in our clinic shows that appetite tends to decrease with increased duration of fasting.

Concerns are raised repeatedly that fasting may provoke overeating. Studies of caloric intake do show a slight increase at the next meal.

It’s unclear to me where this myth originated. Daily caloric restriction does, in fact, lead to decreased metabolism, so people have assumed that this effect would be magnified as food intake dropped to zero. It won’t. Decreasing food intake is matched by decreased energy expenditure.

Studies of alternate daily fasting, for example, show that the concern over muscle loss is largely misplaced.17 Alternate daily fasting over seventy days decreased body weight by 6 per cent, but fat mass decreased by 11.4 per cent. Lean mass (including muscle and bone) did not change at all.

The human body has evolved to survive episodic periods of starvation. Fat is stored energy and muscle is functional tissue. Fat is burned first.

It’s crucial to note that all these beneficial adaptive changes do not occur in the caloric-reduction diet strategy.