Intermittent fasting which is currently the most popular health and fitness method globally is also known as IF. People are also using this method to lose weight, improve their overall health and simplify their lifestyle. Most studies show that it can have powerful effects on various systems in the body and brain and make the practice last longer. Through the following guide, you will learn the most fundamentals and concepts about intermittent fasting.
What Is Intermittent Fasting Essentially?
F or intermittent fasting is a fixed pattern of eating that cycles between fasting and eating sessions. It doesn’t necessarily matter which foods you should eat in an eating cycle. Instead, it tells you what time you should eat. As such, it is not a diet in the true sense but more of a pattern of eating. The most common intermittent fasting involves a 16-hour fast or a 24-hour fast twice a week.
Fasting has always been among the common practices of human evolution. Ancient hunter-gatherers never had refrigerators, supermarkets, or foods that would be available to them all year round. And sometimes they didn’t get anything to eat. And as a result, humans evolved to live their lives without any food for long periods of time. Intermittent fasting is a natural way to eat 3 to 4 meals a day. Fasting is also practiced in most religious practices including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.
What are some intermittent fasting methods?
There are many different ways to practice intermittent fasting, most of which involve breaking it up into periods of fasting and eating for days or weeks. You can eat little or no food during fasting. The most popular methods of intermittent fasting are as follows:
16/8 Method: This is also called the Leangains protocol which involves skipping breakfast and restricting daily eating patterns to only 8 hours, such as 1 to 9 p.m. Then you should fast for 16 hours during the session.
Eat Stop Eat: This is the process of fasting for 24 hours only once or twice a week, i.e. not eating from dinner till the next dinner. And the rest of the week you spend is as normal as your daily life.
The 5:2 Diet: This method involves consuming only 500 to 600 calories on days that are not consecutive for a week. You eat normally for the rest of the 5 days.
By reducing total caloric intake, all of these methods should lead to weight loss, as long as you are not compensating by eating too much in one eating session. Many people also find that the 16/8 method is the easiest to follow. It is also the most durable and easy to replace. Hence it is the most popular method of intermittent fasting.
How does intermittent fasting affect our cells and hormones?
When you are fasting, a lot happens in the body at the molecular and cellular level. For example, the body begins to adjust hormonal levels to make stored fat more accessible. Your cells also start important repair processes and change gene expression. Some of the changes that take place in the body are as follows:
Human Growth Hormone i.e. HGH: Human growth increases in intermittent fasting. It has many benefits which include rapid fat loss and few must mention muscle gains.
Insulin: Insulin sensitivity is greatly improved, and insulin levels rise rapidly in intermittent fasting. Lower levels of insulin make stored fat more accessible to the body.
Cellular Repair: When you fast for a period of time, your cells start the cellular repair process. It also involves autophagy where these cells digest and remove old proteins that start to build up.
Gene expression: There are a number of changes in functioning styles associated with protection against disease and longevity.
Knowing that intermittent fasting helps in improving your body systems manifold, are you ready to make it a part of your life? MuscleTech Hydroxycut Hardcore
Source by Bob Dean
