Knowing there is no magical solution for health and fitness is crucial. Shortcuts are never going to help you lose weight. We involve ourselves in many strange dieting plans and expensive workouts or training, but it never benefits us. A healthy life requires a balanced diet, regular exercise, and consistency. Have you heard of the new trendy diet, Intermittent Fasting? You may not know about it, but it’s a lasting trend. The history of intermittent fasting is long and proven. The skill is to follow it with patience and attention; then, it can help you to burn fat, reduce weight, and enhance your physical and mental health. It’s not easy to remain consistent, but below are some tips to follow intermittent fasting and stay focused.
Does Intermittent Fasting Benefits Your Health
Decades of research has proven that Intermittent Fasting is beneficial in weight loss. It enhances blood pressure and asthma. Also, it can help prevent high cholesterol and metabolic syndrome. This study was published in (NEJM) the New England Journal of Medicine. Some uncertain evidence suggests that it can also advance insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes. Besides, it can delay the arrival of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and stop tumor growth. Fasting will reduce tissue damage, which will allow for improved surgical outcomes. Intermittent fasting can lessen sclerosis symptoms and lower the body’s stress. Also, it can help in decreasing cognitive symptoms after brain injury. Intermittent fasting is an eating approach that focuses on when you eat rather than what you eat.
The body depends on glucose for energy. Glucose keeps your body working and is found in the carbs you eat. Fasting makes our body use all the stored glucose and forces our body to use triglycerides. It is a type of fat and can be used instead of glucose for energy. “Eating refills your glucose levels each time,” says Dr. Edward Mathew, Professor of Neuroscience at John Hopkins, and author of the NEJM study. The switching takes place in 8 to 10 hours of not eating, and then after each hour, the fat is broken into ketone bodies to provide fuel for the brain. This metabolic switch offers excellent health benefits. Mathew revealed that making your body dependent on ketones will reduce cancer cells’ energy. Also, it will prevent the progression of tumors. The growth of cancer cells is due to glucose.
An experiment was conducted to determine the changes intermittent fasting does to brain, breast, ovarian and prostate cancer patients. Another benefit of intermittent fasting is that it reduces the body’s stress and tumor growth. Which is effective for the consequences of chemotherapy and radiation, the animal study revealed. Both these therapies are very painful for the body. Research on rats by Dr. Mathew has proven that fasting is essential for activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms the body. Instead of a fight or flight response. This experiment reveals intermittent fasting will benefit blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart disease risk. “The parasympathetic nervous system works by reducing heart rate and blood pressure like a cardio workout”, says Mathew. Fasting also reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by protecting the rat’s neurons from aging.
Also, intermittent fasting would treat a few types of diabetes in the coming years. Intermittent fasting balances the insulin hormone, which manages the glucose in blood circulation. Insulin sensitivity in the body will lead to processing of the food. Also, it drops the sugar levels in the blood, reveals Dr. Sarah Johnson, a Registered Dietitian. Blood sugar will increase if it remains desensitized to insulin, which can affect your eyes and kidneys—also leading to type two diabetes. An experiment conducted on people with borderline diabetes revealed that consuming an equal number of calories as always with a six-hour gap after the morning meal. It reduced their blood pressure and oxidative stress and improved insulin sensitivity.
Oxidative stress is produced by imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants. Which further leads to diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Also, it may cause cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. It’s due to the biological clock phenomenon, and it works as an anticipatory system, Sarah stated. The body is more insulin-sensitive in the morning, which helps regulate blood sugar levels. Your body prepares for the day, boosts its insulin sensitivity in the early hours of the day, and decreases it by night. Sarah stated, “Planning to eat in the morning makes your body and brain clock work together.”
Intermittent fasting is not worth the Hype
Intermittent fasting does not mean eating everything within a six-hour window. As per the research on intermittent fasting, participants completed their dinner before 3 p.m. But it does not have to be this severe, says Sarah. The fasting duration may not be as crucial as the fasting’s timing. If a person eats a 12-hour period, we will reduce it to a 10-hour period and then increase the timing. In this way, it will be more effective rather than making it difficult for the body to accept new changes.
Initiating the first step is always difficult, but it can be effective gradually. Having dinner earlier than usual will change your routine of eating. Managing for a few weeks will allow you to lose your appetite at night. Intermittent fasting would be easy to maintain if you get over those initial stages of 2 to 4 weeks. You must also maintain a workout routine to cope with the long hours waiting to eat, which can boost your metabolic switch. “Exercising can fasten the decrease of stored energy and make your body switch to fat for energy gain,” Mathew reveals. Skipping breakfast is the easiest thing to do, but waiting the whole day to eat and overeating for dinner is not intermittent fasting. Sarah says it will never benefit your body and make it more difficult to digest that food.
Intermittent fasting is as helpful as a strict diet, but following it is difficult, NEJM research revealed. If you are on a weight loss journey and don’t want to change what you eat. It will never be beneficial for you. A six-month study on intermittent fasting revealed that it is helpful for weight loss if followed correctly. The study showed that intermittent fasting on alternate days did not work for the weight loss process. The members reduced their calories to a few hundred on some days of the week, but it didn’t work how it should. The second study was related to eating a meal in the morning in a six-hour day period and not eating anything after that. It also didn’t prove to be a good idea for weight loss. The research members revealed that not eating at night was easier than consuming all their food in six hours. Following this would lead the body to perform ineffectively at times, and it can’t be tolerated at all. Both the cases revealed that “It may not be a proper approach to lose weight,” Sarah says. She further stated that people following intermittent fasting only lose 2 to 3 percent of their total weight. It would be effective for people who cannot manage any other strict diet for now.
Intermittent fasting will be effective for as long as you continue it. Like all the other hard diets, the effect reduces whenever you leave it. Changes will be visible in 2 to 4 weeks but will reverse if you stop fasting. “The more you invest, the less you get, as compared to exercise,” Mathew suggested. Sarah says that you will lose weight by following intermittent fasting, but when you leave it, you will gain weight again as you lose it. Fasting may help you lose a few pounds, but you will gain weight when you start eating normally. Following intermittent fasting would not help if you wanted to see a significant loss in your weight. Also, it will not allow you to have healthy eating habits.
Furthermore, “If you have poor eating habits, then you must focus on what to eat rather than when to eat,” Sarah recommended. It’s better for children, the elderly and pregnant women to avoid such eating routines because it’s essential for them to eat. You can control munching all day and manage to have meals at the proper time. Yet a balanced diet is a must.
