Welcome National Fasting February!
The Registrar at the National Day Calendar has proclaimed February as National Fasting February! The inaugural national intermittent fasting month begins tomorrow, February 1, 2019! Learn how to celebrate your metabolic health this month here.
National Fasting February highlights the importance of maintaining and improving one’s metabolic health, an underlying factor for diseases like diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s. This national month also occurs in conjunction with American Heart Month, highlighting the importance of adopting lifestyles that can reduce your risk for heart disease including physical activity, a balanced diet, health weight maintenance and blood sugar control. Intermittent fasting has also been shown to improve heart heart biomarkers including blood pressure, lipid levels, inflammation levels and insulin sensitivity.
Intermittent fasting does not require any change in the content of your diet, but rather simply a change in timing of your food and sweetened beverage intake. Refraining from consuming any calories for just 10–12 or more hours on a regular basis can increase levels of brain-fueling ketones, improve indicators of heart health, lower blood pressure, reduce triglyceride and cholesterol levels, promote weight loss, reduce inflammation and improve sensitivity to insulin, a common biomarker used to diagnose diabetes.
You can celebrate* National Fasting February by downloading the LIFE Fasting Tracker app (free on iOS and Android), joining the official LIFE Circle that celebrates this month (click here from your mobile device) and choosing an intermittent fasting schedule that works best for you. The LIFE Fasting Tracker enables you to track your fasts, monitor your mood and record your weight over time. You can also share your progress and activity within the LIFE social network and utilize the app’s extensive library of scientific-based educational content.
*Fasting for 10–12 hours on a regular basis is safe for most people with the exception of pregnant women and individuals diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. However, talk to your physician about whether fasting is safe for you and listen to your body. After a 1–2 week adjustment period, you should feel as strong, energetic and generally healthy when you are fasting as when you are fed.
How to Get Started with Intermittent Fasting
Getting started with intermittent fasting is as simple as trying to restrict or at least move up (in time) your late night snacks. If you aren’t a breakfast person anyway, try going with just black coffee, unsweetened tea or hot water and lemon until brunch or lunch.
Science-backed ways to practice fasting for metabolic health include:
- Time-restricted eating: 10–16 hours of overnight fasting every day or several days per week
- Alternate day fasting: Eating fewer than 500 calories every other day
- The 5:2 diet: Two consecutive or non-consecutive days per week of eating fewer than 500 calories
Almost anyone can safely practice and benefit from a type of intermittent fasting called time-restricted eating. This involves fasting for at least 10-12 hours every night, ideally starting in the early evenings. Many people start with time-restricted eating and work up to longer fasts from there.
Most Americans eat right before bed and again as soon as they wake up, never reaching a metabolic state of fat burning where their serum ketones are measurably elevated. Fasting for 10–12 hours can require an adjustment period for many people who find themselves uncomfortably hungry and irritable at first. However, after a week or two of practice, this fasting schedule should become much easier, even enjoyable. You may find that it helps you sleep better and feel sharper in the mornings.
Individuals who are fasting primarily for weight loss may find greater success with a one-meal-a-day (OMAD) schedule, the 5:2 diet or alternate day fasting. These fasting schedules with promote more time in the fat-burning metabolic state of ketosis and will naturally restrict calorie intake.
Prolonged fasting or going more than 24–36 hours without calories (as well as prolonged used of a fasting mimicking diet) is the subject of early clinical trials, but isn’t necessary to glean the metabolic health benefits of fasting.
You should drink plenty of water while fasting. You may need to supplement your water with a blend of electrolytes if you are practicing prolonged fasting. Zero-calorie beverages (unsweetened tea and coffee) will also not break your fast. You can consume artificially sweetened beverages while fasting in a pinch, but there are reasons that you want to minimize these artificial sweeteners. Your gut microbes can break down some artificial sweeteners and these sweeteners tend to increase your sweet cravings.
Intermittent fasting will not turn an unhealthy diet into a healthy one. You should try to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables when you aren’t fasting. It’s also best practice to break a fast with a relatively low glycemic index (low carbohydrate) meal in order to avoid acutely spiking your blood sugar.
