Intermittent Fasting: What Is It and What Good Can We Get From It?

There are already many types of diet methods to achieve that body shape we have always wanted while staying healthy. Fitness and nutrition experts have experimented with different diet trends and have mostly proven their positive results. Often, we think one diet works for us because famous people appear to practice it, too. Although it might work for some people, unfortunately for others it doesn’t. As it turns out, not all of us have the luxury of time (or even money) to follow through with one kind of diet and get the results we want. Often, our ability to fend off hunger and insatiable cravings become too difficult or that we also get easily bored.

Most of us want to achieve a great, lean body without the expense of our time, money and effort. That’s why right now there is the next best thing: Intermittent Fasting.

Intermittent Fasting (IF) is currently starting to become a hot topic for everyone in the health and fitness world. However, it has been around for many centuries. Many ancient monks and traditional medicine practitioners have attested to the effectiveness of this kind of practice. This is due to the scarcity of food in the early centuries as well as devotion to practicing the art discipline and patience. It is also said to make one live longer because it allows our bodies to survive without food for days at a time.

So, what is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent Fasting is said to be more than just a kind of diet fad. Instead, it is said to be a kind of eating pattern. That said, Intermittent Fasting is based on the premise on when we eat, and not on what we eat. Intermittent fasting is a cycle between a period of eating and fasting.

For instance, Intermittent Fasting would involve eating during an 8-hour cycle, and then fast for the next sixteen hours or more.

To be specific, there are ways on how to practice Intermittent Fasting. What’s common among them is that it all involves splitting into “eating periods” and “fasting periods” in a day or a week. The popular methods include shorter fasts and longer fasts.

Shorter fasts include:

16:8 fasting: This is where you fast daily for 16 hours. However, before fasting for 16 hours, you have an “eating period’ during an 8-hour window.

20:4 fasting: This is where you fast daily for 20 hours but have an “eating period” during a 4-hour window before beginning the fast.

Longer fasts include:

24-hour fasting: This is where you eat daily but during a 24-hour window. It’s longer because once you eat one meal (for example, dinner) before starting, you miss the next two meals and have dinner the following day again.

5:2 fasting: This is where you eat for five days and fast for two days every week. However, during the 2-day fasting, you are allowed to eat a 500-600 calorie meal each day.

36-hour fasting: This is where you get to eat again after fasting for two days. This type of fasting usually helps lose weight faster than most.

Isn’t it bad to skip meals?

We’ve always been surrounded by the myth that it is unhealthy to skip meals. However, what makes this method of losing weight effectively is that the more our bodies consume fewer calories a week, the higher our basal metabolic rate increases. This means that for our bodies to function, we burn more fats instead of sugar for energy. This makes it easier to lose weight.

What are the benefits of Intermittent Fasting?

When it comes to Intermittent Fasting, it isn’t just about fat burning. Following this type of weight loss method comes with more than just one benefit.

Intermittent Fasting boosts health and helps you live longer

Several studies have reported that intermittent fasting can provide a lot of powerful health benefits to our molecular and cellular makeup. Intermittent fasting has shown to reduce risks of cancer as well as inflammation that causes many chronic diseases. It also reduces bad cholesterol levels as well as insulin resistance that are risk factors for heart problems. It has also shown to boost memory levels and brain capacity and slows down aging. Furthermore, risks of cancer would also significantly reduce when doing intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting makes your life easier

Intermittent fasting makes an ideal weight loss method for people who don’t have time to prepare too many meals or are too busy to think about what to eat next. It involves mostly on behavior change, discipline, simplicity as well as lowering the stress of not knowing what to eat for the next meal.

Intermittent fasting works better than conventional dieting

The way intermittent fasting changes the way we think and behave when it comes to food makes it more effective than dieting. This is because of the idea that we eat more on one day and then nothing at all for extended periods of time burns more fat than sugar in our bodies. This then effectively increases the chances the rate of losing weight over choosing what foods we eat in diets.

Who should and should not practice intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting is something not everyone needs to do. Losing weight is just one of the things that associate with improving our health. Just like getting good sleep, eating the right food, exercising regularly, intermittent fasting works just the same with the right attitude and discipline.

Intermittent fasting may be effective for some people, but not all. The right kind of program that you can stick to and help you discover what’s best for you should matter.

On the other hand, intermittent fasting would be ill-advised if you have the following conditions:

• If you are diagnosed with diabetes

• If you have low blood sugar or anemic

• If you have low blood pressure

• If you have low Body Mass Index

• If you have eating disorders like bulimia

• If you are pregnant or lactating

• If you are taking certain prescribed medications

If you have any one of these health issues, it is highly recommended to consult your doctor or a health specialist before going through with intermittent fasting.

In summary, these are just some of the things you need to know about intermittent fasting. The question now is, are you ready to give it a try?

Love reading this article? Share it on your social media account by clicking the icons on the left.