Fasting is no new concept. For thousands of years, varying religions have used fasting as a regimen to benefit prolonged periods of meditation and prayer.
And though the fruits of spiritual well-being are hardly quantifiable, members of our data-driven world have a place to investigate the positive effects of fasting: the scale.
Intermittent fasting is a meal timing technique that cycles between periods of eating and not eating. Interest in this dietary phenomenon has sky-rocketed over the past two years and rightfully so. It is a simple practice to incorporate into your life, and the benefits of its inclusion in your daily schedule far outweigh any short-lived inconveniences.
There are many different ways to approach intermittent fasting as a means of weight loss, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll focus on the 16/8 method. This method allows for food consumption during an 8-hour window of every day. The other 16 hours, you fast. Complicated stuff, I know.
Skip breakfast and get through the first part of your day with coffee and water. Around lunchtime, your 8-hour meal-clock starts. During this period, you consume the same number of calories that you would on a normal day. After your eight-hour eating window, your body has enough caloric energy to carry you to bedtime.
Intermittent fasting doesn’t require changing WHAT you eat, it only changes WHEN you eat. Insulin levels spike immediately after a meal and remain high for three to five hours. It takes another five to seven hours for your body to absorb the meal. During this time period, it is difficult for your body to burn fat. After this processing period, enter the fasted state. Your insulin levels decrease, and your body has a much easier time burning fat.
Because it takes so long to reach the fasted state after a meal, the traditional three-square meals routine stifles your body’s fat-burning process. This is why people who employ intermittent fasting will lose weight without reducing calories, changing their diet or increasing the amount of time they exercise.
Researchers have also found that short-term fasting increases a norepinephrine. This neurotransmitter increases your body’s metabolic rate and consequently, catalyzes weight loss.
The benefits of intermittent fasting exceed physical aesthetics. Obesity places an unnatural and unnecessary burden on your circulatory and regulatory systems. Increased risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer are some of the complications that arise from being overweight.
When blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels rise, diabetes could be on the horizon.
By rearranging your daily eating schedule, you can lessen the risk of these complications and increase your physical longevity.
There are many different approaches to begin intermittent fasting available on the internet.
Anyone interested in losing weight, increasing performance and/or living a healthier lifestyle should reach out to the Google God and find the system that works best for them.
