I’ve been writing a lot in the last few months about the benefits of intermittent fasting, something I’ve been doing in my personal life for the last two years. I also work closely with several people who are currently using intermittent fasting.
Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern during which one refrains from consuming calories for an extended period of time. Usually between 12 and 40 hours. The results can be remarkable for those who follow the rules precisely. This means fully understanding that fasting involves consuming nothing but water, black coffee, or unsweetened tea. The key is to avoid anything that triggers an insulin response because insulin helps you store fat.
I met up with a good friend who had just returned from a resort vacation in Mexico. Over the last few months of intermittent fasting, he has lost 27 pounds of body fat and it shows, especially with his very small waist. He told me that in the past, at the resort, he couldn’t walk the nearby mountain trails, but this time he slipped and loved it. In addition, he confided again that the intermittent fasting method is the easiest and most effective thing he has ever done to control his weight.
So here’s what you need to know about intermittent fasting and how you could benefit from it:
How does intermittent fasting affect the body?
Like many, I was drawn to intermittent fasting not only for its weight-management benefits, but for a number of other healthy aspects as well. It makes sense to me that if I’m eating food nonstop at regular intervals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night snacks), I’m giving my body a message that digesting food is a priority. Since digestion, especially of dietary fat, takes several hours, the body is actively involved in the digestion process from early morning breakfast to late-night snacks and many hours beyond.
As a result, the body gets only minimal relief from digestion and fasts only a few hours, at best late in the short-lived sleep cycle because breakfast comes early.
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This is an important consideration because the gut contributes to health in many ways, especially when it comes to boosting the immune system, which occurs during fasting. Going hand in hand with increased production of immune cells is autophagy, the way the body cleanses damaged cells to regenerate newer, healthier cells. A good analogy for autophagy is taking out the trash or cleaning up debris. In this case, the waste is made up of parts of the body’s cells that are damaged and must be removed so that new cells can grow.
Fasting also promotes the production of human growth hormone, which helps shed body fat and preserve muscle, which is increasingly important for health as we age.
How do I do intermittent fasting?
There are several ways to approach intermittent fasting. My approach is to fast daily and consume food only for a narrow two to four hour window. I got to this gradually, starting with a larger window and progressively shrinking it. Approximately 18 hours into the fast is when the benefits described above kick in and accelerate.
Here’s what I describe about my typical daily approach to intermittent fasting in a previous column: I visualize what I normally would have eaten for breakfast and lunch, plus snacks (energy bars, nuts, etc.), and eat them “after” of my first fast. meal of the day at 6 pm I drink black coffee periodically throughout the day, which comfortably satisfies me until dinner.
And, let me add, if I feel like cheating at night with a dessert like hot fudge sundae, I don’t hesitate.
Also, my workouts are great with no loss of energy even though I am fasting for many hours before working out.
How is intermittent fasting different from other crash diets?
A reader recently wrote to me about intermittent fasting. He wrote: “I have read your books on nutrition, healthy diet and exercise, and you oppose crash diets because lack of nutrients causes loss of muscle mass. Now, I read about your use of intermittent fasting which reduces caloric intake to zero for extended periods of time and I’m wondering, how is this different from calorie restriction on a strict diet?
An insightful question worth exploring.
First, on a crash diet, you severely reduce your caloric intake from perhaps 2,000 calories per day to less than half that amount and go into semi-starvation mode. When you drastically reduce your calorie intake, your body struggles to keep blood sugar, known as glucose, at optimal levels. Blood sugar is critical because the brain relies on glucose as its primary source of fuel, and of course the brain is the body’s top priority.
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Glucose is stored in the liver in the form of glycogen. When you eat “normally”, if blood sugar levels drop, the liver releases glucose to bring the level back up. However, on a crash diet, the liver’s glycogen supply is depleted because the body is in a semi-starvation mode. Therefore, when blood sugar levels drop, the body becomes alarmed because the liver cannot respond properly.
In turn, this prompts the body to take emergency action. The hormone cortisol is released which breaks down muscle into proteins which are then broken down into amino acids. Selective amino acids are transported to the liver and converted into glucose which supports the blood sugar level. In other words, the body breaks down muscle to make glucose, and the process is called gluconeogenesis.
Are there benefits to crash diets over intermittent fasting?
Crash diets always fail because losing muscle mass is counterproductive and even when you lose a lot of pounds, the fact that you’re losing several pounds of muscle means you don’t look your best. This is disappointing because when you start a crash diet with the goal of losing 30 pounds or more, in your mind you picture yourself going back to a body that had 30 pounds less fat. Your “new” crash diet body is nothing like what you expected.
Also, you tend to feel bad and only think about food.
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When you participate in intermittent fasting, you don’t cut calories and you don’t enter a semi-starvation mode. On the contrary, although I have reduced my weight, I actually eat more now than before I started intermittent fasting because I don’t want to lose any more weight. Therefore, I am easily replenishing my liver glycogen stores every day and keeping my blood glucose at optimal levels that preserve my muscle mass.
All that is required is simply to make a firm decision to commit to eating at the prescribed times and stick to them.
Contact Bryant Stamford, professor of kinesiology and integrative physiology at Hanover College, at [email protected].
