Intermittent Fasting

Albert Sema
Aug 26, 2017 · 4 min read

We must master our egoism, and through this mastery, step outside ourselves and educate ourselves in giving. Fasting requires that we rediscover all that is alive around us, and reconcile ourselves with our environment.

Tariq Ramadan

Disclaimer: You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor.

Today we are going to talk about fasting and most importantly intermittent fasting and how intermettent fasting can help in our journey of to good health and life.

Fasting: Abstain from all or some kinds of food or drink, especially as a religious observance. We will talk about fasting as a religious observance in upcoming posts but today we are more interested in health benefits in fasting.

Intermittent: Occurring at irregular intervals; not continious or steady.

What is Intermitted fasting?

Intermittent fasting is you restrict your eating to a specific window of time each day, for as few or many days as you like (but NOT restricting how much you eat).

Intermittent fasting is not a deprivation diet like many people are led to believe. In reality, it is just a healthy lifestyle that you can easily incorporate in your life that has a beneficial impact on your body.

If combined with exercise, intermittent fasting can help you lose and literaly change your life. It’s an excellent way to reboot your metabolism so that your body can start burning fat as its primary fuel source, and not sugar or carbs, which so many of us are currently burning instead. Intermittent fasting helps you lose weight by increasing enzymes that burn fat, and you body becomes far better at using stored fat as your primary fuel source, rather than relying on carbs and sugar as a quick fix for energy.

How does it work?

It’s pretty simple. You can do this by simply timing your meals and allowing for regular periods of fasting. The most popular is the 16/8 protocol, 8-hour window to eat and fasting the remaining 16 hours. It is not as intimidating as it sounds. My window is 11:45AM to 6:45pm, you can go with 9AM to 5:00PM, 12:00PM to 8:00PM, or whatever time works for you. In theses cases, it means you will have your first meal(lunch) at 11:45AM and your last meal(dinner) at 6:45pm. It is challenging the first couple of weeks just as it is in building new habits :). Water is you best friend. Black coffee in the morning is OK. That’s what I personally take before starting the day.

Skipping breakfast?

Yes we will be skipping breakfast, there is a lot controversy about skipping breakfast and there are many studies that are for and against this idea. Many of us know the saying: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. I tend to disagree. Well, if you believe in conspiracy theory, look no further than your cerals, fonflakes. There is enough evidence that Foood companies do influence nutrition research.

Benefits

Numerous studies show that Intermittent fasting can have powerful benefits for your body and brain. We will look at two benefits. It is very technical and we are warned.

1. Intermittent Fasting can help you lose weight and belly fat.

Many of us who tried intermittent fasting have done so in order to love weight. General speaking, intermittent fasting will make you eat fewer meals. Additionally, intermittent fasting enhances hormone function to facilitate weight loss. Lower insulin levels, higher growth hormone levels and increased amounts of norepinephrine all increase the breakdown of body fat and facilitate its use for energy.

Intermittent Fasting increases your metabolic rate by 4–14%, helping you burn even more calories.

2. Intermittent Fasting can reduce insulin resistance, lowering your risk of type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes has become common recently and its main feature is high blood sugar levels in the context of insulin resistance. Anything that reduces insulin resistance should help lower blood sugar levels and protect against type 2 diabetes.

Why does Intermittent Fasting work?

Our bodies react to energy consumption(eating food) with insulin production. The more sensitive your body is to insulin, the more likely you’ll be to use the food you consume efficiently, and your body is most sensitive to insulin following a period of fasting. The changes to insulin production and sensitivity can help lead to weight loss and muscle creation.

Your glycogen(a starch stored in your muscles and liver that your body can burn as fuel when necessary) is depleted during fasting and will be depleted even further during exercise or training, which can lead to increased insulin sensitivity. This means that a meal following your workout will be stored most efficiently.

During that fasting period, the food you consumed will be used in a few ways: converted to glycogen and stored up in your muscles or burned as energy immediately to help with the recovery process, with minimal amounts stored as fat.

Compare this to a regular day without intermittent fasting, with insulin sensitivity at normal levels, the carbs and foods consumed will be full glycogen stores and enough glucose in the bloodstream, and thus be more likely to get sotred as fat. Not only that, but growth hormone is increased during fasted states. Combine this increased growth hormone secretion, the decrease in insulin production(and thus increase in insulin sensivity), and you’re essentially priming your body for muscle growth and fat loss with intermittent fasting.

That is a bit overwealming, let’s try in less science terms: Intermittent fasting can help teach your body to use the food it consumes more efficienly, and your body can learn to burn fat as fuel when you deprive it of new calories to constantly oull from(if you eat all day long).

Hope this was helpful, à la prochaine!

)
Albert Sema

Written by

Entrepreneur, Software writer and Fitness Enthusiast.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade