What Is Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting is not a new invention or just a trend. “Breakfast” or “Break Fast” is exactly what it means. Going from the period of not eating to eating.
Most popular way is to split your day (24 hours) into two uneven part of eating and not eating. Most popular way is to withhold yourself from eating for 16 hours and eat within the period of 8 hours. Experts say that to get the benefits from fasting you have to not eat for at least 12 hours a day. 12 hour period might not give you all the benefits or at least not to the fullest but it is still considered a great way to improve your health.
When To Choose Intermittent Fasting
One of the most popular reasons today is to lose weight but benefits extend far beyond weight loss for those who seek to transform their health.
I have once attended a class with a doctor speaker who warned that intermittent fasting can be addicting. At the time without ever having tried fasting I was puzzled as in how. Now after having done intermittent fasting for over 9 months I understand what the doctor meant. I will expand on it later.
Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting
Weight Loss – it can help you lose weight especially in the first months of intermittent fasting while your body adjusts to the new way of eating.
Our body exists in a fed (insulin highs) or fasting state (insulin decrease). We are either in the food energy storing or energy burning phase. If balanced you should not be losing or gaining weight.
Reversal of type 2 diabetes – fasting helps how your body metabolizes sugar therefore can improve how your body processes glucose and improve insulin resistance.
One very small study included three men who had had type 2 diabetes for 10-25 years. With medical supervision, the men fasted every other day or 3 days a week. Within a month, all of the men were able to stop taking insulin. And in less than a year, they were able to cut down on or stop other diabetes medications. In another small study, 10 obese men with type 2 diabetes followed a time-restricted eating plan. They improved their fasting glucose and lost weight over 6 weeks.
Reduce inflammation – we allow our body to conserve energy from not having to constantly digest food therefore it has more resources stored for healing itself therefore reduce inflammation faster.
Lower cholesterol – fasting can help lower your “bad” cholesterol while lowering low – density lipoprotein.
Clarity of mind – this is where the possibility of an addiction to fasting becomes possible. Just like any substance, food or experience that gives us “mind highs”, fasting allows for clearer, unclouded judgement/thinking. Brandie Redinger, mindfulness teacher in Boise ID, says that you should never make important decisions on a full stomach. Maybe the saying “sleep on it”, which we generally interpret as having gotten a good night’s sleep, could be to do with a clearer mind that comes after a period of not having any food to metabolize.
What Foods Can You Eat While Fasting
In general you can reap the benefits even without changing what you eat but to get the most out of fasting your should be mindful of anything processed, sugars and of course white flour, all the foods that cloud our minds and introduce toxins into our physical bodies.
Intermittent Fasting And Other Diets
I see this question asked a lot – is it ok for to add a certain type of diet to an intermittent fasting lifestyle. YES! You can certainly improve your health and lose weight if you can combine a certain healthy eating program, supplements, exercise or any other ways to help improve your physical body.
In my personal experience I saw weight decrease in the first month of starting to fast intermittently. I lost about 7 pounds in the first few weeks and about 3 pounds in the remaining 2 weeks. Weight loss however slowed down completely and I started seeing weight gain 3 months into it. This is how long my body was adjusting to the new way of eating in other words was in a shock state.
I have read in many forums that this is a very common occurrence therefore Intermittent Fasting would probably not be the best solution if you need to lose a lot of weight as your body will adjust to the new regime and won’t release weight as easily without actually reducing caloric intake.
