One of the world's current health and fitness trends is intermittent fasting. People are using it to lose weight, improve their health and simplify their lifestyles.
Many studies show that it can have powerful effects on your body and brain and may even help you live longer.
FASTING- YIKES! Don’t worry-- I’m not going to ask you to go a week without food. Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It doesn’t specify which foods you should eat but rather when you should eat them.
Commonly intermittent fasting methods involve daily 12-16 hour fasts. So if you take your first bite of food or drink of juice in the morning at 7:30 a.m. you would need to take your last bite of food in the evening by 7:30 pm (though restricting it to an 8 or 10 hour window of eating rather than 12 is even better). During the time period that you have chosen to fast you would not take in any substances with calories. You take in only water when you not in your window of eating.
I have been experimenting with intermittent fasting or time restricted eating for some time and have found that for me the biggest change was giving up evening treats in front of the t.v. But honestly it really hasn’t been that painful.
For our bonus challenge this week I am going to ask you to restrict your eating each day to an 8,10 or at least 12 hour window and other than that take in only water.(NOTE IF YOU HAVE A MEDICAL REASON THAT YOU NEED TO EAT REGULARLY DURING ALL THE HOURS YOU ARE AWAKE LET ME KNOW AND I’LL GIVE YOU AN ALTERNATE CHALLENGE.) *There are free apps to help you track this
Fasting has been a practice throughout human evolution. Ancient hunter-gatherers didn't have supermarkets, refrigerators or food available year-round. Sometimes they couldn't find anything to eat.
As a result, the human body evolved to be able to function without food for extended periods of time.
In fact, fasting from time to time is more natural than always eating 3–4 (or more) meals per day.
How It Affects Your Cells and Hormones
When you fast, several things happen in your body on the cellular and molecular level.
For example, your body adjusts hormone levels to make stored body fat more accessible.
Your cells also initiate important repair processes and change the expression of genes.
Here are some changes that occur in your body when you fast:
• Human Growth Hormone (HGH): The levels of growth hormoneskyrocket, increasing as much as 5-fold. This has benefits for fat loss and muscle gain, to name a few.
• Insulin: Insulin sensitivityimproves and levels of insulin drop dramatically. Lower insulin levels make stored body fat more accessible .
• Cellular repair: When fasted, your cells initiate cellular repair processes. This includes autophagy, where cells digest and remove old and dysfunctional proteins that build up inside cells.
• Gene expression: There are changes in the function of genes related to longevity and protection against disease.
These changes in hormone levels, cell function and gene expression are responsible for the health benefits of intermittent fasting.
A Very Powerful Weight Loss Tool
Weight loss is the most common reason for people to try intermittent fasting.
By restricting your eating to a short time period intermittent fasting can lead to a reduction in total calorie intake.
Additionally, intermittent fasting changes hormone levels to facilitate weight loss.
In addition to lowering insulin and increasing growth hormone levels, it increases the release of the fat burning hormone norepinephrine (noradrenaline).
Because of these changes in hormones, short-term fasting may increase your metabolic rateby 3.6–14%.
By helping you eat fewer and burn more calories, intermittent fasting causes weight loss by changing both sides of the calorie equation.
A 2014 review study found that this eating pattern can cause 3–8% weight loss over 3–24 weeks, which is a significant amount, compared to most weight loss studies.
According to the same study, people also lost 4–7% of their waist circumference, indicating a significant loss of harmful belly fatthat builds up around your organs and causes disease
Another study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than the more standard method of continuous calorie restriction.
However, keep in mind that the main reason for its success is that intermittent fasting helps you eat fewer calories overall. If you binge and eat massive amounts during your eating periods, you may not lose any weight at all.
Health Benefits
Many studies have been done on intermittent fasting, in both animals and humans.
These studies have shown that it can have powerful benefitsfor weight control and the health of your body and brain. It may even help you live longer.
Here are the main health benefits of intermittent fasting:
• Weight loss: As mentioned above, intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and belly fat, without having to consciously restrict calories
• Insulin resistance: Intermittent fasting can reduce insulin resistance, lowering blood sugar by 3–6% and fasting insulin levels by 20–31%, which should protect against type 2 diabetes
• Inflammation: Some studies show reductions in markers of inflammation, a key driver of many chronic diseases
• Heart health: Intermittent fasting may reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, blood sugar and insulin resistance — all risk factors for heart disease
• Cancer: Animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting may prevent cancer
• Brain health: Intermittent fasting increases the brain hormone BDNF and may aid the growth of new nerve cells. It may also protect against Alzheimer’s disease
• Anti-aging: Intermittent fasting can extend lifespan in rats. Studies showed that fasted rats lived 36–83% longer
Keep in mind that research is still in its early stages. Many of the studies were small, short-term or conducted in animals. Many questions have yet to be answered in higher quality human studies
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