Did You Know? Five (5) Intermittent Fasting Facts

Are you searching for a way to have vibrant health without any drugs, supplements, or any cost? Well, intermittent fasting (IF) might be your best bet! It only involves regular fasting and eating cycles that do not account for what you eat or how much you eat. Before starting intermittent fasting, you need to know the following most crucial intermittent fasting facts.

1. The focus is on when you eat
2. IF switches our metabolism
3. IF supports weight loss
4. IF promotes overall health
5. IF is not for everyone

Intermittent fasting holds the key to weight loss, control type 2 diabetes, improving heart health, boosting brain powers, slowing down ageing, and supporting overall health. These benefits are proven scientifically, over, and over. Dig into the intermittent fasting world with the following cool facts:

1. Intermittent fasting is mostly about when you eat

It is a regular cycle of eating and fasting. The first intermittent fasting fact is when you eat matters the most and not what you eat. 

Read the following methods. You will know more about feasting and fasting.

• 16:8 method: Most sustainable and popular fasting method. It involves fasting for 16 hours a day and eating during the rest of 8 hours of the day. In this method, you may skip a meal or two.
• 14:10 method: Fasting for 14 hours a day and eating for 10 hours of the rest of the day. You can enjoy both your lunch and dinner.
• 12:12 method: The easiest fasting method. It is excellent if you are a beginner. You can eat for half of the day and fast for the other half of the day.
• 5:2 method: This is for strict followers. You must fast for two days per week, usually at weekends. You can take 500 calories for both fasting days. It is significantly less calorie amount compared to your daily needs.
• One Meal a Day (OMAD): Trendy intermittent fasting method. In this method, you can take only one meal per day. There is no restriction on how much you can eat or when you can eat this one meal.

Those are the intermittent fasting rules for each method. Remember, you are automatically fasting while sleeping. So, you can count these hours as fasting hours.

Can I feast on anything then?

Remember I said before that what you eat doesn't matter? Well, it matters in some sense. You cannot go crazy and eat fast foods, refined carbs, and processed foods in feasting times.

You need to follow a healthy diet with whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables. The fiber in these foods will make it easy for you to fast and will reduce constipation.

The thing is, there are no strict guidelines on what you should eat in what amounts.

Although there is no restriction on how much you can eat, do not binge! Because there will be no weight loss if you eat 3 feet wide platter of food at once.

2. Intermittent fasting switches our metabolism.

Intermittent fasting switches our body metabolically for all good (2). It affects our hormone levels, gene expression, and cellular repair. Following are the things intermittent fasting is doing to your body.

Insulin

When we fast for more than 12 hours, our insulin levels drop because it is jobless as there are no carbohydrates, proteins, or fats to work on while we fast.  Now your body turns for the fat stores.

Fat is used for energy by making ketone bodies from them. Glucose won't be used for energy as there is no insulin. Now your body has changed metabolically from using glucose to fat.

Guess who is affected. Your extra pounds of body fat! This is how you lose weight. Furthermore, what you lose is visceral fat which is harmful fat accumulated around the organs of your body.

Also, low insulin levels reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. So, your overall health will be improved while losing weight.

Human growth hormone (HGH)

Not only insulin but also Human Growth Hormone (HGH) levels are also affected and will skyrocket while fasting. It facilitates fat burning and muscle gain, with numerous other benefits.

Cellular repairing

Cell-repair will happen while fasting through Autophagy. Autophagy is the process of breaking down and recycling cellular components. When damaged and old cellular parts are cleaned, our body can start the process of renewal—new tissues and cells to replace the destroyed ones. The recycled parts of these damaged cells are used for cellular repairing.

The first step of renewing our body is to destroy the old, exhausted cells. When these processes are hijacked, diseases such as cancer occur. The best part is that autophagy has an anti-aging effect because it creates new young cells. Intermittent Fasting is one of the most effective ways to induce autophagy(1).

Gene expression

Genes can be suppressed or expressed. The results will be good if you express good genes and suppress bad genes. Logically, if you express bad genes and suppress good genes, the results will be bad. IF plays a big role in expressing good genes.

In fact, researchers have found that intermittent fasting can express the genes associated with human health, longevity, and protection for diseases(2,3).

3. Intermittent fasting promotes weight loss

With intermittent fasting, you can achieve 1 – 8% of weight loss(4).

It happens in two ways while we fast.

1. Eating in a time frame reduces how much you eat in a day. So, the calories you take per day facilitate weight loss.
2. Secondly, fasting changes hormone levels. It decreases insulin and increases HGH. These supplement our body's metabolism and facilitate fat burning.

So, is it better than regular dieting?

The answer is no. The amount of weight loss is the same with calorie-restricted regular dieting and intermittent fasting(4). Also, blood pressure, inflammation, and cholesterol-lowering effects were the same for both diets.

Some say Intermittent Fasting tricks us into eating a little less. Therefore, many people are losing weight. Well, that is what a lot of us want, losing weight, right? But the benefits do not stop there. 

4. Intermittent fasting promotes overall health.

There are incredible benefits of intermittent fasting other than weight loss. Following are some of them.

• Reduces insulin resistance: Controls blood glucose levels and protect against type 2 diabetes(5).
• Reduces inflammation(6): This reduces the risk of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and even cancer.
• Promotes heart health(7): By reducing LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and insulin resistance, risk factors of heart disease.
• Promotes brain health: Optimizes brain function and increases resistance to injury. May protect against Alzheimer’s disease(8).

5. Intermittent fasting is not for everyone.

This method is not for all. Intermittent fasting is bad for following groups of people.

• Children below the age of 12
• Pregnant or lactating mothers
• Those with a body mass index (BMI) less than 18.5
• Those who have a history of eating disorders
• Those who take the medication with food at certain times
• Those who are shift workers (because they struggle with fasting due to working hours)

The Bottom Line

You give eating a break with intermittent fasting. Also, you give yourself a break from the overabundance that is present in your life.

Intermittent fasting is proven to promote weight loss, heart health, brain health, reduces inflammation, insulin resistance, and reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. It will be the ultimate solution for overall health for most of us.

Most importantly, intermittent fasting is convenient to do. You don’t have to hurt your brains thinking about what to eat next because intermittent fasting has no such restrictions. Eating healthy each time is the only requirement.

Sounds too good, right?

I hope you got a great understanding of these intermittent fasting facts. A healthier, vibrant life is not far away with this dieting technique.

References

1. Alirezaei M, Kemball CC, Flynn CT, Wood MR, Whitton JL, Kiosses WB. Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy. Autophagy [Internet]. 2010 Aug 16 [cited 2021 Oct 19];6(6):702. Available from: /pmc/articles/PMC3106288/
2. Martin B, Mattson MP, Maudsley S. Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting: Two potential diets for successful brain aging. Ageing Res Rev [Internet]. 2006 Aug [cited 2021 Oct 19];5(3):332. Available from: /pmc/articles/PMC2622429/
3. Y Z, Y Y, DR G, A V. Metabolic regulation of Sirtuins upon fasting and the implication for cancer. Curr Opin Oncol [Internet]. 2013 Nov [cited 2021 Oct 19];25(6):630–6. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24048020/
4. Varady KA, Cienfuegos S, Ezpeleta M, Gabel K. Cardiometabolic Benefits of Intermittent Fasting. https://doi.org/101146/annurev-nutr-052020-041327 [Internet]. 2021 Oct 11 [cited 2021 Oct 18];41(1):333–61. Available from: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-nutr-052020-041327
5. Barnosky AR, Hoddy KK, Unterman TG, Varady KA. Intermittent fasting vs daily calorie restriction for type 2 diabetes prevention: a review of human findings. Transl Res. 2014 Oct 1;164(4):302–11.
6. JB J, W S, RG C, B M, DH H, VD D, et al. Alternate day calorie restriction improves clinical findings and reduces markers of oxidative stress and inflammation in overweight adults with moderate asthma. Free Radic Biol Med [Internet]. 2007 Mar 1 [cited 2021 Oct 18];42(5):665–74. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17291990/
7. KA V, S B, EC C, MC K. Short-term modified alternate-day fasting: a novel dietary strategy for weight loss and cardioprotection in obese adults. Am J Clin Nutr [Internet]. 2009 Nov 1 [cited 2021 Oct 18];90(5):1138–43. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19793855/
8. VK H, Z G, M P, Y M, RG C, FM L, et al. Intermittent fasting and caloric restriction ameliorate age-related behavioral deficits in the triple-transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Neurobiol Dis [Internet]. 2007 Apr [cited 2021 Oct 18];26(1):212–20. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17306982/

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