Intermittent Fasting May Benefit The Heart
According to the Intermountain Medical Center, intermittent fasting plays a role in keeping the heart healthy.
This is great news considering heart disease is a leading cause of death around the world.
Intermittent fasting helps to lower blood pressure, which is good for the heart.
LDL and total cholesterol levels will also be improved.
Blood sugar levels will benefit from intermittent fasting as well.
Keeping the heart healthy will help to prevent heart disease.
If you have a history of heart disease in your family, intermittent fasting is something you may want to consider.
How Gender Impacts Your Fasting Routine
From a biological standpoint, gender can impact the success of intermittent fasting. Male and female body composition and metabolic systems are different from each other. Physical activity, hormone levels, caloric intake, and fasting impact each of us differently.
Due to these reasons, males tend to benefit from fasting more than females. Females also should not focus on long-term fasting or drastic reduction in caloric intake.
Over thousands of years, the genetic makeup of females benefits most from the constant intake of high-quality calories, which eliminates such fasting regimes as 20:4 fasting from a female routine. The optimal amount of fasting would be 14 hours per day.
For males, skipping breakfast or skipping a day of eating might be just what the doctor recommended.
In both cases, the most important thing is to avoid hangriness, a state when you become very upset while hungry. The key here is to balance out your meals and eat highly nutritious meals throughout the eating window.
Generally, try to eat high-protein and high-fiber dishes to stay satiated for longer.
Intermittent Fasting Decreases Metabolism Less Than Continuous Calorie Restriction
When you lose weight, your metabolic rate goes down. Part of this is because losing weight causes muscle loss, and muscle tissue burns calories around the clock.
However, the decrease in metabolic rate seen with weight loss cant always be explained by the loss of muscle mass alone .
Severe calorie restriction over a long period can cause your metabolic rate to drop, as your body enters so-called starvation mode. The scientific term for this is adaptive thermogenesis.
Your body does this to conserve energy as a natural defense against starvation .
This has been demonstrated dramatically in a study of people who lost large amounts of weight while participating in The Biggest Loser, a reality show on TV.
Participants followed a calorie-restricted diet and intense exercise regimen to lose large amounts of weight .
The study found that 6 years later, most of them had regained nearly all of the weight they had lost. However, their metabolic rates had not gone back up and remained around 500 calories lower than you would expect for their body size.
Other studies investigating the effects of calorie restriction on weight loss have found similar results. The drop in metabolism due to weight loss can amount to hundreds of calories per day (
Recommended Reading: Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss
Possibly the most notable benefit of intermittent fasting for weight loss is this methods ability to boost your bodys fat burning processes.
When your body runs out of the sugars found within foods to use as fuel, it first breaks down the stored glycogen in your body for energy, and then goes on to breaking down your fat cells to use after that.
This is generally thought to ramp up between 16-24 hours of fasting, making methods that incorporate a 24 hour fasting period highly popular for weight loss.
Leptin levels are also known to decrease during fasting.
Leptin is the hormone responsible for feelings of satiety or fullness. And, since this hormone is stored in fat cells, in obese individuals too much leptin is found within the body. This results in what is known as leptin resistance, making it harder to recognize feelings of fullness.
So, lowered levels of this hormone can lead to less leptin resistance, which translates to fewer feelings of hunger and possibly more weight loss.
Another, more obvious, way that intermittent fasting aids in weight loss is through a reduction in caloric intake.
Done correctly, when incorporating either days within a week , or hours in a day where one refrains from eating, you naturally consume fewer calories, which results in weight loss.
During the hours allotted for eating when incorporating IF methods, you should plan to eat normally or sensibly.
The 16:8 Method
The 5:2 Diet
Eat, Stop, Eat
Alternate Day Fasting
12 Hour Fasting
Intermittent Fasting Helps To Reduce Inflammation
Inflammation is the body’s response to outside threats such as toxic chemicals and infections.
This is the body’s way of protecting the cells and tissues.
Too much inflammation in the body is a different story though.
Too much inflammation is linked to lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, gut problems such as ulcerative colitis, and gouty arthritis.
Symptoms of inflammation include joint pain and stiffness, redness, fatigue, headaches, and muscle stiffness.
Intermittent fasting can help to reduce inflammation throughout the body.Intermittent fasting benefits your body and health in many ways.
An intermittent fasting cycle is flexible, so you can adjust it to suit your lifestyle.
Also Check: What Should Your Blood Sugar Be Fasting
How Do I Try Intermittent Fasting
There are four popular fasting approaches: periodic fasting, time-restricted feeding, alternate-day fasting and the 5:2 diet. Time-restricted feeding, sometimes called daily intermittent fasting, is perhaps the easiest and most popular fasting method. Daily intermittent fasters restrict eating to certain time periods each day, say 11 in the morning to 7 at night. The fasting period is usually around 12 or more hours that, helpfully, includes time spent sleeping overnight. Periodic fasting will feel most familiar: no food or drinks with calories for 24-hour periods. Another type of fast, alternate-day fasting requires severe calorie reduction every other day. Lastly, the 5:2 method was popularized by author Kate Harrisons book The 5:2 Diet” and requires fasting on two nonconsecutive days a week.
The 17 Best Pea Protein Powders For 2022
We include products we think are useful for our readers. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. Heres our process.
Pea protein powder is a popular supplement made by extracting protein from peas.
Its not only a great way to add more protein and iron to your diet but also naturally hypoallergenic and vegan. As such, pea protein has become a popular alternative to whey-based protein powders in post-workout shakes and smoothies.
All the same, finding a high quality product can be a challenge.
The products on this list were evaluated based on the following factors:
- the quality of their ingredients
- a lack of fillers, preservatives, additives, and artificial flavors
- adherence to premium manufacturing standards
- the use of third-party testing for sports or workout products
Here are the 18 best pea protein powders for 2021.
Read Also: 14:10 Fasting
When You Are Not Losing Weight With Intermittent Fasting
Some people will lose weight effortlessly on the 16:8 method, while others will struggle on OMAD or the 23:1 method. Each of us is very unique. If you are new to intermittent fasting, start slow and see how your body reacts. If you are experienced, but you are struggling to lose weight, heres what I recommend:
- Try a different method: Keep experimenting with the length of your fasting window or try a modified fast.
- Eat whole foods: Make sure you are not binge eating junk food during your eating window.
- Give it time: Dont stress about it, thats not going to help. Sometimes the scale doesnt tell the whole story.
- Enjoy the journey: The goal is not a crash diet. You are learning to enjoy a new lifestyle.
/5why May It Not Be Good For All
Most people who go for intermittent fasting, just skip their breakfast and eat early dinner to fit their daily calorie intake within their eating window. But Luke says that skipping breakfast might not be an ideal thing to do for all. Some may benefit from it while others may not gain anything from missing out on the first meal of their day.
Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day. Having a hearty breakfast first thing in the morning can help to boost metabolism, energise you and help burn calories all day long. While some people can do well by skipping this important meal, others may just make their journey to lose weight even more complex. Luke suggests listening to your body and acting as per its need.
Don’t Miss: How Much Is The Do Fasting App
Examples Of Different Intermittent Fasting Schedules
If youre considering giving fasting a shot, there are a few different options for working it into your lifestyle.
Daily Intermittent Fasting
Most of the time, I follow the Leangains model of intermittent fasting, which uses a 16hour fast followed by an 8hour eating period. This model of daily intermittent fasting was popularized by Martin Berkhan of Leangains.com, which is where the name originated.
It doesn’t matter when you start your 8hour eating period. You can start at 8am and stop at 4pm. Or you start at 2pm and stop at 10pm. Do whatever works for you. I tend to find that eating around 1pm and 8pm works well because those times allow me to eat lunch and dinner with friends and family. Breakfast is typically a meal that I eat on my own, so skipping it isn’t a big deal.
Because daily intermittent fasting is done every day it becomes very easy to get into the habit of eating on this schedule. Right now, you’re probably eating around the same time every day without thinking about it. Well, with daily intermittent fasting it’s the same thing, you just learn to not eat at certain times, which is remarkably easy.
Weekly Intermittent Fasting
One of the best ways to get started with intermittent fasting is to do it once per week or once per month. The occasional fast has been shown to lead to many of the benefits of fasting we’ve already talked about, so even if you don’t use it to cut down on calories consistently there are still many other health benefits of fasting.
Should I Try Intermittent Fasting
The most effective diet is the one you can stick to while still living your best life. Its hard to know which will work best before trying, but doctors and recent studies offer some guidance. Dr. Peterson said that complete, zero-calorie fasts generally prove to be too difficult to maintain. People stick with them maybe for the short-term, but they get quite hungry in the long-term, she said.
Time-restricted feeding fasting overnight and into the next morning is likely the easiest form of fasting to comply with. A longer than normal fasting period each night allows you to burn through some of your sugar stores, called glycogen. That does a couple things. It gives your body a little bit more time to burn fat. It also may help your body get rid of any extra salt in your diet, which would lower your blood pressure, Dr. Peterson said.
Read Also: Fasting Blood Sugar 119
What Is Intermittent Fasting And Why Would You Do It
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, it’s a pattern of eating. It’s a way of scheduling your meals so that you get the most out of them. Intermittent fasting doesnt change what you eat, it changes when you eat.
Why is it worthwhile to change when youre eating?
Well, most notably, its a great way to get lean without going on a crazy diet or cutting your calories down to nothing. In fact, most of the time you’ll try to keep your calories the same when you start intermittent fasting. Additionally, intermittent fasting is a good way to keep muscle mass on while getting lean.
With all that said, the main reason people try intermittent fasting is to lose fat. We’ll talk about how intermittent fasting leads to fat loss in a moment.
Perhaps most importantly, intermittent fasting is one of the simplest strategies we have for taking bad weight off while keeping good weight on because it requires very little behavior change. This is a very good thing because it means intermittent fasting falls into the category of simple enough that you’ll actually do it, but meaningful enough that it will actually make a difference.
Which Intermittent Fasting Is Best For You
Picking which intermittent fasting is best will depend on your health goals and what experience you have with intermittent fasting. if your main goal is weight loss, keep reading, we will talk about some specific tips that will help you achieve weight loss. Otherwise, if you are struggling with some health issues, some prolonged fasting may be something to consider. I recommend you learn about the 10-Day Transformation or Modified Fasting.
Take my quiz to determine which fasting method is best.
Recommended Reading: Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting
Q What Is The Best Fasting Method For Weight Loss
A. We talk about intermittent fasting like its one thing, but its actually an umbrella term that refers to several different eating patterns that restrict eating in some way. The way that each style restricts calories differs. In some styles of fasting, you avoid all food for a day, others have you shrink the amount of time in which you can eat your meals into a small window, and there are plans that have you eat every dayjust small quantities some days and regularly other days. These plans are sometimes called fasting-mimicking diets.
Although its reached peak popularity in the past few years, fasting has actually been around a long time. I believe fasting comes from religion, and you may already know about some religious traditions involving fasting such as Ramadan. In the past few years, Ive seen a lot of talk on blogs about all the purported health benefits of fasting, from aiding weight loss to helping you live longer. But even though there is research done on fasting, its important to remember that its mostly preliminary, and blogs dont always portray the clinical trials correctly. A lot of the studies are done on animals. The human studies are small, mostly 20-30 people, and rely on self-reported data from participantswhich is known to be at least slightly inaccurate.
Meet Plenityan FDAcleared weight management tool
Simple Rules Of Fasting
There are a few rules you need to follow if you want intermittent fasting for men to work out for you.
First, get plenty of sleep.
Sleep is good for you anyway, but getting more sleep while doing intermittent fasting increases the likelihood you’ll stick with it because you are awake fewer hours during the day.
That translates into less willpower needed to stick to the fast.
For example, if you go to bed at midnight and get up at 6 a.m to go to work, you have to fight late-night cravings.
If you go to bed at 10 p.m., it shaves 2 hours off your day, and you’re less likely to have a midnight snack if you’re already in bed and sleeping.
Most people choose to fast for 14 to 16 hours.
This means you effectively either skip breakfast or dinner. Most people choose to skip breakfast and eat lunch and dinner as normal.
Drink coffee to hold you over.
While some versions of intermittent fasting allow one shot of cream in your coffee, the choice is entirely up to you.
The important thing is to not go crazy with it. For example, don’t add 2 or 3 shots of cream and a tablespoon of sugar.
Finally, eat everything you’re going to eat for the day inside of 8 hours.
This can be tricky if you’re not used to it.
If you get up at 6 a.m. and eat by 7 a.m., you can eat a big breakfast and a moderately-large lunch, as long as you stop eating by 3 p.m.
Alternatively, you can skip breakfast and eat lunch at noon, and dinner sometime before 8 p.m.
Recommended Reading: Is 119 High For Fasting Blood Sugar
How To Choose Pea Protein Powders
You should consider several factors when selecting a pea protein powder.
First, be sure to check the ingredient list carefully. If possible, opt for products that are free of fillers, added sugars, and artificial ingredients.
Some protein powders may also contain probiotics, herbs, and extracts, which are intended to amplify their potential benefits.
If youre choosing a sports product geared toward workout nutrition, look for one that has been tested by a third party to evaluate its purity, potency, and quality. Choose products certified by organizations like NSF International or Informed Choice whenever possible.
Certain companies may also provide a Certificate of Analysis upon request, which provides specific details about the quality of the product.
Ive Made The Decision To Fast So How Long Should I Fast For
There arent any studies right now that state exactly how long one should fast. Researchers, like Dr. Peterson, are working on that. The minimum amount of time it takes to make fasting efficacious hasnt been proven via study, but the prevailing notion is its somewhere between 12 and 18 hours. But it can take a few days sometimes weeks of fasting regularly for your body to start burning fat for fuel. Brooke Alpert, nutritionist and author of The Diet Detox, suggests starting by moving your last meal to around 7 p.m. She said the reason for this is our bodies are better at doing some things at certain times. Our bodies are better at processing sugar in the morning than at night, said Dr. Varady. So eat bigger meals in the morning, for example.
And how often do you have to do daily intermittent fasting to see the benefit? Again, there hasnt been a study thats shown exactly how many days you need to fast, but a recent study in rodents showed they get about the same benefits fasting five days per week as they did fasting every day. The great thing is that were learning is that this type of fasting isnt all or nothing, said Dr. Peterson.
You May Like: Intermittent Fasting Drinking Alcohol
