The Awesome Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Within the last few years there’s been quite a buzz around intermittent fasting in the health and fitness world. If you’re not familiar with intermittent fasting it is essentially breaking up your eating into a specific time window where you are fed for a small portion of the day and the remainder you are fasted. This means you cannot consume anything with caloric value during the fast. There’s a lot of research that supports the effectiveness of this method in terms of weight loss. However, the benefits go far beyond helping you shed the pounds off your midsection.

Despite all the fad diets and controversy, when it comes to losing weight it’s pretty cut and dry, burn more calories than you take in. It doesn’t matter how you do it, if you are in a caloric deficit you will lose weight. There are however, healthier ways to reach your desired weight than others. Intermittent fasting is one of the more viable methods to lose body fat and enhance your life in other aspects as well.

There are several ways to execute intermittent fasting. The approach that presumes to be the most popular is the 16/8 method. The 16/8 method is accomplished when you eat all your calories in 8 an hour window and consume nothing besides water black coffee or straight tea in the following 16. There are a few exceptions based on your personal goals that I will dive into later. Another way of attaining intermittent fasting is my personal favorite, the 18/6 method. The 18/6 simply cuts your eating window shorter. The reason I enjoy this technique is for the greater health benefits it provides. The longer the fast the greater the benefits, to an extent, you don’t need to go fasted for 2-3 days on me. This brings me into the next method that is used, and that is the eat stop eat method. A few times a week you fast for a complete 24 hours, in the time between those 24 hours you are free to eat whenever you choose.

Intermittent fasting works great for weight loss in a couple different manners. Consciously restricting you’re eating times almost always reduces your caloric intake and as I touched on earlier less calories in versus more calories out results in weight loss. Intermittent fasting also works in another way that intrigues me, especially for those who supplement fasting with aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Intermittent fasting can help bring you in a state of ketosis, this means that your body is no longer using glycogen (carbohydrates) as its main source of fuel, and is now using ketones (fat). This means that while you are in a fasted state, it increases your fat burning ability.

The weight loss benefits are great, however, I’m more interested in how this effects our body from a cellular stand point. When we are in a fasted state it gives the body a break from using its energy to digest food, therefore, giving it the ability to heal and regenerate cells. This regeneration process is known as autophagy. Autophagy works by getting rid of old and damaged cells that can be harmful to our overall health. Autophagy slows down aging, aids in weight loss, supports immunity, suppresses tumors and reduces the risk of cancer. Autophagy alone has a power house of benefits that shouldn’t be passed up.

For those looking to lose weight and get the benefits of autophagy the period when you are fasted must be strict. I recommend the 18/6 method because increased autophagy kicks in at around 12 hours into your fast and continues the longer you fast. When you are fasted what you consume needs to be minimal, for instance: water, black coffee and tea with no additives. For optimal results, don’t consume any diet beverages or even gum. The sugar alcohols in gum and the sweetness of the diet drinks can trick your mind into slightly raising insulin which will decrease autophagy. If you are simply looking for the weight loss benefits it can be a bit more relaxed when it comes to what you consume during the fast. It still needs to be zero calories, however if you feel like you need a diet drink on occasion, you’ll be alright.

intermittent fasting is something I dabbled with a few years’ back. In these past few months I have been much more strict with my approach. In the months of June and most of July I used the 18/6 method. I lost 5-6 pounds of body fat helping me reach my leanest physique. This also worked well for me because I am someone who would rather eat 2 big meals rather than snack all day. If I snack I find myself constantly hungry throughout the day. Knowing I can’t eat until a certain time helps me stay disciplined, stopping me from grabbing food from the pantry every time I walk in the kitchen. My advice is to pick your eating window closer to night, I found that I was always hungry closer to bed but wasn’t as hungry when I woke up in the morning. I challenge all of you reading this to experiment with intermittent fasting over the next few months and see how it works for you.

Sources

The 12 Important Benefits Of Autophagy. (2018, November 26). Retrieved from

https://www.naomiwhittel.com/the-12-important-benefits-of-autophagy/

Fitness, B. G. (2019, January 31). The Official Fasting Q&A With Ben Greenfield: Does

Coffee Break Your Fast, Poor Sleep During Fastin. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjfm3cgX5Mg&t=912s