I promise, the benefits outweigh the inconvenience. Plus, you probably do this most days, you just don't know it...
Intermittent fasting is a buzzword in the industry lately and for good reason. People are seeing great results with weight loss and energetic output which was the main goal. What they didn't expect was heart health and brain functional gains, reversing high cholesterol and diabetes, lowering inflammation systemically, decreasing the chances for hereditary Alzheimer’s disease and many more.
So, what's the trick? It's easy! Get the body to eat itself. It's called autophagy. In latin, auto means "the self" and "phago-" means to eat. Therefore, autophagy means the body is eating itself! This happens when the human body is done digesting its physical food source in the stomach and intestines. This happens about 13 hours after your last calorie intake. I'm not going to say your last meal because if you had a Coke or a glass of wine after dinner, those calories count as energy that needs to be digested. Calories are calories, doesn't matter what the season!
So, Intermittent Fasting (IF) is more about when you eat, not necessarily what you eat. Typically, the common fasting window is 16 hours which then leaves you an 8 hour feeding window. So, your last meal ended at 6:30 PM, you would "break your fast" 16 hours later at 10:30 AM. Then, you'd have 8 hours to eat your Total Daily Caloric Intake and be finished by 6:30 PM again. The longer your fasting window is, the more benefits you will reap.
Another method is a 24 hour fast, twice a week. This enables your body to feel hunger which then stimulates satiation. When you are constantly fed and don't ever feel true hunger, meals are a little lack luster and boring which is when we overeat.. we're searching for that one thing that will satisfy us but the truth of the matter is, we're not even in need of calories! We're not hungry!
So, how does this work? A few reasons...
Human Growth Hormone increase and this sponsors youthful skin, fat loss, muscle gain and more.
Your insulin levels drop so the body doesn't resort to sugar as energy, is starts pillaging the fat stores for the long term burn energy.
Cellular repair happens via autophagy where self eating cells run amuck and destroy tired and unusable proteins, free radicals, waste and inflammation to name a few
Body composition starts to change from "bad fat" to the "good fat" that helps with the immune system
Norepinephrine secretion is increased and this helps with fat burning and because of all of the other hormonal changes, this will help increase your metabolism
Inflammatory markers decrease (like homocysteine)
The odds of heart disease decrease because of the changes in insulin, blood sugar, inflammation and triglycerides and the "bad" LDL Cholesterol.
If those reasons are enough - weight loss and money savings are rated as the top two reasons to start intermittent fasting in my cohorts. They're simply not eating out as much so the empty calories are reduced and so is the pricey meal out.
When it's time to break your fast, you can simply start eating. However, you may break your fast and not know it. In ayurveda, it's pretty common to wake up with a glass of warm water and a squeeze of lemon juice and the controversy is - "Does a squeeze of lemon water break my fast?" and I can't answer that definitively. Here's why.. not all lemons and their squeezers are created equally. A whole lemon has about 16 calories in it so if you cut a quarter of a lemon and gave it a squeeze, thats about 4 calories and that is NOT enough to break your fast. My rule of thumb is under 10 calories should be fine. Guess what? Your coffee creamer is not allowed. Sorry.
So who should fast and who shouldn't? I'm not a doctor - you might think I am - I am indeed, NOT. All changes in your medical history need physician approval especially if you are on time sensitive medications or fat soluble meds. Here are a few scenarios that I would double check with:
Diabetes and blood sugar regulation
Hypotension
Underweight
Previous eating disorders
Amenorrhea
Pregnant, breastfeeding or trying to conceive
Many people have a food dependency and they don't know it. When approaching fasting, they may become anxious, derailed and overwhelmed at the thought of not eating for hours at a time, removing their snack time and curbing their feeding window. This is okay and fairly easy to work with. Actually, this goes into an energy blockage in the root chakra - feeding is part of our basic nurturing and a necessity. (Root Chakra information available Feb 1, 2023 in Chakra Workshop).
To start, spend a few days writing down what you eat and when - and I mean everything. Don't include water, but include EVERYTHING else like the quick pack of chips, chewing gum, cough drops, gummy vitamins, meals, to go food, home made food, a handful of popcorn, sodas, alcohol, etc. This would give you a good timeframe of what your current feeding window is now. After that's determined, if it's under 13 hours try to navigate your schedule one hour here and there to reach 13 hours. If you're right at 13 hours, increase to 14 and see how that feels. It's trial and error and a working schedule attempt so if one day doesn't work, restart tomorrow. Work yourself up to 16 hours over a few weeks and see how that feels - if it's comfortable, your seeing results and you want more, you can continue to increase. If however, it's not working whatsoever - maybe 2 - 24 hours fasts per week would be better for you.
I tell my students that your body is your best study guide so USE IT! Then, listen to what it says and pick the option and lifestyle that makes you feel the. best.
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