I hope you don’t consider it a cop out. The “it” would be those dozens of times this column concluded with me encouraging you to formulate a plan based on the new information offered and experiment on yourself.

I really couldn’t blame you if at times you did because there were times early in my career that I considered it a cop out as well. But I continued to advise that for a really good reason: every time I experimented on myself, I learned a lot and my health and fitness improved to some degree as a result.

Additional evidence that the advice is not cop out: researchers — people whose life’s work it is to experiment on others — often indirectly suggest personal experimentation as the next step to furthering their research.

For instance, Kyoung-Han Kim, the co-author of a study published in the journal Cell Research, claims that study shows “intermittent fasting without a reduction in calorie intake can be a preventative and therapeutic approach against obesity and metabolic disorders” — while also acknowledging how this benefit exactly occurs is less than clear.

That acknowledgment means the researchers don’t know precisely what’s required of you to derive the greatest benefit from intermittent fasting. If that’s the case, what else can you do except experiment?

Unfortunately, experimenting like this can seem as daunting as rowing a boat in fog at night past rocky islets inhabited by monstrous creatures. But if the idea of using intermittent fasting as a way to successfully lose weight intrigues you, let this column be your beacon, the lighthouse sitting on the shore of your ultimate destination, superior health.

Years ago, researchers learned that not all body fat is inert, that a type called brown fat actually burns calories. More recently, research with mice has shown that under the proper conditions inert white fat can be transformed into brown fat — or at least a hybrid type now known as beige fat.

In the research Kim chronicled, mice were divided into two groups. One group was given no food for one day and was then fed for the next two while the other was fed daily. At the conclusion of the study, both groups had consumed the same number of calories because the intermittent fasting group was fed more food after the days without any.

Despite that overindulgence, the mice in the intermittent fasting group weighed significantly less than the mice eating every day 16 weeks later. Moreover, their health profiles were better.

When compared to the every-day eaters, the one-day fasters metabolized glucose better and were found to be more sensitive to insulin — certainly a good thing if you want to maintain a healthy weight and avoid type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, the one-day fasters had less fat buildup in their livers, as well as a lower percentage of white fat because some of theirs had become beige.

Such positive results caused the researchers to repeat the study, only this time they used obese mice. That change did not — repeat, did not— change the end results. The pattern of a one-day fast followed by two days of food worked just as well on obese mice.

But Dr. Rachel Heller already knew that almost 20 years ago. How? How else? Because she grew frustrated with the ineffectiveness of traditional diets, she experimented on herself.

No, she didn’t go a full day without food every third one. In fact, it was having to go without food throughout one day for medical tests that started her experiment.

That night, after the tests needed to be canceled, she treated herself. She ate many of the things that she had been denying herself. And she ate a lot.

Yet the next morning, she weighed less.

Since the medical test was rescheduled for the next day, she followed the same food pattern: nothing to eat until a late supper. Again, the next morning she weighed less.

With her curiosity piqued, she tried the pattern long-term. It worked. After being obese as a child and always overweight after that, Heller reached a healthy weight by eating whatever she wanted every day — but only during a one-hour window near the end of it.

I share Heller’s story for two reasons.

First, you probably don’t want to try what the researchers forced upon the mice. Regardless of how effective that could be for you, fasting for a full day every third one would be hard to sustain for 16 weeks, let alone a lifetime.

You may, however, be able to comfortably do a version of what Heller did, especially if you allow yourself a small lunch high in protein and devoid of carbohydrates.

Second, Heller did what I keep advising you to do. Learn from research or personal experience and experiment.

What Heller tried, for instance, flew in the face of all the established theories at that time. But she sensed her body was especially inefficient at handling carbohydrates.

By consuming her carbs in a single one-hour window each day, she helped her body battle its inefficiencies and drop unnecessary weight.