There’s a new diet trend everywhere you look these days. There were diet pills back in the 90s.
When we moved onto the early 2000’s, juicers were all the rage if you wanted some unparalleled health benefits. These days you can get all sorts of other things like green tea pads that will help to reduce the appearance of your tummy, and things like meat only diets are rising in popularity.
The truth is that we, like many people out there, take most diet trends with a pinch of salt. Sometimes these trends will be heralded as your one stop shop to instantly lose weight.
The problem is that marketing is getting more and more powerful in the digital age, making it difficult to separate reality from pretty colors and powerful jargon.
There are some ‘fads’ that are worth following, though. In this case, we’re referring to intermittent fasting. Here are a couple of things that we have recently learned about this top notch diet trend.
The 411 On Intermittent Fasting
So, what exactly is intermittent fasting? You may turn your nose up at the word fasting, but we promise it’s nowhere near as scary as it sounds. With intermittent fasting, you are essentially reducing the time frame that you are eating in.
As such, this will usually reduce your overall calorie intake by reducing the chances of things like snacking. The whole thing may sound overly simplistic and somewhat boring, but there is a lot of self discipline required to make this work correctly! It can be especially difficult when you are first starting out.
We’ve given intermittent fasting a try for the better half of a year, and we’ve found some spectacular results. Weight loss, better focus, better sleep and even an increase in energy levels. Many women will try to practice intermittent fasting for the sake of improving longevity rather than trying to lose weight.
Of course, many of these same women will notice a reduction in belly fat fairly quickly. Of course, it’s not possible to spot reduce fat since it can often come down to hormones. During menopause it’s especially likely to retain excess weight, and it’s sometimes quite noticeable around the midsection.
A lot of people that are in the field of longevity will use intermittent fasting as a way to help them to look and feel younger for longer. In fact, the longevity expert and scientist Professor David Sinclair from Harvard University put it best. Sinclair said that really, nobody can tell you the ideal fasting method.
Some people will claim to know, but the truth is that it can vary. Some tests that have been undertaken on mice have shown that if you consume 30% less food then your lifespan can increase by 30%.
What’s especially great about this is that it massively simplifies intermittent fasting – there’s not one exact way to do it. It can be rather stressful to follow the advice of every single expert out there.
Ultimately, you need to do what’s best for you. With that being said, here are some of our notes on intermittent fasting, the weight loss and hunger management strategies.
A Few Noteworthy Points About Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting can really change the way that you look at food. It can be a great way to improve your longevity and promote healthier aging. It really is worthwhile to give it a go.
As such, we’re going to tell you just a few of the things that we’ve picked up upon as we have tried intermittent fasting. It is worth mentioning, however, that we aren’t healthcare efforts.
If you are thinking about giving this form of dieting a try, you should speak to your healthcare provider to get the green light first. Some diets aren’t going to work for certain kinds of people, and a healthcare provider can help you to figure out whether intermittent fasting will be the right choice for you.
First, it’s important to note that in order to lose weight, you need to be consuming fewer calories than you are burning. When you are practicing intermittent fasting, you are naturally reducing the number of calories that you are eating by reducing the window of time that you can eat in.
If you are just starting out with intermittent fasting, it’s a good idea to begin with a 12 hour fast. This may mean that you are eating between 8 AM and 8 PM every day, with the time in the middle spent fasting. This is a great start to the intermittent fasting journey. \
It will help you to get your mindset in the right place right off the bat. It will also help you to develop a disciplined eating routine.
If you are okay with fasting for the 12 hours, you can then experiment with shortening the eating window. For instance, you may wish to have your first meal in the middle of the day.
If you eat between noon and 8 PM, you are then fasting for 16 hours. You can then reduce this window by yet another 4 hour window, where you are only eating between 2PM and 6PM.
Play around with the eating and fasting times to see what works best for your body. It’s not a good idea to try to fast for 20 hours unless your body is prepared for it.
If you do want to lose more weight though, a 20 hour fasting window is certainly something that you can aspire to. Some well practiced intermittent fasting veterans only fast every other day too.
Ultimately waiting to eat until noon is still quite effective. It means that you are cutting out one meal of the day, so you are effectively eating 30% less food than you usually wood. You will lose weight from eating less and exercising more.
Of course, there’s another facet to this. Even if you overeat outside of the fasting times, you can still expect a 30% increase in lifespan, as proven in the animal studies. Ultimately it’s not about what you eat but when you are eating – especially useful if you enjoy indulging in foods that may be slightly higher in calories.
The Science
It always comes down to science! In specific, it comes down to how your body produces something called HGH.
First, an explanation. You create insulin when you eat – this is important as it helps your body to store all of the glucose that you get from carbohydrates. This glucose is then used later on. The issue is that now, we generally tend to eat meals on a regular basis.
Most food items are full of fat and sugar. Unfortunately, these regular eating patterns often mean that our bodies are often in an anabolic state, so you are more likely to gain weight.
The glucose in your food is kept as fat, so you gain weight. This process is reversed in intermittent fasting. Your body will be able to release the glucose that it has stored as energy. Then, your cells will enter something known as a catabolic state. This means that they break down, and ultimately results in weight loss.
The HGH is then created as a response to your body needing glucose. If you are eating all the time, the HGH is suppressed. This is because you are getting the glucose from an external source.
HGH is important as it helps to regulate your metabolism. It helps to repair your muscles and burn fat. By intermittent fasting, you are increasing your body’s production of HGH by a whopping 5 times the usual amount.
How Intermittent Fasting Affects Longevity
The thing that particularly impresses us about intermittent fasting is the effects that it has on aging, and the benefits it presents for longevity. This occurs through something known as autophagy. This is how your body gets rid of any cells that have been damaged, and it then replaces them with healthier cells instead.
As you can imagine, this is very important for longevity. You are replacing old cells in a healthy way and producing new cells. Of course, it won’t last forever, but your body becomes stressed through intermittent fasting so autophagy is generally increased. Your lifespan is thus enhanced.
A Few Quick Tips
It’s not simple to get used to intermittent fasting at first. It can be hard to get used to reducing the time that we spend eating. The main thing that you need to do is avoid eating massive amounts of processed foods when you are in an eating period.
If you are eating excessive calories in your eating windows then there’s a chance that you won’t see any benefits whatsoever. Make sure that you are eating as clean as you can – you can start this before you begin intermittent fasting to make it easier for you.
It is also helpful to spend some time beforehand practicing avoiding snacks in the night. This may be difficult, but you need to remind yourself that it’s okay to feel hungry during the day. Remember that your next meal will be here before you know it – give yourself something to look forward to!
Use Himalayan Rock salt – put a couple of granules of it underneath your tongue when you think you need to eat and you will most likely forget that you are even hungry.
Eat protein in your first meal! It is much more filling and will help you to feel less hungry throughout the day.
Conclusion
Intermittent fasting is a real asset if you want aging and health benefits from your eating schedule. Give it a try – you’ll feel better in no time!
