Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is a timed approach to eating, and involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting.
Women who decide to intermittent fast need to do so differently.
What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle habit that limits eating to a specific time window.
It is not a diet and does not specify what foods a person should eat or avoid.
Intermittent Fasting vs Calorie Restriction
Intermittent Fasting limits how often you eat and includes periods of not eating at all. Calorie restriction reduces your average calorie intake below what is normal for a long period of time.
Calorie restriction slows down your metabolism and puts your body into starvation and deprivation mode.
Intermittent fasting has many health benefits including weight loss, but is not suitable for everyone.
How Do You Intermittent Fast?
There are several ways to do intermittent fasting. Some of the most popular include:
- 13:11 - 16:8 - Fasting for 13/16 hours and eating during a 11/8 hour window every 24 hours
- 5:2 - Eating normally for five days and eating less for two days
- Complete 24 hour fasts on certain days of the week
- and others
Some approaches are easier than others. The 13:11 (or 16:8) approach whereby eating is restricted to a 11 (or 8) hour window seems to work best for most of my clients, as it seems to be the easiest to implement and the most sustainable.
Intermittent Fasting Benefits
- Improvements in thinking and memory
- Improvements in blood pressure, resting heart rate, and other cardiovascular metrics
- Better endurance
- Prevention of diabetes
- Reduced tissue damage during surgery
- Changes the expression of certain genes, which helps the body protect itself from disease as well as promoting longevity
- Increases human growth hormone, or HGH, which helps the body utilize body fat and grow muscle
- Activates autophagy, a healing process whereby the body digests or recycles old and damaged cell components
Fasting: The Physician Within
Humans have been fasting for medical reasons for centuries, long before there were any studies to support its benefits. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, believed fasting enabled the body to heal itself. Paracelsus, another great healer in the Western tradition, wrote 500 years ago that “fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within. “ Ayurvedic medicine, has long advocated fasting as a major treatment. Today fasting is studied as a potential treatment for many diseases and dysfunctions, including asthma, chronic pain, metabolic syndrome, obesity, autoimmune diseases, heart disease and cancer.
Most religious and spiritual practices incorporate fasting. In a religious context, fasting is a way to gain clarity, show sacrifice and help one connect to higher powers.
Ancient humans often went hours or days between meals as obtaining food was difficult. The human body adapted to this style of eating, allowing extended periods to pass between food intake times. Intermittent fasting recreates this forced-fasting.
Intermittent Fasting and Metabolic Flexibility
Intermittent fasting promotes metabolic flexibility.
Metabolic flexibility is the body’s ability to adapt and use whatever fuel is available to it. Your body is metabolically flexible when its mitochondria can use sugar or fat as their fuel and thus maintain consistent energy levels. Ways to increase metabolic fasting include exercise and fasting.
Metabolic flexibility is essential to good health.
For Better Health
- Avoid sugars and refined grains.
- Avoid hydrogenated and trans fats.
- Avoid snacks and nighttime eating. Let your body burn fat between meals.
- Consider a simple form of intermittent fasting. Start with 12:12 and work towards 14:10 or 16:8.
- Consider a Mediterranean diet rich in vegetables, healthy fats, nuts, seeds and wild-caught fish.
Who Should Not Intermittent Fast?
- Children and teens under age 18
- Women who are trying to conceive, pregnant or breastfeeding
- People with diabetes or blood sugar problems unless under the supervision of a nutritionist
- People with a history of eating disorders or body image struggles
- People undergoing treatment for a diagnosed medical condition unless under the supervision of a nutritionist
