Dr. Varady is an associate professor of nutrition at my alma mater, the University of Illinois in Chicago, and in this interview, she reveals how intermittent fasting can help you achieve optimal health and weight without starving yourself every day. She explains what prompted her to investigate, and eventually write a book on this topic.

“I wanted to do a PhD in the area of calorie restriction and fasting,” she says. “I wanted to find out: do you really have to diet every single day to lose weight? I noticed that people just weren’t able to stick to calorie restriction programs for more than about a month or two. Everyone dropped off of their diet.

I thought: ‘is there a way to manipulate that eating pattern that will allow people to stick to it longer? Maybe you could diet every other day?’ That way you can always look forward to the next day, where you can eat whatever you want. Maybe that would help people kind of stick to these diets?”

As it turns out, her hunch was correct. Alternate-day fasting has a far greater retention- and compliance rate compared to conventional all-day fasting regimens. The preferred version of intermittent fasting, which simply calls for restricting your eating to a narrower window of about six to eight hours or so each day, also has a far greater success rate than more extensive fasting protocols.