Intermittent Fasting vs Fast Mimicking Diet
Written by Andrew Brewer. Updated on March 2023.
Medically reviewed and fact checked by our team.
If you’ve ever wanted to try intermittent fasting but couldn’t pull the trigger because the idea of fasting scared you, then you may want to try the fasting mimicking diet. This is a calorie-restrictive diet that’s thought to help get you the great benefits of intermittent fasting while still allowing you to eat.
There are pre-packaged meal kits and snacks that you can purchase to help ensure you get the proper nutrients to trigger autophagy, helping your body recover. While newer, it’s growing in popularity because it seems more accessible, at least from an eating perspective. Here are a few benefits of each.
Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting has been practiced for centuries, helping people successfully lose weight and change their life. It is an important tool in disease management and prevention, reversing the negative effects of a bad diet, including diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, and more. It’s thought to boost your metabolism, helping you burn through fat stores to lose weight.
Intermittent fasting may even reduce the amount of stress and cortisol in your body, helping you rest and sleep better while improving your gut health. It is a powerful lifestyle that goes farther than just a weight-loss tool, which is why it’s stood the test of time.
Benefits of Fast Mimicking Diet
If the idea of skipping all meals makes you squirm, then the fast mimicking diet may be for you. This diet tries to trick your body into thinking that it is fasting while allowing you to eat a select amount of food. It tries to give you all the benefits of fasting while reducing some of the common challenges, including hunger pains, fatigue, and headaches. The fast mimicking diet is through to speed up autophagy, helping your body purge damaged and dying cells that may lead to diseases over time. It only contains foods that promote autophagy rather than disrupt it.
What are the Differences?
Intermittent fasting and fasting mimicking diet may be similar, and let’s explore why.
Eating
When you’re on intermittent fasting, there are periods of time when you do not eat. Those are your fasting windows, and the longer the window, the more benefits you’ll get. Your body has more time to rest and recover, triggering healthy processes like autophagy to help purge your body of damaged cells.
The fast mimicking diet takes that practice and all the benefits - and allows you to eat while doing it. This restrictive meal plan focuses on core nutrients that won’t restrict autophagy; instead, it boosts its great benefits while allowing you to eat.
Cost
Unless you purchase an intermittent fasting app to help keep you on track, there really isn’t any cost associated with this type of diet. It’s something you can do at your own pace without breaking the bank. The fasting mimicking diet is a little different. There are kits you can buy with pre-packed meals and snacks to help you with this five-day meal plan, which can retail for up to $249. For those on a budget, trying the fasting mimicking diet can be cost-prohibitive.
Disease Prevention
Early studies show that the fasting mimicking diet can have similar results on disease prevention as intermittent fasting, including improving Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and digestive issues. Intermittent fasting has long been thought to help manage and prevent various diseases, so it’s promising that you can get similar effects while on the fasting mimicking diet, though more research is needed.
How to Choose?
Intermittent fasting has a well-established history of success, but if you’re worried about fasting, give the fasting mimicking diet a try. It’s thought you could get similar benefits, though you have to follow a more restrictive, often costly, meal plan. You can always use it as a stepping stone for intermittent fasting.
