Intermittent fasting has become increasingly popular over the past several years. While fasting usually has a negative connotation, it can actually be beneficial for the body. There has been increasing research that confirms that intermittent fasting may help extend life, regulate glucose, control blood lipids, manage body weight, and much more.

Intermittent fasting is the practice of eating your calories during a specific time. This isn’t a diet. It’s a pattern of eating. It’s a way of scheduling your meals so that you can get the most of the nutrients you are consuming. It doesn’t change what you eat, it changes when you eat. The whole basic principle behind this type of fasting focuses on evolution. Believe it or not, we are animals just like the rest of the world. We weren’t meant to wake up and just eat food whenever we want. We would have to hunt for food and then binge eat, all while not knowing when our next meal would be. We would have to fast until we can find out next meal, which may not be for days later. Our bodies adapt to whatever is necessary for survival. Replicating conditions of how the human body evolved will likely provide health and wellness. This is where intermittent fasting comes into play. To understand how intermittent fasting works, you need to understand the science behind it.

Let’s examine the difference between the fed state and the fasted state. Your body enters a fed state when it is digesting and absorbing food. The fed state usually starts when you are eating and lasts for three to five hours as your body digests and absorbs the food you just ate. When you are in the fed state, it’s very hard for your body to burn fat since your insulin levels are high. Your body can even put on fat. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. So when there’s insulin in your bloodstream your body goes into a kind of fat storage mode where it activates all the different enzymes in your body that make fat, which can put your body into a fat making mode. The sugar goes into the fat cells and your body starts making fat. After the fed state ends, your body goes into a post-absorptive state, which is when your body isn’t processing a meal. This period lasts until 8 to 12 hours after your last meal. After the post-absorptive state ends, your body enters a fasted state. As a result, it is much easier for your body to burn fat in the fasted state because your insulin levels are low. When you’re in this fasted state, your body can burn fat that has been inaccessible during the fed state. Most of us never enter this fat burning state since we usually eat every 12 hours. Since you are following intermittent fasting, it makes achieving the fasted state all that much easier.

A recent study examined mice who continually grazed on fatty food for 100 days. These mice gained weight and developed high cholesterol, high blood glucose and liver damage. The mice that fasted for 16 hours a day, but ate the same total amount of food during their non fasting periods, weighed less, stayed healthy and performed better when they exercised. During this time, the fasting mice enhanced their body’s ability to use fat as an energy source. Frequent eating, on the other hand, can cause the body to make and store fat, enlarging both fat and liver cells, which can cause liver damage. Other studies have shown that intermittent fasting can extend life in mice and even reduce the risk of cancer and disease.

In most cases, there are several different types of intermittent fasting. One of the most popular is called Lean Gains, which is set up on a 16/8 schedule. This is when you fast for 16 hours and then have an 8 hour window to consume food. There’s also other programs that have you eat 4 hours of the day and fast for the other 20. There’s also one that preaches to eat every other day. During your fasting periods, you are encouraged to drink plenty of water. You could even have food with little to no calories throughout the day as long as it’s under 50 calories, which should keep the fast going. The Lean Gains method is the most popular. It doesn’t mater when you start your 8 hour eating period. You can start at 9 AM and stop at 5 PM or start at 4 PM and stop at midnight. You can plan it around your day and find the times that are most convenient for you. That’s the beauty of this program. You don’t have to eat every few hours of the day and constantly make meals. You can designate those few meals a day for a specific time period and save you the hassle of cooking food.

There has been a lot of recent support for intermittent fasting. Others believe that eating 6-8 small meals a day every few hours is the best way to get lean and healthy. It’s ultimately up to how your body responds to food and exercise. Our bodies are all different and respond to things differently. A lot of people have had massive success with intermittent fasting while others claim that it doesn’t work and leaves them tired and weak throughout the day. You need to pay attention to what’s working for your body and do more of that.

Source

http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting