So Is Intermittent Fasting As Good As It Sounds
I was very curious about this, so I asked the opinion of metabolic expert Dr. Deborah Wexler, Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Diabetes Center and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Here is what she told me. “There is evidence to suggest that the circadian rhythm fasting approach, where meals are restricted to an eight to 10-hour period of the daytime, is effective,” she confirmed, though generally she recommends that people “use an eating approach that works for them and is sustainable to them.”
So, heres the deal. There is some good scientific evidence suggesting that circadian rhythm fasting, when combined with a healthy diet and lifestyle, can be a particularly effective approach to weight loss, especially for people at risk for diabetes.
Intermittent Fasting Tips For Success And How To Start
When starting a new healthy habit, it’s important to think about what challenges you may face or barriers that may arise during the process.
This is actually a crucial step in planning SMART goals, a common tool used by health coaches to help clients set achievable goals that last long term. When it comes to intermittent fasting there are a few common challenges or questions that tend to arise:
- What do I eat during my non-fasting period?
- What happens if I feel dizzy or nauseous?
- Is intermittent fasting safe?
- How long should I intermittent fast for?
Whats Happening With Your Body: Fat Burning Mode
When you consume a typical diet of carbohydrate rich foods, your body breaks down sugars and starches into glucose. Glucose is the primary source of energy for the body. However, when you fast or go into ketosis glucose becomes limited, and your body must turn to fat stores for the energy it requires. Your body breaks fat down into glycerol and fatty acids. The liver synthesizes ketones using glycerol. The glycerol is broken down by the liver for additional glucose, and finally, those ketones are used by your brain as glucose becomes less available.
You May Like: Is Fasting In The Morning Good For Weight Loss
/4things To Keep In Mind While Breaking The Fast
Whether you are fasting for 12, 14 or 16 hours, the first meal after your fasting period should be well balanced and full of nutrients. Here are a few things you should keep in mind while breaking your fast.
-Do not eat carbohydrates on an empty stomach this can be harmful when trying to lose weight.
-Sugary drinks or desserts should also be avoided as they can spike your blood sugar level, raise your insulin level and will make you feel more hungry.
-It is obvious to feel hungry after fasting for 12 to 16 hours, but that does not mean that you will fill your plate with all sorts of food. Even then you have to be careful about the portion size.
Go For A Fasting Duration For As Long As You Can Manage
The longer the fast, the deeper the healing. The first 2-3 days of your fast is just getting into ketosis, and healing doesnt take place. If anything, its a chance for your digestive system to take a rest. Its when ketosis starts on the third or fourth day that the healing begins.
This means if you fast for 3-5 days in hopes of experiencing the physical detox of fasting, you might as well not proceed with the fast, because youre not going to experience real benefits in the area. From my best understanding, a 3-5 day fast is more detrimental than beneficial , because you burn muscles during the first few days of the fast, which isnt justified by the fat you burn in ketosis, since youre only in ketosis for 1-2 days.
During my fast, weeks 1 and 2 were predominantly physical detox. It was at the end of Week 2 that emotional detox kicked in. Past, unresolved issues that I didnt even know were there reared their heads. From there, I was able to tackle them one by one . You can read about my fasting journey and my different insights from my fasting logs. If I didnt go for a 3-week fast, I wouldnt have gained so many benefits from my fast.
Don’t Miss: What Is The Best Intermittent Fasting Time
Benefits: Start Something New
With careful planning and thought, fasting can be an incredible springboard into a healthier lifestyle. One suggestion is to make plans before you even start your fast. Write down what you’re hoping to get out of it and what you want to accomplish. If done correctly, the end of a fast is the perfect time to begin a dramatically healthier diet and lifestyle.
Why Does My Blood Sugar Go Up During Fasting
While this does not happen with everyone, it can occur due to hormonal changes that occur during intermittent fasting. Your body is producing sugar in order to provide energy for your system. This is a variation of the dawn phenomenon and in general is not a concern as long as blood sugars are not elevated the rest of the day.45
You May Like: How To Get Electrolytes While Fasting
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.
Aids Weight Loss By Limiting Calorie Intake And Boosting Metabolism
Many dieters pick up fasting looking for a quick and easy way to drop a few pounds.
Theoretically, abstaining from all or certain foods and beverages should decrease your overall calorie intake, which could lead to increased weight loss over time.
Some research has also found that short-term fasting may boost metabolism by increasing levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which could enhance weight loss .
In fact, one review showed that whole-day fasting could reduce body weight by up to 9% and significantly decrease body fat over 1224 weeks .
Another review found that intermittent fasting over 312 weeks was as effective in inducing weight loss as continuous calorie restriction and decreased body weight and fat mass by up to 8% and 16% respectively .
In addition, fasting was found to be more effective than calorie restriction at increasing fat loss while simultaneously preserving muscle tissue (
Also Check: What Does Intermitten Fasting Do
/4this Is The Right Way
Intermittent fasting has become one of the most popular weight loss diet trends across the globe. Abstaining from having any food for a fixed period of time is surely good for health, but how you break your fast is also a crucial step, which most of the people ignore. Beaking the fast is more complicated than eating the right food. You just cannot have anything you like. Doing this can sabotage your result. Here we will tell you the right way to break your fast.
Fasting Is Always Voluntary
Though spiritual leaders may invite others to join in corporate fasting with a specific goal in mind and for a specific time, fasting can never be forced or made compulsory. In light of this, fasting is not a mandatory requirement for joining staff at the International House of Prayer, but we do promote and encourage it as a biblically and historically proven means of positioning our heart to receive more of Gods grace in the context of commitment to prayer and to the Word . The level at which a person engages in fasting should be determined according to age and with regard to any physical limitations. Those with a known or suspected physical disability or illness, or those with any history of an eating disorder, should never fast, except in consultation with, and under the supervision of, a qualified doctor. Pregnant or nursing mothers should not fast food or drink as it could negatively affect the health and development of their baby and their own personal health.
You May Like: What Are The Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting
The Science Methods And Benefits Of Fasting
When it comes to ideas around living a healthy lifestyle, good nutrition and adequate exercise are often core pillars. While this is certainly true, there is more we can consider regarding our relationship with food and healthy living.
Fasting is the willing abstinence or reduction from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. Although sometimes viewed as unhealthy, depriving, or reserved for religious reasons, short-term fasting can offer excellent health benefits. As research grows in this area of health, fasting is becoming more widely accepted as a legitimate means of managing weight and preventing disease. At the same time, it is important that fasting is done in proper and healthy ways.
It May Be Difficult For Some People To Stick To
One of the most obvious limitations of the Warrior Diet is that it restricts the time during which you may eat substantial meals to a four-hour period.
This can be difficult to stick to, especially when participating in normal social activities like going out to breakfast or lunch.
While some people may feel great when consuming very small amounts of calories over a 20-hour period, others may find that this way of eating is not ideal for their lifestyle.
Recommended Reading: How Much Weight Should I Lose On Intermittent Fasting
Whats Happening With Your Body: Battery Save Mode
Several things happen at the cellular level that cause hunger and fatigue during this first stage. When youre eating regularly, your body breaks down glucose to get the energy it needs to function properly. While youre fasting, your body needs to produce sugar for energy, so it begins a process called gluconeogenesis. During gluconeogenesis, your liver converts non-carbohydrate materials like lactate, amino acids, and fats into glucose. As your body goes into battery save mode, your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, becomes more efficient and uses less energy. This power saving process includes lowering your heart rate and blood pressure. At this stage, you may feel drained. However, if you stick it out for a little longer, some of that lost energy will return.
Health & Wellnesswhat Is The Omad Diet Learn How The One
That being said, exercise before you eat because people get hungry about half an hour after they finish working out and may find it too hard to stick to their plan if they cant eat anything at all afterwards, Varady noted.
If youre on the 16:8 plan, exercise before or during your eating window. If youre doing alternate day fasting and are exercising on your 500-calorie day, save food for after your exercise session.
You May Like: How Does Intermittent Fasting Work 16 8
Eat Stop Eat Fasting Diet
- Fast for 24 hours twice per week, and eat normally the other five days.
- During normal eating days, eat nutritious foods.
- You can still eat something every day. Eat at 7 a.m. on Friday, begin your fast at 8 a.m. and eat again after 8:00 a.m. on Saturday.
Based on the experience of author Brad Pilon, the Eat Stop Eat fasting diet allows you to follow normal eating patterns most of the week. Fasting for 24 hours twice per week creates a calorie deficit and can help kickstart ketosis. However, a 24-hour fast is an extended period of time, and you should speak with your healthcare provider before trying longer fasts.
More Diet Tips From Bulletproof
Get In The Right Mental State Before You Fast
Go into your fast with the full intention to succeed in it. This includes:
Before I started my fast, I did a lot of reading on fasting online. I scoured through others fasting logs on Youtube. I downloaded all their videos and referred to them on the corresponding days of my fast so I could compare notes and get an idea of what was going to happen that day. I ate to my hearts content before starting my fast, so I would not get any food cravings in the first few days. I blogged about my fast on Day 0 to get mentally prepared. I saved links to fasting resources in my bookmarks bar so Id see them whenever I was surfing.
Doing these put me in the correct state of mind. Hence by the time the fast started, I was ready to nail it. The whole fast was a seamless experience because of that . At no point did I ever think of prematurely ending the fast for any reason other than physical hunger/danger.
Also Check: What To Eat After Fasting To Lose Weight
Breaking A Fast For Women
Women are more sensitive to cortisol than men . Fasting increases your cortisol level. Cortisol helps burn more fat when you fast. However, if your cortisol level is still high after you start eating again, it may cause you to store fat instead. There are a few things you can do before you break a fast to reduce your cortisol level:
- Have a glass of water with Himalayan salt .
- Break your fast with a cup of bone broth.
- Implement some lifestyle practices to reduce stress.
- Drink a cup a tea with cinnamon in it an hour or so before breaking fast. It will help prepare your cells for receiving food.
How To Start Fasting
Fasting is hard. It sounds much easier in concept than it proves to be in practice. It can be surprising how on-edge we feel when we miss a meal. Many an idealistic new fast-er has decided to miss a meal and only found our belly drove us to make up for it long before the next mealtime came.
Fasting sounds so simple, and yet the world, our flesh, and the devil conspire to introduce all sorts of complications that keep it from happening. In view of helping you start down the slow path to good fasting, here are six simple pieces of advice. These suggestions might seem pedantic, but the hope is that such basic counsel can serve those who are new at fasting or have never seriously tried it.
You May Like: What Is The Purpose Of Fasting During Ramadan
It Could Lead To Disordered Eating
The Warrior Diet places an emphasis on overeating, which could be problematic for many people.
Though Ori Hofmekler argues that one should know to stop eating when you feel pleasantly satisfied, this may not translate into healthy eating practices for everyone.
The Warrior Diet could lead to binging and purging behaviors, especially in those at risk of developing disordered eating.
Binging on large quantities of food may also lead to feelings of regret and shame, which can negatively impact mental health and body image.
Consider How It Will Affect Others
Fasting is no license to be unloving. It would be sad to lack concern and care for others around us because of this expression of heightened focus on God. Love for God and for neighbor go together. Good fasting mingles horizontal concern with the vertical. If anything, others should even feel more loved and cared for when were fasting.
So as you plan your fast, consider how it will affect others. If you have regular lunches with colleagues or dinners with family or roommates, assess how your abstaining will affect them, and let them know ahead of time, instead of just being a no-show, or springing it on them in the moment that you will not be eating.
Also, consider this backdoor inspiration for fasting: If you make a daily or weekly practice of eating with a particular group of friends or family, and those plans are interrupted by someones travel or vacation or atypical circumstances, consider that as an opportunity to fast, rather than eating alone.
Recommended Reading: Will Fasting Help You Lose Weight
What To Know Before You Start
If youre planning a fastin which you dont eat at all, Dr. Zein recommends these five tips for maintainingyour health and energy level.
