Intermittent fasting (IF) is used by thousands of people to stay lean throughout the year. It’s a fantastic protocol with a plethora of benefits ranging from weight loss to reducing insulin resistance.
However, it’s not something that anyone and everyone can adopt without risk. When you’re on an intermittent fasting plan, you’ll have 2 windows – the eating window and the fasting window.
Eating and Fasting Windows
Known as the 16-8 fast, the most common style of IF has an 8-hour eating window and a 16-hour fasting window. During your fasting window, you’ll not be allowed to eat anything, but should be drinking water. During your eating window, you’ll need to consume all your calories for the day.
So, the only problem with this plan is that people who have gastric issues or are diabetic (may experience blood sugar dips) might have problems. Always speak to your doctor and see if it’s safe for you to give intermittent fasting a try.
In most cases, if you do not have any health issues, you’ll be just fine.
Burns Stubborn Fat Stores
What intermittent fasting does, is that it forces your body to burn fat from the fuel stores. Once your eating window closes, within 2 to 3 hours, the food in your body would have been digested.
However, the body will still need fuel for the rest of the day and for bodily processes and maintenance during the night. Since the body has no food to use as fuel, it will tap into its fat stores for fuel… and that is how your stubborn fat gets burned up.
Stabilizes Blood Sugar Levels
Intermittent fasting also keeps your blood sugar levels stable for most of the day. If you’re eating throughout the day from dawn to dusk, your blood sugar levels will be all over the place and your body can’t burn fat if there is sugar (glucose) in the blood. It will use the sugar first. So, you’re impeding your fat loss.
Intermittent fasting will gradually reduce your cravings and appetite too. You’ll notice that you feel less hungry and don’t have as many food cravings anymore. This is a HUGE benefit to people who are struggling to lose weight because food is always on their mind.
Another problem that many people face and they don’t realize is that their bodies are inflamed. When you have inflammation, your cells are unresponsive and will not cooperate with you. Losing weight will be an uphill task.
Reduces Inflammation
Intermittent fasting reduces inflammation and oxidative stress in the body. You’ll feel less aches and pains, and your body will shed the fat much faster.
Boosts Your Metabolic Rate
You may notice that after 2 or 3 weeks of IF, you seem to have more energy. This is one of the benefits of intermittent fasting. It increases your energy levels and boosts your metabolic rate.
It may seem strange that eating during a short window actually leaves you feeling more energized than sluggish. However, digestion is a ‘tiring’ process. When you’re eating during a short window, your stomach and digestive process only works for a short while.
It has time to rest after that. So, your energy is conserved because it’s not being spent digesting food the whole day.
As you can see by now, intermittent fasting is definitely a yay, and not a nay. It’s one of the best tools to lose weight. Give it a try and stick with it for 3 weeks and you’ll be amazed at the results.
