And Some Of The Donts Of Intermittent Fasting:
2. Do not add a lot of milk to your coffee. Only use half or teaspoon of milk when having tea or coffee. Milk does contain lactose which is sugar. This could derail the plan. Only use a small amount.
3. Use your fasting period to do stuff. Dont sit idle. Getting busy will stop you thinking about food.
4. Dont keep changing your feeding window if you are on the plan that allows food at certain times. If your eating window is between 12 Noon and 8pm, try and maintain that consistency every time. Its all about teaching your body to adapt to a new way of eating and fasting.
5. Do not go to social events where the place will be awash with food on your fast days. The temptation of having so many food choices and so much food around might be too much for you to resist.
6. On your feed days or eating window as the case may be, you should exercise caution in how much food you consume. Theres no need to stuff your face with so much food in an attempt to compensate for the fast period.
It is not a feast or famine ethos and you should refrain from seeing it as such. Eat sensibly!
Above all, be resilient. Its not as hard as it appears. Start small and build up.
If you like your coffee, you may be also interested in the answer to the question: does coffee break a fast?
Suggested further reading:
Intermittent Fasting Increases Several Fat Burning Hormones
Hormones are chemicals that act as messengers. They travel through your body to coordinate complicated functions, such as growth and metabolism.
They also play an important role in the regulation of your weight. This is because they have a strong influence on your appetite, the number of calories you eat, and how much fat you store or burn .
Intermittent fasting has been linked to improvements in the balance of some fat burning hormones. This could make it a helpful tool for weight management.
And Did It Make Any Difference
When Dr McMillan conducts her final tests to see how Kevin and Samantha have tracked, the results “are a little unexpected”.
Over the six weeks, Samantha lost 3.5 kilograms and Kevin 8.5 kilograms but Kevin’s weight loss is actually “some cause for concern”.
“More than half of Kevin’s weight loss came from lean body mass most of it muscle,” she says.
“Lean muscle crucial for staying healthy as we age. So, going forward Kevin and anyone taking up fasting needs to ensure they also do exercise.”
There has also been little change to Samantha and Kevin’s gut health.
But there has been “a really big metabolic improvement” for them both.
In particular, Samantha’s fasting insulin levels reduced, and her fasting blood glucose levels came down to “the normal category”, which means she reduced her risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
“This is a really powerful message, because you haven’t actually lost a lot of weight, but you’ve seen that really big metabolic improvement,” Dr Hocking says.
“Even for someone who doesn’t lose any weight, if your metabolic health has improved because you’re eating better and you’re exercising and getting enough sleep, you’re in a far healthier position.”
Dr McMillan says Samantha “epitomises the promise of fasting for me”.
“She has managed to overcome a really tough journey through my experiment and embrace a new way of eating,” she says.
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Things I Learned About Intermittent Fasting And Ketosis:
Heres what I learned throughout the year:
- After fasting overnight, there was ketones in my blood but not enough to be in ketosis.
- After fasting for about 16 hours, I was in ketosis, but usually not at the optimal level for weight loss .
- Fasting for 18 hours was enough the reach the optimal level. I would then, keep fasting for about 2 hours to enjoy the benefits.
- The 20:4 method was the most effective and sustainable intermittent fasting method for me. Even after reaching my goal weight, I enjoy doing it 2-3 times a week just for health reasons.
Moreover, I learned that weight loss for women over 40 takes time and perseverance. It requires looking for a lifestyle that you enjoy because you will need to keep it up for the rest of your life to not gain the weight back.
I love intermittent fasting because I feel free. I dont feel hungry all the time, and when I do feel hungry, thanks for the magic of ketosis, I feel amazing!
I am so excited about what I have learned, I created a 30-Day Program to help other women achieve the same results. The program takes you through the whole step-by-step process of doing a modified fast, practicing intermittent fasting, eating healthfully, and exercising efficiently. You can learn more about it here: 30-Day Intermittent Fasting Transformation.
Will I Lose Weight
Most likely.64 If you have weight to lose, it is extremely likely that you will lose weight if you do not eat.
In theory, its possible to eat more after fasting, of course, cancelling out the weight lost. But studies generally show that most people tend to eat significantly less overall.65
I call intermittent fasting the ancient secret of weight loss because it might be one of the most powerful dietary interventions for weight loss, yet it has been mostly ignored by doctors and dietitians for a long time.66
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But 8 Hours Is Not Enough Time For The Body To Enter Into The Fasting Mode Which Takes Approximately 12 Hours To Begin To Set In
So, in terms of fasting, a window of 12 hours between the last meal of one day and the first meal of the next is the minimum required to give your detox processes the time and energy to catch up with the necessary work of maintaining inner cleanliness, Junger says.
Related: Is Intermittent Fasting Bad For You?
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.
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Ways To Use This Information For Better Health
What Happens To Your Body When You Fast
Fasting is a way to give your body a break. Heres how intermittent fasting works for weight loss.
Stage 1: In between 0 to 4 hours, your blood sugar remains high. Your body is using up the energy in this phase.
Stage 2: 4 to 16 hours, your body now starts releasing fats and uses them to release ketone bodies and chemicals.
Stage 3: 16 to 24 hours, after an overnight fast, you are almost low on glycogen level. Your energy demands at this stage havent changed much but now the chemicals start to break into AMP-activated protein. They help in cell growth and regulating energy response to your starvation period.
Stage 4: 24 to 72 hours, now your body will start breaking down your muscles to utilize protein for energy. This means it enters the state of ketosis which acts as fuel for your brain and body.
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/8intermittent Fasting Mistakes To Avoid
Whenever you think about losing weight or shedding a certain amount of kilos, you first list down the kind of diets you can follow and the exercises you can perform. Out of all the diet programmes, intermittent fasting is one of the most popular, which is more like a lifestyle rather than a diet.
Several researches have shown that intermittent fasting not only aids your weight loss goals, but also reduces your risk of different health conditions, which is absolutely fantastic! However, following an IF diet is not as simple as it seems. There are many ways it can backfire, which is why you must pay attention to the many mistakes you can make while following such a diet.
It May Decrease Inflammation
Inflammation caused by oxidative stress is thought to be the cause of many diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers .
Studies have demonstrated that intermittent fasting may be an effective way to reduce inflammation in your body.
One study in 34 healthy men found that the 16:8 intermittent fasting method decreased levels of TNF- and interleukin 1 beta , substances that promote inflammation .
Another study in 50 people found that those fasting for the Muslim holiday of Ramadan had significantly lower levels of the inflammatory markers IL-6, C-reactive protein and homocysteine, compared to non-fasting individuals .
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How To Start Intermittent Fasting
You are probably used to eating or snacking all the time, so you can find 16 hours of fasting pretty difficult in the beginning.
No worries, you are not alone. I have been there, and I learned how to come to the point where my eating window is 1 meal only.
Let’s break some steps on how to start it without suffering and pain:
What Is Intermittent Fasting And What Are Its Benefits
January 3, 2022
Intermittent Fasting is a way of eating with regular periods of fasting, usually on a daily or weekly cycle. People do IF for many different reasons. Many do it for weight loss, but others do it for other health or lifestyle benefits. The major reason that most people do IF for is to control and reset hormones related to eating and metabolism, in particular insulin.
There are several different styles or routines of IF and the common feature is a period of at least 16 hours of fasting. Evidence shows that this is about the minimum amount of time required to completely use up the glucose from your last meal and begin reducing insulin production.
IF is commonly used as a weight control tool. However IF is not a diet as it puts no restriction on what you can or cannot eat. For benefits OTHER than weight loss, it is possible to eat your TDEE or more.
There are several popular styles of IF and they are commonly referred to by an abbreviation using two numbers, such as 16:8, or 5:2.
If the numbers add up to 24, then it is a daily IF routine and the numbers refer to the hours in the fasting and feeding windows. So 16:8 means 16 hours of fasting and a 8 hour feeding window.
If they add up to 7 then it is a weekly routine and the numbers refer to days of normal eating and days of fasting, although their position is reversed. So 5:2 means a routine where you would fast for two days per week, usually not consecutively, and eat normally for five days of the week.
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Seven Ways To Do Intermittent Fasting
There are many different ways of intermittent fasting. The methods vary in the number of fast days and the calorie allowances.
Intermittent fasting involves entirely or partially abstaining from eating for a set amount of time, before eating regularly again.
Some studies suggest that this way of eating may offer benefits such as fat loss, better health, and increased longevity. Proponents claim that an intermittent fasting program is easier to maintain than traditional, calorie-controlled diets.
Each persons experience of intermittent fasting is individual, and different styles will suit different people.
In this article, we discuss the research behind the most popular types of intermittent fasting and provide tips on how to maintain this type of diet.
There are various methods of intermittent fasting, and people will prefer different styles. Read on to find out about seven different ways to do intermittent fasting.
Stages Of Intermittent Fasting
After reading a few articles online that talked about the stages of intermittent fasting, I decided to create my own classification:
Would you like to learn more about how intermittent fasting can help you achieve your health and weight loss goals? Dont forget to check out my free Intermittent Fasting 101 Workshop!
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Overeating And Potential Weight Gain
Restricting your intake to just 8 hours per day may cause some people to eat more than usual during eating periods in an attempt to make up for hours spent fasting. This may lead to weight gain, digestive problems, and unhealthy eating habits.
Interestingly, current research doesnt suggest that intermittent fasting leads to any more weight loss than typical diets that recommend overall calorie restriction. Both eating patterns may lead to modest weight loss .
If weight loss is your primary goal, you may therefore prefer to lower your calorie intake instead of fasting intermittently to prevent the overeating that may occur when restricting intake to a certain time window.
How Much Weight Can You Lose On 1: 8 Diet
To lose weight on the 16:8 diet, its important to match the fasting with healthy eating and exercise. If done so correctly, theres a typical weight loss of around seven to 11 pounds over a ten week period. This is according to a review of 40 different studies published in Molecular and Cellular Endocrincology who found that on average, someone weighing just over 90kg would lose 5% of their total body weight in the ten week period.
A 2018 study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Healthy Eating revealed that the 16:8 diet plan can help people lose weight, without having to count calories as the 8-hour fast produces the same kind of calorific restriction and weight loss.
However, whether theres a distinct weight loss advantage achieved on the 16:8 diet compared to other diets remains to be seen. Some studies have demonstrated that theres almost no difference between people who do intermittent fasting compared those who count calories and cut back on unhealthy food.
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What Are The Benefits Of Fasting
There’s a lot of preliminary research on fasting that points to some pretty promising benefits, but many more studies are needed to back up the claims.
One major benefit of fasting is that it helps promote autophagy — a process in which your cells essentially “take out the trash” by removing dysfunctional components. Increased autophagy can possibly regenerate the immune system and increase your cell’s protection against stress.
Some research suggests that fasting can also lower blood pressure, as well as making your body more sensitive to insulin. Being more insulin-sensitive means that you’ll store energy from food more efficiently, and get less hungry between meals.
Now to the main reason people try fasting — to lose weight. While one study showed that both fasting and caloric restriction had the same weight loss results, losing weight is a highly individual journey. If you’ve been struggling to find a way of eating that helps you be your best self, you may want to give fasting a try.
