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Is Fasting Good For You? All You Wanted to Know
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Is Fasting Good For You? All You Wanted to Know
Good nutrition and adequate exercise are central pillars for leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Although this is certainly true, there is more you can do to improve your overall health and wellbeing.
Fasting is the willing abstinence or reduction of any or all food, drink, or both. While often regarded for religious purposes as unhealthy, depriving, or reserved, short-term fasting may provide excellent health benefits. A recently published study confirmed how fasting is a method that has a wide variety of health benefits, including weight loss, as well as increased regulation of blood sugar, heart health, brain activity, inflammation reduction, and prevention of cancer. In its different variations, from intermittent fasting to fasting-mimicking diets, you can lose weight and belly fat, rejuvenate your cells to support healthy aging, and kickstart healthy eating habits.
However, individuals with advanced diabetes or who are on diabetes medications, individuals with a history of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should not attempt any type of fasting unless they are closely monitored by a doctor who can track them. In any case, it is especially important for fasting to be performed properly and in a safe way.
The Science Behind Fasting
The advantages of fasting are now supported by a wide amount of evidence, although the most relevant research has been reported in animal studies. Still, for humans, these results are promising. Fasting effectively cleanses your body of toxins and drives cells into processes that are not normally activated because there is a constant supply of fuel from food.
Your body will not have its normal glucose intake when you fast, forcing the cells to turn to other energy sources. Consequently, a natural method of self-producing sugar called gluconeogenesis is initiated by the body. The conversion of non-carbohydrate materials such as lactate, amino acids, and fats into glucose energy happens with help from the liver. All these processes make your body more efficient as it saves energy during fasting, thus lowering your heart rate and blood pressure.
Another mechanism that happens later in the fasting cycle, called ketosis, occurs when the body burns stored fat as its primary source of fuel. This happens when insulin levels go down and your fat cells can release their stored sugar for energy use. This is the main reason why fasting promotes and supports weight loss.
Because short-term fasting imposes mild stress on your body, it helps your cells adapt by improving their capacity to cope. The best analogy is what happens when you exercise. With physical activity, you stress your muscles and cardiovascular system. With enough time to rest and heal, your body can only grow stronger during these cycles.
Which Type of Fasting is Good For You?
There are three kinds of fasting, that have shown beneficial effects on health and longevity in lab studies:
Time-Restricted Feeding
This is the simplest form of fasting and it refers to restricting the intake of calories to a particular period that is associated with our circadian rhythm or “body clock”. Eating meals only during a limited time of 8 to 12 hours per day, for example from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. is considered a time-restricted feeding. This makes the processes in your body to be coordinated with your biological clock, allowing more time for natural repairs and cellular regeneration to happen.
Evidence has shown this type of fasting, when combined with a balanced and healthy diet and lifestyle, can be effective to improve your metabolic functions and losing weight. It also can be particularly beneficial for people at risk for diabetes (not people under diabetes medications though).
Intermittent Fasting
In this method, you alternate between periods of fasting and eating. There are no specific foods or drinks indicated, but rather the times when you should be consuming them. The objective is to lower the number of calories eaten in a day. There are several variations and approaches, but all of them require dividing the day or week into eating and fasting intervals. It all depends on your specific goals and your comfort level with the duration of the fasting periods.
Most recent research is based on a two-day diet that cuts calories by half and limits carbohydrates for two consecutive days in a week. This technique takes the body into a short and intensive treatment. The intermittent calorie restriction also reminds you that you don’t need to eat constantly. Because of that, an additional long-term benefit is a significant decrease in appetite.
Periodic Fasting with Fasting Mimicking Diets
This means reducing the intake of calories for three to five days, causing the cells to deplete stores of glycogen and begin ketosis (fat burning ramps up). Although this can be accomplished without consuming food, or doing juice cleanses, it can be extremely hard and may not be safe for some people. The alternative is to simulate fasting without depleting nutrients, by following a 3-5-day calorie-limited diet (around 1,000 calories per day). This technique can be more effective than intermittent fasting because it is easier to limit your caloric intake for a specific period than not eating at all. This enables the body to enter ketosis and begin a true cleanse quicker and for a longer period. There are several safe and high-quality products in the market for fasting-mimicking diets that meet the low-calorie requirements while providing you with the required daily nutrients that you can try.
Health Benefits of Fasting
Fasting can be difficult and often unpleasant. If you are trying it for the first time, a fasting-mimicking diet might be the best option. See below a list of the mental and physical benefits that fasting can produce:
- Gain focus, concentration, and mental clarity
- Reduce excess fat and trim your waistline (weight loss)
- Promote cellular rejuvenation (autophagy)
- Help the body reset
- Decrease inflammation
- Improve energy levels
- Help maintain a healthy metabolism
- Reduce cravings and gain control on your health and diet.
Please consult your doctor if you are interested in attempting any type of fasting.
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