BOTH INTERMITTENT FASTING and low-carbohydrate, healthy-fat (LCHF) diets effectively reduce insulin, and thus can cause weight loss and reverse type 2 diabetes. Fasting lowers insulin maximally, so it is quite simply the quickest and most efficient method. Still, the very low–carbohydrate diet does remarkably well, giving you 71 percent of the benefits of the fasting without actual fasting.15 Compared to the standard 55 percent carbohydrate diet, low-carbohydrate diets reduce insulin by roughly half, despite similar calorie intakes. Fasting reduces that by another 50 percent.
