Fasting is something we have been doing for most of human evolution. Our ancestors had no choice but to fast as a survival mechanism when food was scarce. We have the same genetic makeup as our hunter-gather ancestors. We can go days or even weeks without food. A lot of people think it can’t be done but it most certainly can be done because we have hormones in place to regulate appetite. In today’s climate we are fasting for 1 of 4 reasons or all these four reasons. We are practicing fasting for either cultural, spiritual, health, and most commonly weight loss or weight management purposes. In this article, we will discuss the amazing life-saving benefits of fasting and how you can adopt it into your lifestyle daily. I am not saying you must fast for days or weeks but its super beneficial to practice some form of fasting every day.
How Intermittent Fasting works
It is important to state that intermittent fasting is not a diet. It is the controlled voluntary absence of food for several hours in the day. When we consume a meal, the carbohydrates in that meal are converted into glucose and stored in the liver for later energy use. When we fast for a set number of hours, excess glucose is depleted from the body, and we are now able to utilize our fat storage as energy. This process is known as Ketosis. How long it takes to get into Ketosis is dependent on your activity level. Research has shown that an inactive person can get into Ketosis after 12 hours of fasting and an active person can get into Ketosis after 10 hours of fasting. Research has also shown that while in Ketosis, your metabolism may be elevated by up to 11 percent.
Intermittent Fasting Can Assist with Weight Loss
Obesity is a high cause of mortality in the United States. With food so widely available, we often find ourselves eating excessively even when we are not truly hungry. Intermittent fasting can be a powerful tool to support weight loss or even weight management. It can teach your body how to differentiate true hunger from fake hunger. You get to eat larger more satiating meals everyday while dropping fat and living your best life. However, it is not anything magical when it comes to fat loss. To achieve fat loss, your body must sustain a net caloric deficit for a prolonged period. I can’t stress enough how fundamental this rule is for fat loss. For example, if you are 160-pound female that requires 2400 calories a day to maintain your weight based on your activity level, you need to eat at a deficit of 500 calories a day to lose 1 pound of fat per week. In this case, you would be eating 1900 calories a day. In other words, you must eat at an energy deficit of 3500 calories a week to lose 1 pound of body fat per week.
Intermittent Fasting Can Reduce Your Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes
The primary reason people may practice intermittent fasting in terms of health purposes is to reduce their risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes. A significant percentage of the United States population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. Type 2 Diabetes is a disease of too much sugar in the body. This disease is associated with high levels of insulin resistance. When you routinely fast for 12+ hours daily, your body switches from burning glucose or sugar for fuel to burning body fat as fuel. Therefore, you are improving insulin sensitivity which is a good thing. When you’re in a consistent fasted state of 12+ hours daily, you have more ketone production. Ketones help keep your appetite suppressed during the fast. For more information, check out the link to this article by the National Library of Medicine.
Intermittent Fasting Can Reduce Your Risk of Developing Cancer
Another major reason people practice intermittent fasting is to mitigate their risk of developing certain cancers. As many of us know, Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. When you consistently fast for 18+ hours daily, not only is your body receiving the benefits of Ketone production and elevated fat burning but it’s also receiving the benefits of cellular cleansing/waste removal. This process is known as Autophagy. It is a Greek terminology that means “self-eating”. Think of it as Spring cleaning for your cells. Research has shown that Glucose/sugar consistently feeds cancer cells which causes tumor growth. Cancer cells cannot survive in an environment where there is consistent ketone production because bad components in the cells are being removed and tumor growth is being suppressed. For more information, here is a link to an article by the American Cancer Society.
Intermittent Fasting Can Help Fight Chronic Inflammation
Inflammation can be a good tool to fight off various infections in the body. However, chronic inflammation or out of control inflammation can be a bad thing. Chronic inflammation is the root cause of various diseases such as Arthritis and Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome. Researchers have found that fasting regularly can lead to a reduction of cells that causes inflammation. These cells are called Monocytes. If you adopt a daily fasting routine of 16+ hours, you reduce the number of Monocytes in your body over time.
Intermittent Fasting Can Reduce Your Risk of Developing Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It is a disease that occurs in some older Adults where neurological degeneration occurs in the Brain. People with Alzheimer’s typically struggle with memory, cognitive ability, and sustaining their behavioral patterns. Where does fasting come in? New research has shown that fasting depletes the brain of Glucose and switches to Ketones as a fuel source. Ketone bodies have been correlated with improved thinking, learning, and memory.
Eat Stop Eat: Brad Pilon’s perspective on Intermittent Fasting
Eat Stop Eat is a method of Intermittent Fasting that was popularized by diet author Brad Pilon. It involves having 1 to 2 days out of the week where you are fasting for a full 24-hour period. For the other 5 to 6 days, you would eat normally on the condition that you are not consuming more than your bodies energy needs. This style of fasting is great because it allows for more cellular repair and fat mobilization in the body. If you want to learn more about the Eat Stop Eat Program by Brad Pilon, click here.
Conclusion
Fasting is the most powerful healing process and health management tool that humans forgot about. You can’t even compare it to taking pain medication or prescription medication. With a sustainable fasting plan, we can drastically reduce our risk of developing some of the more common disease like Type 2 diabetes, Cancer, Inflammation, and Alzheimer’s Disease. It is best to adopt these practices while we are still young. We all know that what we do in our youth will affect us when we get older. Even if you are middle age or older, you can still change the trajectory of your health by integrating a daily intermittent fasting plan into your life. In a future article, I will go into more detail about the different ways you can practice fasting. Brad Pilon is renowned figure on intermittent fasting and has a unique perspective on it. If you want to learn more about his Eat Stop Eat System, Click Here
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