Is it a good idea to “starve” just a little bit every day, or for two days a week? There is mounting evidence to confirm that intermittent fasting could have a very beneficial impact on health and longevity.
I think this is one of the most powerful ways if you are fighting with your weight and the health issues that go with it. One of the first reasons is that it helps the body to switch from a combustion mode from sugars / carbohydrates to a combustion mode from body fats, which then become its main fuel.
As this article illustrates, intermittent fasting does not mean alternating with bulimia and then starving yourself, or any other extreme form of diet. Rather, we are talking here about the establishment of meal times that allow regular periods of fasting.
I prefer an intermittent daily fast, but you can also fast two days a week if you prefer or every other day. Many variations are possible.
In the case of an intermittent daily fast, its effectiveness is based on its duration which must be at least 16 hours in a row. This means, for example, eating only between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. It basically means just skipping breakfast and making lunch the first meal of the day.
You can shorten the time you eat a bit – by six hours, four hours, or even two hours if you want, but you can only reap the many benefits by limiting daily consumption. food at least eight hours apart.
This is because it takes the body about six to eight hours for it to metabolize its glycogen stores; it’s after this time that you start to burn fat. However, if you renew your glycogen by eating every eight hours (or more closely), your body will find it harder to use its fat stores as fuel.
Intermittent fasting – more a lifestyle than a diet
I’ve been experimenting with different ways of planning my food intake for the past two years, and I’m just eating today every 6 to 7 hours a day. Although it is not asked to decrease the amount of food for this daily food planning, I warn you against the versions of intermittent fasting which leave you carte blanche to eat at will “junk food” outside the fast, this which appears to be extremely counterproductive.
Likewise, according to research published in 2010, intermittent fasting with compensatory overeating did not improve survival or slow the growth of prostate tumors in mice. In fact, gorging on days without fasting easily removes the benefits. If so, why do it?
I see intermittent fasting as a lifestyle, not a diet, which includes choosing healthy foods with every meal. Correct nutrition also becomes even more important when fasting, so be careful with the choice of food before trying a fast.
This involves cutting down on carbohydrates and replacing them with healthy fats, such as coconut oil, olive oil, olives, butter, eggs, avocados and oilseeds. It usually takes several weeks to switch to a fat burning mode, but once that is done, your cravings for unhealthy foods and carbohydrates will automatically go away. The reason is that you can now burn your stored fat and don’t have to depend on new carbohydrates to function. Unfortunately, despite ample evidence, many health care practitioners remain reluctant to prescribe fasting for their patients. According to Brad Pilon:
The health benefits of intermittent fasting
Aside from suppressing your cravings for sugar and snacking and turning you into an effective fat-burning machine, making it much easier to keep your body weight balanced, modern science has confirmed that there are many other reasons for intermittent fasting. For example, research presented at the 2011 annual scientific sessions of the College of Cardiology has shown that fasting triggers an increase in growth hormone of 1300 percent in women and a staggering 2000 percent in men.
Growth hormone, commonly known as the “wellness hormone”, plays an important role in maintaining health, fitness and longevity, including stimulating muscle growth and weight loss by accelerating metabolism. Helping build muscle while simultaneously stimulating weight loss explains why this hormone helps you lose weight without sacrificing muscle mass and that is why even athletes can benefit from this. practical (since there is no overtraining and they pay attention to what they eat). The only other thing that can compete in terms of significantly boosting growth hormone levels is intensive interval training. Other benefits of intermittent fasting include:
- Normalization of insulin and leptin sensitivity, key to optimal health
- Normalization of appetite hormone (ghrelin) levels
- Decrease in triglyceride levels [lipids from the metabolism of sugar, alcohol and fatty substances that are measured in blood samples]
- Improvement of disease markers [measurable biological characteristic linked to a normal process or not; often a protein that is measured in the blood]
- Reduced inflammation and reduced inconvenience due to free radicals
- Preservation of memory functioning and learning
Intermittent fasting is as good or better than a continuous calorie restriction
According to Dr. Stephen Freedland, Associate Professor of Urology and Pathology at the Duke University Medical Center, “malnutrition-free malnutrition” is the only experimental approach that significantly improves the survival of cancer animals, and that overall lengthens up to 30% the life of others. Interestingly, intermittent fasting seems to provide almost the same benefits without being as difficult to implement and stick to. It is easier for most people to simply reduce their daily intake to a narrow window of time, rather than severely reducing their overall daily calorie intake.
Mark Mattson, researcher at the National Institute on Aging, has studied the health benefits of intermittent fasting, and the benefits of calorie restriction. According to Mattson, there are several theories that explain why fasting works:
In one study, overweight adults with moderate asthma lost 8% of their weight by reducing their calorie intake by 80% every other day for eight weeks. Markers of oxidative stress and inflammation have also dropped, and asthma symptoms have improved, as have several quality of life indicators.
More recently, Mattson et al. Compared the effectiveness of intermittent fasting with continued calorie restriction in terms of weight loss, sensitivity to insulin and other markers indicating risk of disease metabolic. The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, found that intermittent fasting was as effective as continuous calorie restriction for improving all of these issues and that it was slightly better for reducing insulin resistance.
Benefits of intermittent fasting for the brain
The brain can also benefit from intermittent fasting. The article above also mentions it:
“Mattson also researched the benefits of fasting for the protection of neurons. If you don’t eat for 10 to 16 hours, your body will draw energy from its fat stores and fatty acids called ketones will be released into the blood. It has been shown to protect memory and learning, says Mattson, and to slow down pathological processes in the brain. “
Aside from releasing ketones, byproducts of fat burning, intermittent fasting affects brain function by stimulating the production of a protein called “brain-derived neurotrophic factor” (BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor). Mattson’s research suggests that an alternate fast (restricting your meal to around 600 calories on fasting days) tends to boost BDNF by 50 to 400%, depending on your brain location. BDNF activates brain stem cells by converting them to new neurons and triggers the production of many other chemicals that improve brain health. This protein also protects brain cells from changes associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
BDNF also manifests itself in the neuromuscular system by protecting neuromotor elements from degradation (neuromotor elements are the most essential in muscle. Without them, muscle is like an engine without ignition. Neuromotor degradation is part of the process behind age-related muscle wasting.) BDNF is therefore as active for the muscles as it is for the brain, and this connection, if you will, seems to be an essential part of why physical work can take place. such a beneficial impact on brain tissue – and why the combination of intermittent fasting combined with intense physical exercise seems a particularly powerful combination.
Try intermittent fasting
If you are ready to try an intermittent fast, consider skipping breakfast, make sure you don’t eat or drink, apart from water, three hours before you go to bed, and eat food on a slot. 8 hours (or less) each day. During the 6 to 8 hours you eat, take good protein, cut down on carbohydrates like pasta, bread and potatoes and exchange them for healthy fats like butter, eggs, avocados, coconut oil, olive oil and oilseeds – ultimately the very fats that the media and “experts” tell you to avoid.
This will help you switch from a carbohydrate burning mode to a fat burning mode. Once your body has made this transition, as if by magic, your cravings for sweets, and food in general, normalize quickly and your cravings for “junk” diminishes radically, or even disappears completely.
Remember that it takes a few weeks and you have to go gradually, but once you have successfully switched to fat burning mode, you can easily fast for 18 hours and not feel hungry. The “hunger” that most people feel is actually a desire for sugar and it will magically disappear once you get past the fat burning milestone.
Another dramatic side effect / benefit that arises is that you will dramatically improve your gut flora. Maintaining the good bacteria, which are actually ten times more numerous than your cells, is one of the most important things to do to improve your immune system and not get sick, get bronchitis, colds and flu . You will sleep better, have more energy, your intellectual clarity will increase and your concentration will be better. Every aspect of your health will basically benefit from a balanced gut flora.
Based on my own phenomenal experience of intermittent fasting, I think it’s one of the most powerful ways to put your body into fat burning mode and improve a wide variety of disease biomarkers. The effects will be magnified by physical exercises during the fasting state.
It is clearly another powerful tool to help you and your family take control of your health and a great way to take your fitness to the next level.