Fasting May Improve Brain Health
The Warrior Diet is promoted as a way to improve brain health.
There may be some truth to that based on scientific studies on intermittent fasting.
Intermittent fasting has been found to benefit the regulation of inflammatory pathways that affect your brain function.
For example, animal studies have shown that intermittent fasting reduced inflammatory markers like interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha , which may negatively impact memory and learning (
5 ).
However, research in this area is ongoing and more human studies are needed to determine the benefits of intermittent fasting on brain health.
What Are The Possible Side Effects
There can be a number of possible side effects of intermittent fasting.40 Heres what to do if you encounter them:
- Hunger is the most common side effect of intermittent fasting. This may be less of an issue if youre already on a keto or low-carb, higher-fat diet.41Learn more
- Constipation is common. Less going in means less going out. However, keep in mind this is a normal response to eating less. It is not a concern and shouldnt require treatment unless you experience significant bloating or abdominal discomfort. Standard laxatives or magnesium supplements can be used, if needed.
- Headaches are common and tend to disappear after the first few times on fasts.42 Taking some extra salt often helps mitigate such headaches.43
- Mineral water may help if your stomach tends to gurgle.
- Other possible side effects include dizziness, heartburn and muscle cramps. Learn more
A more serious side effect is the refeeding syndrome. Fortunately, this is rare and generally only happens with extended fasts when one is undernourished.44
Since most of these side effects are manageable, they do not mean you have to stop your fast. However, if you truly feel unwell, are excessively dizzy, profoundly weak or have other severe symptoms, then you should break your fast.
Just remember to go slowly when you break it and prioritize fluids and salt . And of course, if the symptoms persist, see your doctor immediately.
Intermittent Fasting Isnt A Starvation Diet Its A Healthy Lifestyle
Whenever the average person first hears about intermittent fasting, they usually say, oh yeah, Ive done that before, you mean like starving yourself to lose weight right? Wrong!
Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle. Its a way of living that you could sustain for the rest of your life.
The by-product of this is weight loss, improved mental and physical health etc.
So far, intermittent fasting has not been detrimental to my health. In fact, its actually improved my health significantly over time.
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Intermittent Fasting With A Mediterranean Diet
If you are going to do intermittent fasting, make sure you do it safely. Intermittent fasting is not for everyone and anyone who wishes to try this lifestyle change should make sure they dont eat too little or too much instead, they should maintain a healthy diet while doing Intermittent Fasting. One great way of doing intermittent fasting is pairing it with a Mediterranean diet.
A study on the combination of intermittent fasting and a Mediterranean diet showed that both had many benefits including weight loss, improvement in heart health and improvements in blood sugar levels. When you do this, make sure you eat nutrient dense foods like whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits while also maintaining a healthy fat intake. This combination has many health benefits and is one of the best diets for weight loss!
So If Im *not* Losing Weight With If Whats The Problem
There could be a few reasons. Here are 12 intermittent fasting mistakes that you might be making, and how to fix them.
1. Youre eating too much during your eating window.
As mentioned, in general, Weight loss essentially boils down to calories in versus calories out, reminds Martin. If you end up consuming the same number of calories during your eating windows as before you started intermittent fasting, then you wont lose weight.
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In other words, if you just pack all of the calories you’d normally eat into your eating window, you’re not really changing your diet at all.
How to fix it: Try a calorie-counting app. “Although I dont typically recommend calorie counting, it may help to track your caloric intake for a few days using a calorie-tracking app,” says Martin. “These apps will usually tell you the approximate daily calorie amount you need to be at in order to lose weight. Although these estimations are usually off, they can be used as a good starting point.” The app can also reveal meals or specific foods that have more calories than you’d expect, and you can adjust your diet accordingly.
2. You are not consuming enough calories on non-fasting days.
When you dont consume an adequate amount of calories on non-fasting days, your body may conserve the energy you consume, rather than burning it, says Smith.
3. Youre eating less-nutritious foods.
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Eat Often Or Intermittent Fasting
The main difference between eating less but more often and strict periods without meals is a hormonal change.
Accordingly, intermittent fasting shows a more potent reduction of insulin levels as well as insulin resistance, which enables better fat burning .
In addition to the growth hormone, which protects muscle mass, the hormone noradrenaline increases to boost metabolism during fasting .
In contrast to intermittent fasting, conventional calorie restriction leads to a loss of muscle mass. Also, the basal metabolic rate decreases if you eat less but frequently.
Consequently, a study with the participants of the weight-loss TV show The Biggest Loser revealed that those participants who lost the most weight through calorie restriction suffered the longest from a weak metabolism.
Since it was precisely these participants who were again rapidly gaining weight, scientists observed a severe yo-yo effect in them .
Could Help Lower Cholesterol
Your cholesterol might also improve after intermittent fasting when consuming a healthy diet during your non-fasting periods.
Better lipid profiles have been found after intermittent fasting including lower overall cholesterol, lower LDL , and lower triglyceride levels in healthy and overweight populations .
The majority of studies investigating intermittent fasting’s effects on cholesterol have focused on those fasting for Ramadan, so intermittent fasting may be an effective dietary method to improve your cholesterol, but further studies are needed to explore the differences in short-term vs long-term metabolic changes associated with fasting. .
If you’re concerned about high cholesterol try adopting healthy lifestyle habits like incorporating exercise and a diet low in saturated and trans fats, and rich in high fiber foods.
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Whats Specific To Intermittent Fasting
You might be confused here because I mostly talked about calorie deficit and the body adapting to fewer calories.
When youre intermittent fasting, of course, youre putting a calorie deficit on the body, but thats not the same as eating 3 to 5 times a day while counting calories.
Youre not effectively trying to get fewer calories, youre trying to eat less often, shortening your eating window, in order to train your body to burn fat. Youre not forcing your body to adapt to fewer calories to function.
Intermittent fasting is not about calories in, calories out, its about hormones. Youre lowering your insulin levels when eating less often, you give your body time to adapt to fat as energy, thats the whole concept.
Some of the things Ive said apply to IF too, because youre effectively getting used to fewer calories, but there could be another side-effect of intermittent fasting that could slow down weight-loss.
Its how intermittent fasting might affect your thyroid.
Intermittent fasting might be slowing down the functioning of the thyroid gland. The thyroid plays a huge part in the body and one of its roles is to regulate energy metabolism and thermogenesis.
Fasting will impact your metabolism and the way your body uses and converts energy, this means it will have an impact on your thyroid.
Thyroid hormone, called T3, is crucial for the body to use energy. But when youre fasting, your body will reduce T3, in order to preserve as much energy as possible.
Make The Calories Count
Not all calories are the same. Although these fasting methods do not set restrictions on how many calories a person should consume when fasting, it is essential to consider the nutritional value of the food.
In general, a person should aim to consume nutrient-dense food, or food with a high number of nutrients per calorie. Though a person may not have to abandon junk food entirely, they should still practice moderation and focus on more healthful options to gain the most benefits.
Fasting has several effects on a persons body. These effects include:
- Reducing levels of insulin, which makes it easier for the body to use stored fat.
- Lowering blood sugars, blood pressure, and inflammation levels.
- Changing the expression of certain genes, which helps the body protect itself from disease as well as promoting longevity.
- Dramatically increases human growth hormone, or HGH, which helps the body utilize body fat and grow muscle.
- The body activates a healing process doctors call autophagy, which essentially means that the body digests or recycles old or damaged cell components.
Fasting dates back to ancient humans who often went hours or days between meals as obtaining food was difficult. The human body adapted to this style of eating, allowing extended periods to pass between food intake times.
Research also shows fasting to be beneficial for the management of metabolic syndrome and diabetes, extending lifespan,
Also Check: How To Lose Weight Fast Fasting
Not Enough Sleep Or Handling Stress
If you are doing intermittent fasting to lose weight, getting enough sleep is crucial. Research has shown that there is a close link between lack of sleep and weight gain. People who sleep little tend to weigh more than people who regularly get enough sleep. That is because being tired and having no energy makes you want to eat something. We have all experienced that.
And did you know that people who sleep well tend to consume fewer calories than people who dont sleep enough hours?
A good nights sleep also has other benefits, including better concentration and productivity, protection against serious illnesses, and boosting the immune system. A good nights sleep also helps you to handle stress better.
Change Your Everyday Diet
If fasting for a longer period, even if its just a few hours a day, ends up being too hard on you, either psychologically or socially, you can always combine IF with another diet.
In this article, I compared 8 other famous diets to intermittent fasting. You might think IF was the big winner, well, yes and no. IF is not really a diet, its an eating habit, a lifestyle.
So if youre doing IF, you may think you dont really need to be doing anything else to lose weight. Except eat kind of healthy food and trying not to get too much sugar and stuff.
But depending on your goals and how hard for you it is to reach them, why not take a look at other diets out there?
There are low-carbs diets that might freak you out like the Ketogenic Diet, because it can be hard to implement with a social life, but maybe the Atkins Diet would be easier for you?
And what about going vegan for a month? Or trying the delicious Mediterranean Diet or the great Paleo Diet?
These days, everyone seems to have created its own diet and written a book about it. Of course, dont just do any diet out there, read articles about it, studies, and check if you could implement and if it really would work for you.
But there are tons of diets, well-documented ones, with advantages and disadvantages, most of them working, that you can pull from and try to implement in your life, at least for a while.
Find the right diet for you and add it as a bonus to your already great intermittent fasting lifestyle.
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You Sabotage With Soda
Mills says the carbonation in soda can mask your sense of hunger, which can set you up for being too hungry at your next meal and lead you to overeat. “Artificially sweetened drinks can also raise the satisfaction bar for sweet tastes, so when you do eat a piece of fruit it may not be satisfying.”
She adds these beverages may also have caffeine, which can affect people differently. “Some caffeine may make you jittery and set you up for craving sweets. While other caffeine may mask your sense of hunger and postpone eating until well past feeling hungry.”
Eating Junk While Intermittent Fasting
Since highly processed foods not only raise blood sugar and insulin levels but also have a severe pro-inflammatory effect, you should avoid them during intermittent fasting .
Therefore, this one also applies to intermittent fasting:
Eat real food, such as on the previous list!
Correspondingly inadequate nutrition during the eating periods can destroy the health benefits of intermittent fasting.
Thus, do not trust any food in colorful packaging and read the labels thoroughly before you seriously consider eating these garbage foods:
- Ready Meals
- Dressings
- Fast food
If you have one of these foods on your meal plan, you wont get any results, even with intermittent fasting.
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When Should I Exercise
When Varady and her colleagues conducted a study that combined alternate day fasting and exercise, they allowed the participants to pick whether they wanted to exercise on a feasting or fasting day, and found there was no strong preference one way or the other. But the researchers were surprised the dieters actually reported feeling more energetic on fasting days.
Organic Chicken With Skin
It is no secret that chicken is suitable for most people.
If you eat it with skin, it also provides collagen, which the body needs for skin, hair, muscles, and joints.
In addition to a proven protein source, it can also be used as chicken soup, ideal for breaking more extended periods of therapeutic fasting.
Furthermore, chicken provides vitamins and minerals such as :
- Vitamin B6
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Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting
Some studies suggest that adopting an intermittent fasting practice may help with weight loss, improve memory and mental performance, cardiovascular health, type 2 diabetes, and the effectiveness of cancer treatments .
While much of this research comes from animal studies, emerging human data has offered promising results – especially related to the potential for helping with weight loss and improving some aspects of nutrition-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease .
It’s important to note that the long-term effects of intermittent fasting have not been fully established, but current research shows some promising short-term benefits that we’ve outlined in our list below. Additionally, while the potential benefits of fasting are exciting, there is not enough research to proclaim it is more effective for weight loss or improving health than a basic healthy eating approach.
What Breaks A Fast
Strictly speaking: any amount of calories, no matter how small, disrupts the fasting process. If youre following your intermittent fasting plan to the letter, that means no calories, whatsoever, for the entirety of your fasting window. And while some say it is possible to preserve the benefits of intermittent fastingburning fat for fuel, controlled blood sugar levels, etc.it is not generally recommended to consume anything other than a few select beverages during the fasting window.
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Intermittent Fasting Without Keto: Why It Works
Many people turn to intermittent fasting and the keto diet for weight loss. Why? Because these two methods are much more sustainable than calorie restriction long term, but can you benefit from intermittent fasting without eating keto or do you need to do both to achieve the best results? Find out in todays blog post.
Concerns And Adjustments With Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is becoming popular, but it’s still not the normal thing to do. As a result, you may have some concerns about it or you may want to make some adjustments to your intermittent fasting schedule. Here are some common questions I’ve seen that should help point you in the right direction.
What if I ate my first meal at breakfast, skipped lunch, and then ate my second meal at dinner time?
This idea would work well for one reason, but not well for another reason. Let’s talk about both.
First, if your goal is to lose weight, then skipping lunch should help because it decreases the number of calories that you’re eating throughout the day. As I said in my article on lessons learned from 1 year of intermittent fasting, even if you try to eat two large meals instead of three regular meals, it’s hard to get the same number of calories. Even if you want to eat more, you often end up eating less.
So the end result of skipping lunch is that you would probably reduce your overall caloric intake and end up losing weight.
However, one of the primary benefits of intermittent fasting is that it puts you in a fat burning state. In other words, fasting makes it more likely that you’ll burn fat and not muscle.
In other words, you need to have at least 8 to 12 hours off from eating before your body enters the fasted, fatburning state. This is why you want to squish your meals into a smaller time frame rather than spreading them throughout the day.
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