Three years ago, I wrote a column on intermittent fasting. He had researched it and was intrigued by what he found, but he was not a practitioner. In other words, I wrote an informative column but I didn’t have any personal experience or knowledge.
Frankly, I didn’t think much of it until it was published and received an incredible response from readers, far more emails on this topic than any other topic I’ve covered in my 43 years as a health columnist. What’s more, the responses were extremely enthusiastic, touting amazing effects and benefits. As a result, I decided I needed more first-hand knowledge, so I took the plunge.
Let me start with the different types of intermittent fasting. The first is the kind I follow daily where I compress my feed into a narrow window. At first, that window was eight hours, which meant I consumed everything I was going to eat for the day between about 1 and 9 p.m., and fasted (nothing but water, unsweetened tea, or black coffee) the rest. of the day This was easy and didn’t present any problems for me as I was a firm believer in eating when I’m hungry rather than eating on a fixed schedule, and I’m usually not hungry when I wake up in the morning so skipping breakfast was it is not a big thing.
Around 1 pm, I would start to get hungry and would eat lunch. But I would be moderate with food and would typically consume 24 to 32 ounces of a nutritious homemade mix with lots of green leafy vegetables and some carrots, fruit (an orange, apple, blueberries, etc.), rich soy powder in protein (chocolate flavored), raw nuts and soy milk, mixed in a Vitamix blender. There are other brands of blenders to choose from, but high power is the key, as a regular blender can’t get the job done.
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I did this for a while, but I was eager to make progress and I did it quickly, narrowing my eating window to six hours, then four, and often just two hours. This meant that he fasted for 18, then 20, and finally up to 22 hours a day. The results were fantastic and similar to the emails I had previously received. The most remarkable thing was that my belly fat disappeared, not only the deep belly fat under the muscle layer, but also the subcutaneous fat just under the skin. This amazed me because, despite all my exercise, I never thought I would lose the “rims” on my hips or see the “cut abs” I had when I was young. But I did, on my way to losing 15 pounds and reaching my goal of 190, my weight as a sophomore in high school.
Other approaches to intermittent fasting may be more to your liking. One is the alternate day approach where you eat normally and hopefully healthy one day, then fast the next. This could involve a complete fast for the entire day, or more typically, people will consume a small meal throughout the day of around 500 calories. Another less demanding approach is the 5:2 method of fasting two out of seven days a week. Again, fast days can be no food, or just a small midday meal of about 500 calories.
What are the benefits of intermittent fasting and exercise?
I have become a great admirer of the research of Dr Mark Mattsonneuroscientist of National Institute on Aging and teacher at Johns Hopkins University. Thousands of research studies on calorie restriction and intermittent fasting have been conducted in animals, but little was done in humans until Mattson began his work 25 years ago. At first, he was intrigued by the research prospects of intermittent fasting, then he adopted the lifestyle to improve his health.
Mattson argues that intermittent fasting has many of the same benefits as exercise because they are what he calls “good stressors.” Both stress the body, but instead of a negative result, good stressors increase the removal of old cells and trigger their replacement by younger, more viable cells, and also provide a pronounced anti-inflammatory effect.
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According to Mattson, “If you don’t expose yourself to mild bioenergetic stress, whether it’s through exercise or intermittent fasting, then it’s not as good for your cells, especially as you age. It’s not taking advantage of all the processes that help cells resist stress, function efficiently, and fight disease.”
Mattson points out that exercise stresses the muscles, making them more efficient. He adds that exercise can cause muscles to release protein (myokines) that signal the brain to promote new connections between nerves. Exercise has been shown to be a key factor in preventing Alzheimer disease, and this myokine release process could be a useful mechanism. Along the same lines, a two-year research study of intermittent fasting supports a positive effect on the brain similar to exercise, with improved cognitive function and memory, possibly helping to prevent mental decline and dementia in later years.
Mattson draws another parallel between exercise and intermittent fasting, noting that muscle growth does not occur during exercise. It happens later when you eat and rest. Similarly, intermittent fasting stresses cells, pushing them like exercise into a stress-resistant mode that causes useful changes, but these changes don’t happen until you eat and rest. Another similarity is that the effects of a longer fast are like increasing the intensity and duration of your exercise.
Intermittent fasting also mimics exercise to increase the rate of production and release of human growth hormone, which helps reduce belly fat while promoting increased muscle mass.
And finally, both intermittent fasting and exercise support a healthy immune system. Given these similar benefits, it makes sense to combine the two and maximize the benefits. That is exactly what I have done for the past two years and have made much greater profits than I imagined at my current age of 75.
Contact Bryant Stamford, professor of kinesiology and integrative physiology at Hanover College, at [email protected].
