Intermittent Fasting Compared to Continuous Energy Restriction on Body Weight Loss

Overweight and obesity remain a major chronic health problem globally. The development of overweight and obesity is associated with various comorbidities including cardiovascular disease (CVD), dyslipidemia, hypertension, insulin resistance, certain cancers, and sleep apnea. Obesity is a strong modifiable risk factor for CVD, the leading cause of death worldwide. Dietary management is a cornerstone in the prevention, treatment, and control of overweight and obesity, CVD, and metabolic risk factors. Healthy dietary habits reduce the risk of several chronic lifestyle-related diseases as well as meet the demand for essential nutrients to the body to keep healthy. Many dietary guidelines for the management of overweight and obesity in the general population recommended the reduction of body weight through calorie restriction, increase energy expenditure or followed both approaches. The most common method of weight loss has been daily, or continuous energy restriction (CER), which involves individuals restricting their energy restriction on daily basis by anywhere between 15-60%. Although CER is the most widely recommended calorie restriction approach for body weight loss and prevention of overweight and obesity, recent years have seen a surge in popularity of eating patterns including intermittent energy restriction (IER) as an alternative to CER due to its less restrictive nature and potential for higher rates of adherence. IER is an alternative weight loss method that may prove useful for individuals who find continued energy restriction difficult to maintain. Recent studies have shown IER to be comparable to CER in achieving weight loss in overweight and obese populations with the mean weight loss being 3-5 kg over 20 weeks. IER is considered to be effective for the management of obesity because IER requires the individual to focus on the energy-restricted for defined days during the week which is potentially more feasible than the standard approach of CER which is associated with poor compliance, and IER diet pattern have many beneficial metabolic effects achieved with weight loss and energy restriction when the person is no undergo negative energy balance. Many peoples are worried about their increased body weight due to obesity-related adverse outcomes including coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic disorder. There is a knowledge gap of evidence-based dietary patterns used for weight loss diet plan in the Nepalese context. The effectiveness IER using a 2-day severe energy-restricted strategy with 5 days of habitual eating pattern compared to CER has not been yet investigated within the Nepalese population. Therefore, the investigators intended to investigate the effectiveness of an IER diet using 2-day severe energy-restricted with 5 days of habitual eating pattern compared to a CER diet over six months.