Or maybe we can start by asking: What is eating normally? Nowadays, most of us eat several meals per day and sometimes add snacks. Moreover, we may start eating around immediately upon waking up and we finish eating closer to sleeping hours. This eating regime leaves us with a very wide eating window and an upset digestive tract.Think about our evolutionary process as humans. Not so long ago, we didn’t have this easy access to food. We needed to hunt or collect when all circumstances were favorable like the weather, the land, the season… It means, sometimes to go without food for DAYS! Yes, days.Right now, the only reason why we eat so many separate meals, snacks throughout the day is mostly about the culture that promotes more consumption. As a result, diseases like obesity, diabetes, bad cholesterol and many others prevail in society widely.Coming to our question in the beginning…Intermittent Fasting is to return to a more natural and regular eating schedule. Fasting means to stay away from food, that is, any nutrition that would start a digestion process. When a food enters your mouth, digestion enzymes start to do their work and your body chemistry changes. This is how your body knows that you are eating. When your body knows that you’re eating, a hormone called insulin is released.Insulin is responsible for regulating your blood sugar levels. When you constantly eat, insulin levels never drop low and you find yourself in a vicious cycle of craving food all the time but you’re never fully hungry. This is like messing with the factory settings of your body. Eventually, our digestive tract cannot function properly, this might be the reason why so many people are dealing with gas, constipation, indigestion or similar symptoms.Most food contains sugars, not in the sense of what we know as something sweet, but as building blocks of most nutrients. Either sugars, fat or proteins all give us energy with their smallest units. Your body needs to process, store or use these units. That’s why lots of operations go on behind the curtains the second you put something to your mouth, even though you don’t notice !The rationale behind fasting is, not to start these operations at all for longer hours. This allows the energy that would be spent for digestion to be spent on repair, recovery and healing works within the body. Another reason is to drop insulin levels so long that you burn the excessive fat stored because of the imbalanced release cycles of insulin. Of course, you can consume liquids, calorie free drinks and support your body with electrolytes during fasting. Intermittent Fasting is to eat within a restricted time called the feeding window, and fast for the rest of the day. Feeding window is the duration where you are allowed to eat.There are different types of dividing the day for Intermittent Fasting like 14/10(14 hours fasting/10 hours feeding), 16/8, 18/6 and so on.
Why you should try Intermittent Fasting(IF)?
Easy and effortless to apply
Intermittent fasting application is very simple. Eat at certain times and do not eat at other times. It’s that easy! As long as you have the means to follow the date and time (just like the phone you’e using to read this), you have everything you need to start Intermittent Fasting.
It’s much easier and simpler than following a diet
The thing is, anyone with any dietary preferences or restrictions can easily start an intermittent fasting plan without changing what they eat. While following an IF diet you don’t have to count your macros or calories, but healthy meals always result in better outcomes. That’s not to say you can eat anything on an IF schedule and not gain weight! Of course in the end you better watch out for your daily energy needs and keep your meals aligned with it.To sum up, IF eating schedule doesn’t require strict meal planning at all, but rather a flexible and overall healthy diet on a time-restricted schedule. Most proponents of IF promote a “healthy and balanced” diet at fast-breaking times, but there are no requirements or standards.
Helps you live longer
Metabolic change is our bodies’ transition between burning stored fat for energy and burning the readily accessible last meal. When we fast for a long time, our body uses the sugar deposited in our body and moves on to burning fat afterwards.IF advocates believe that this “transition” process increases durability. According to the theory, when our body is in a state of half starvation (fasting), damaged cells are destroyed (autophagy) and only healthy cells remain. Researchers also think IF affects multiple metabolic pathways to improve brain health and lifelong endurance.
May reduce the risk of chronic diseases
On that note, research shows that IF reduces the risk of certain chronic, metabolic diseases, especially heart disease and diabetes. Scientists have a few theories about this, although we should note it’s a disputed topic. First, fasting reduces overall insulin activity. When you eat less, your blood sugar rises less and you use insulin less often. So fasting helps regulate blood sugar, and avoid various illnesses related to imbalances in the blood sugar levels.Alcohol tolerance is a good analogy: If you drink a few drinks regularly, you may need more drinks to get the buzz. If you drink it rarely, only one drink will likely get you where you need to go. Secondly, studies have found that IF is associated with lower blood pressure and heart rates, which can prevent cardiovascular disease.
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