Intermittent Fasting is getting to be all the buzz these days. Have you heard of it? IF (Intermittent Fasting) is a weight loss technique that runs counter to the standard advice that you may have heard just a few short years ago. If you are like us, you have heard that it is practically sacrilegious to go without breakfast. Eat small meals more often to keep your metabolic fire burning, we were told. So, what is all the IF brouhaha about?
Well, the name describes what it is quite well.
Intermittent Fasting is a cycle for fasting that gives you a pattern of when to eat. It does not dictate so much what to eat, but the timing is the thing that is crucial here.
Simply put, Intermittent Fasting (IF) is a meal timing strategy (or eating pattern) that cycles between “fasting” and “eating” windows throughout the day. So, for parts of the day you don’t eat, and parts of the day you do eat. Make sense?
Technically, if you sleep, you are already “fasting” for approximately ⅓ of the day anyway, so this is extending that fast and doing it in a consistent way that can have benefits in weight loss and overall general physical well-being.
There are several different ways that you can do it. Some people choose to fast for 16-20 hours a day leaving an eating period of 4-8 hours with which to eat all their allotted calories for the day. For instance, continuing your overnight fast (not breaking it with a “break fast”=breakfast) until about noon, and then not eating past 4 or 8 o’clock in the evening. This pattern is thus continued on a daily basis. Another popular method is to choose a couple of days a week that you go on a 24 hour fast (2 non-consecutive days) and eat normally for the rest of the week. Fasting for a full 24 hours is more challenging for most people though. Of course, some methods work better for some than for others. It is wise for the beginner to ease into the fasting groove and to see which cycle works best for you.
As we are all aware, weight loss happens when your body burns more calories than it takes in on a regular basis. We know that our bodies will burn what is made available to it. Conventional wisdom has said that to keep your metabolism going, you must be eating on a regular basis and therefore providing regular fuel for your body to consume. The idea behind intermittent fasting is that during a fast if you do not provide any meal for an extended period of time as energy than it is more likely that your stored fat is what your metabolism will burn instead of regular meals that you provide.
One neuroscientist, Mark Mattson, is mentioned in the Johns Hopkins Health Review as saying that the reasoning behind the apparent success of IF is that each time you take in calories your liver stores up glucose in a form called glycogen. It takes several hours (sometimes up to 12 hours) for the glycogen to be processed out of the liver. Once this process is over, your body will start burning your stored fat which is then transformed into ketone bodies which are a chemical used as energy in the neurons of the brain. Ketones not only indicate that your body is burning fat, but it also has been known to help improve overall brain health. It has been proven to promote positive changes in synaptic functioning. “Fasting is a challenge to your brain, and we think that your brain reacts by activating adaptive stress responses that help it cope with disease.” says Mattson.
So, not only does IF help with lowering insulin levels and burning unwanted fat but if you try it, you will have the extra added benefit of protecting your brain health in the process. WINNING!
Besides the ways that we have already mentioned, there are a few other benefits worth noting:
As with most things in life, one size does not fit all. IF is the perfect solution for some people, but others should probably avoid it.
Resource: Diabetic Meal Plan
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