Intermittent Fasting

What If You Could Change Your Life?

People widely use an intermittent fasting (IF) program to lose weight, improve their health, and simplify their lifestyles. Many studies show that it can have powerful effects on your body and brain and may even help you live longer. In fact, IF is currently one of the world’s most popular health and fitness trends.

This is the second in a three-part series, including Intermittent Fasting, Inflammation Free, and Detoxification.

What Is Intermittent Fasting?

IF is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It is not a diet, and it doesn’t specify which foods you should eat but rather when you should eat them. In this respect, it’s not a diet in the conventional sense but more accurately described as an eating pattern. It is not uncommon for people to couple intermittent fasting with a diet such as Inflammation Free, Ketogenic, Whole 30, Mediterranean, or others.

The most common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week, but there are other cycles to consider if these are not suitable (more on that shortly).

Fasting has been a practice throughout human evolution. Ancient hunter-gatherers didn’t have supermarkets, refrigerators, or food available year-round. Sometimes they couldn’t find anything to eat.

As a result, humans evolved to be able to function without food for extended periods of time; fasting from time to time is more natural than always eating 3–4 (or more) meals per day. Additionally, fasting is also done for religious or spiritual reasons, including in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism.

SUMMARY

Intermittent fasting (IF) is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It’s currently very popular in the health and fitness community.

Intermittent Fasting Methods

There are several different ways of doing intermittent fasting — all of which involve splitting the day or week into eating and fasting periods.

During the fasting periods, you eat either very little or nothing at all.

These are the most popular methods:

• The 16/8 method: Also called the ‘Lean gains’ protocol, it involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 9 am-5 pm, or 1 pm–9 pm, and then you fast for 16 hours in between.
• The 5:2 diet: With this method, you consume only 500–600 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week, but then you eat normally the other five days.
• 6:1 method: This is similar to the 5:2 approach, with the difference being that you cut back your calories or fast for only one day a week.
• 24-hour fast: This protocol requires fasting (except for sipping on calorie-free drinks) for two non-consecutive 24-hour windows twice a week.
• OMAD: This approach, one-meal-a-day, is an extreme fasting program where you fast for 23 hours a day and eat for one hour. This has very similar results to a 24-hour fast only to the more extreme because it is done every day rather than once or twice a week. This approach can have side effects like brain fog, fatigue, and irritability, so it is certainly not for everyone.
• OMEOD: This is really OMAD stretch out for a longer time frame to one-meal-every-other-day.

By reducing your calorie intake, all of these methods should initiate some weight loss as long as you don’t overcompensate your fasting by eating much more during the eating periods.

Many people find the 16/8 method to be the simplest, most sustainable, and easiest to adhere to. It’s also the most popular. However, to receive all the benefits, you will need to periodically (e.g., once a month) fast for 24 hours to initiate autophagy.

Cautionary Note: You should consult with a physician before taking on an eating plan, like those listed above, and this is even more critical the older you get or if you already suffer from an illness. Some experts say that it is not appropriate to measure your fasting with a clock, but rather gauge it in relation to your individual metabolism.

SUMMARY

There are several different ways to do intermittent fasting. All of them split the day or week into eating and fasting periods.

How It Affects Your Cells and Hormones

When you fast, several things happen in your body on the cellular and molecular level. For example, your body adjusts hormone levels to make stored body fat more accessible. Furthermore, your cells also initiate important repair processes and change the expression of genes.

Here are some changes that occur in your body when you fast:

• Human Growth Hormone (HGH): The levels of growth hormone skyrocket, increasing as much as 5-fold. This has benefits for fat loss and muscle gain, to name a 
• Insulin: Insulin sensitivity improves, and levels of insulin drop dramatically. Lower insulin levels make stored body fat more accessible.
• Cellular repair: When fasted, your cells initiate cellular repair processes. This includes autophagy, where cells digest and remove old and dysfunctional proteins that build up inside cells. (Note: you need to fast at least 24 hours to initiate autophagy, which is how cellular repair is achieved.)
• Gene expression: There are changes in the function of genes related to longevity and protection against disease.

These changes in hormone levels, cell function, and gene expression are responsible for the health benefits of intermittent fasting.

SUMMARY

When you fast, human growth hormone levels go up, and insulin levels go down. Your body’s cells also change the expression of genes and initiate important cellular repair processes.

A Very Powerful Weight Loss Tool

Weight loss is the most common reason for people to try intermittent fasting. By making you eat fewer meals, intermittent fasting can lead to an automatic reduction in calorie intake. Just as importantly, intermittent fasting changes hormone levels to facilitate weight loss.

In addition to lowering insulin and increasing growth hormone levels, it increases the release of the fat-burning hormone norepinephrine (noradrenaline). Because of these changes in hormones, short-term fasting may increase your metabolic rate by 3.6–14%.

By helping you eat fewer and burn more calories, intermittent fasting causes weight loss by enhancing both sides of the calorie equation. Studies show that intermittent fasting can be a very powerful weight-loss tool. In fact, a 2014 review study found that this eating pattern can cause 3–8% weight loss over 3–24 weeks, which is a significant amount compared to most weight loss studies.

According to the same study, people also lost 4–7% of their waist circumference, indicating a significant loss of harmful belly fat that builds up around your organs (e.g., fatty liver) and causes disease. Another study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than the more standard method of continuous calorie restriction.

It is helpful to keep in mind that a key reason for its success is that intermittent fasting helps you eat fewer calories overall. If you binge and eat massive amounts during your eating periods, you may not lose any weight at all.

SUMMARY

Intermittent fasting may slightly boost metabolism while helping you eat fewer calories. It’s a very effective way to lose weight and belly fat.

Health Benefits

Many studies have been done on intermittent fasting, in both animals and humans. These studies have shown that it can have powerful benefits for weight control and the health of your body and brain. It may even help you live longer.

Here are the main health benefits of intermittent fasting:

1. Weight loss: Intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and belly fat without having to consciously restrict calories. This weight loss (5-10%) can also help to reverse nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
2. Insulin resistance: Intermittent fasting can reduce insulin resistance, lowering blood sugar by 3–6% and fasting insulin levels by 20–31%, which should protect against type 2 diabetes.
3. Inflammation: Some studies show reductions in markers of inflammation, a key driver of many chronic diseases.
4. Heart health: Intermittent fasting may reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, blood sugar, and insulin resistance — all risk factors for heart disease.
5. Reduce Risk for Cancer: Animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting may prevent cancer. (This requires periodic fasts of at least 24 hours to initiate autophagy.)
6. Brain health: Intermittent fasting increases the brain hormone BDNF and may aid the growth of new nerve cells. It may also protect against Alzheimer’s disease.
7. Anti-aging: Intermittent fasting can extend lifespan in rats. Studies showed that fasted rats lived 36–83% longer. There are changes in the function of genes related to longevity and protection against disease. (This requires periodic fasts of at least 24 hours to initiate autophagy.)
8. Human Growth Hormone (HGH): The levels of growth hormone skyrocket, increasing as much as 5-fold. This has benefits for fat loss and muscle gain, to name a few.
9. Cellular repair: When fasted, your cells initiate cellular repair processes. This includes autophagy, where cells digest and remove old and dysfunctional proteins that build up inside cells. (This requires periodic fasts of at least 24 hours to initiate autophagy.)

Keep in mind that research is still in its early stages. Many of the studies were small, short-term, or conducted in animals. Many questions have yet to be answered in higher quality human studies.

SUMMARY

Intermittent fasting can have many benefits for your body and brain. It can cause weight loss and may reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. It may also help you live longer.

Challenges

Fasting can affect your mood. If you’ve ever been hangry (and who hasn’t?), you know that an empty enough stomach can give way to feelings of irritability and anger. Spend enough hours without food, and it’s quite possible that your mood will start to take a noticeable shift.

That’s because of dropping blood sugar levels and “a spike in cortisol, which happens when people become overly hungry. The more cortisol coursing through your body, the more likely it is that you’ll feel stressed. “There is some evidence that restricted dietary behavior can increase the stress hormone cortisol, which can cause changes in food preferences, cravings, and mood.

Additionally, fasting can decrease the amount of REM sleep (the super deep restorative sleep) due to the body’s rise in cortisol and insulin while fasting, according to a study published in the journal Nature and Science of Sleep. 

Depending on which intermittent fasting method you choose, you might stop eating hours before bed, which can be a positive since eating close to bedtime is not great for your health, potentially causing weight gain, acid reflux and excessive gas, and difficulty sleeping. But an empty, growling stomach can also make it challenging to get some sleep.

CONCLUSION

Intermittent fasting is a powerful approach toward losing weight and keeping it off. Furthermore, as a lifestyle, it has healthful benefits that will keep you younger and healthier, very likely extending the length, just as importantly, the quality of your life.

But these fabulous benefits do not come without a price. It takes a little research, discipline, and the will power to endure how your eating schedule may not easily fit in with those of your friends and family.

Additionally, you will need to pay attention and learn what schedule works for you, not only giving the best results yet not adversely affecting your sleep or mood.  

Lastly, given your lifestyle, unique physiology, and goals, you may wish to couple intermittent fasting with a dietary program that works well with your body, and a fasting program. The combination of the two has the potential to offer amazing results in your health and achieving your desired body weight. You might want to talk to a doctor or a nutritionist that is knowledgeable in this area to get some professional advice and ensure you do not somehow create unintended consequences.

Next week we will cover Detoxification. Where an Inflammation Free Diet removes harmful foods from your diet, intermittent fasting boosts your health in ways, and to the degree, you really can not imagine, Detoxification helps you to understand how toxic get into your body, accumulate, are released and ultimately either excreted or metabolized.