Benefits of Intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is currently one of the most popular nutrition programs around. Unlike diets that dictate what and what not to eat, intermittent fasting focuses on spacing your meals apart to give your digestion a break, and perhaps help you recover. Eating within an eating window, will not only help you consume less calories, it may also provide numerous health benefits, such as weight loss, improved heart health and blood sugar levels.

Intermittent fasting is a broad term. It refers to multiple specific eating patterns. The most popular type of fasting includes the overnight fast of 8-12 hours.  So, you fast between 9 pm, and start eating from 9 am till 9pm. You may also increase your fasting window up to 16 hours, which will then help you break your fast about noon depending on your last meal taken the previous night. 

Switching from this style of eating to fasting intermittently, may cause you to naturally eat less without limiting any food groups as show in research, that calories consumed may be reduced.

A study found that when healthy adult males limited their eating to about a 10-hour window, it reduced the number of calories they ate each day by about 20%. On another study reported that young men ate about 650 fewer calories per day when they limited their food intake to a 4-hour period.

Choosing high-calorie foods during your feeding window, you may end up eating a normal day’s worth of food in a shorter period of time. Best food options are eating whole foods over processed foods.

Another benefit intermittent fasting might offer is weight loss;

Several studies of both normal-weight and overweight people restricted eating to a window of 7–12 hours, reporting weight loss of up to 5% over 2–4 weeks.

Whether or not you will experience weight loss with intermittent fasting probably depends on whether or not you manage to eat fewer calories within the eating period. If this style of eating helps you eat fewer calories each day, it can produce weight loss over time. If this is not the case for you, intermittent fasting may not be your best weight loss tool to use.

….May also help your heart

Many substances in your blood can affect your risk of heart disease, of which one of them is cholesterol. “Bad” LDL cholesterol increases your risk of heart disease, while “good” HDL cholesterol decreases your risk. 

One study found that four weeks of time-restricted eating during an 8-hour window lowered “bad” LDL cholesterol by over 10% in both men and women.  When participants lost weight with intermittent fasting, their cholesterol improved. Then again, eating the wrong types of food utilizing an eating window might slim down the chances of improving your LDL cholesterol.

…Improved blood sugar

The amount of glucose, or “sugar,” in your blood is important for your health. Having too much sugar in your blood can lead to diabetes and damage several parts of your body because sugar is toxic to your body. However, the effects of intermittent fasting on blood sugar are not that clear.

Several studies in normal-weight people have reported reductions in blood sugar of up to 30%, while a different study showed a 20% increase in blood sugar. More research is needed to decide if intermittent fasting can improve blood sugar.

Now your question might be, how is it best to perform intermittent fasting?

Easy, have your last meal at night, fast while you are sleeping and break your fast later on the day. If your goal is to lose weight and improve your health, the number of hours you allow yourself to eat should be less than the number you typically allow.

Unfortunately, research is still limited on the duration of eating window is best, however, most people use windows of 10 –16 hours each day. Combining your intermittent fasting with a whole food based approach would definitely yield results.

 

Would intermittent fasting hinder your training?

One eight-week study examined young men who followed a weight-training program and fasted intermittently. It was discovered that the men performing intermittent fasting were able to increase their strength just as much as the control group that ate normally. It was also found that the men eating all of their calories in an 8-hour period each day lost about 15% of their body fat, while the control group did not lose any body fat. However, both groups had similar improvements in strength and endurance. Based on these studies, it appears that you can exercise and make good progress while fasting intermittently.

However, research is needed in women and those performing an aerobic/anaerobic exercise. The best bet for women is eating when they are hungry while eating a whole food based diet which would control their binge eating between meals. High sugary meals would make their blood sugar set on a roller coaster ride, which would make women open up the fridge or cupboards constantly till their craving is satisfied. Eating a diet rich in healthy fats, moderate protein and low carb would definitely help women keep satiated for longer which in turn would make it easier in fasting for about 6 hours in between meals.

Intermittent fasting is a dietary strategy that focuses on when you eat, rather than what you eat.  By limiting all your daily food intake to a shorter period of time, it may be possible to eat less food and lose weight depending on the individuals metabolic state. Intermittent fasting also seems to carry some benefits such as heart health and blood sugar control. Although, very favorable, intermittent fasting is not for everyone, especially those people who suffer from adrenal fatigue or a hormone imbalance, but it’s a popular dietary option that you may want to try for yourself.

XO

Naomi