Intermittent fasting is one of the famous forms of dieting today. It is a method that restricts a person not what he eats, but the time he eats. The appeal of such type of diet is the fact that people who engage in it could freely eat what they wish to eat. However, because of its extreme popularity, there are now more than a handful of versions of it. It can be quite hard to determine which one is best for a person or why one method is better than the others. 

5:2 Intermittent Fasting

This is perhaps the most common type of intermittent fasting. It requires a person to eat a 500-calorie meal for two days each week (any given two days). For the rest of the five days, a person can eat as normal. 

Research studies show that people who want to lose weight can do so with this type of diet. Such type also helps improve the other markers of good health like low glucose and cholesterol levels in the blood. It is important to note that the 5:2 intermittent fasting require certain kinds of food be ingested to ensure that the body is able to get the nutrients it needs to cover for the two days of fasting. Dieting often leads to muscle and bone mass loss because eating the right amount of food while working on reducing calorie intake is just impossible. This compromise can bring about long-term results.

Alternate Day Fasting

While the 5:2 diet could be considered as the "lifestyle intervention" that people need to lose the extra weight, Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF) can be considered the ultimate weight-loss diet plan. It is also known as the "every other day diet" plan that helps people shed off the extra fat and achieve the ideal body weight. It requires a person to alternate daily diet to restricted eating and consuming low calorie diet. 

Most of the research about the ADF show that it practically follows what the 5:2 diet plan does. It allows for small meals usually about 500-calorie meals to be consumed on days when the person is considered "fasting". Research shows that this diet plan could make a person experience considerable weight loss within two to three months. 

A person who aims to lose weight must try out these diet plans before they decide to stick to just one. The 5:2 may work for others, but it may not work for them. It is best to test it out to find out what works best.