You hear the word “fasting” and it probably doesn’t leave a good taste in your mouth. Starvation. Depravation. And it couldn’t be good for you, right? Wrong. If you want to lose weight, intermittent fasting is fast becoming one of the best, healthiest ways to do it. If you struggle with your weight or just find your jeans hard to squeeze into, you’ve probably tried a lot of different diets. And there are some crazy ones out there; juice cleanses, the baby food diet, the vision diet (you eat everything while wearing blue-tinted glasses), even the clip-your-nose-while-you-eat-diet. Hey, we couldn’t make these up if we tried. And with most of them, you’ll quickly gain back what you lost just from even looking at a bagel.
A QUICK LOOK AT HOW INTERMITTENT FASTING WORKS
Intermittent Fasting (IF) is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It doesn’t specify which foods you should eat but rather when you should eat them. Studies show that intermittent fasting can be a very powerful weight loss tool. By making you eat fewer meals, intermittent fasting can lead to an automatic reduction in calorie intake, but it also changes hormone levels to facilitate weight loss. In addition to lowering insulin and increasing growth hormone levels, it increases the release of the fat burning hormone norepinephrine. Because of these changes in hormones, short-term fasting may increase your metabolic rate by 3.6–14%. Keep in mind, though; the main reason for its success is that intermittent fasting helps you eat fewer calories overall. If you binge and eat massive amounts during your eating periods, you may not lose any weight at all.
NOT JUST SUPER FAST, SUPER HEALTHY
While intermittent fasting helps you lose weight, just as importantly, it helps you gain some real health benefits to your entire body, including your brain. It can reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, blood sugar and insulin resistance — all risk factors for heart disease. It can also stimulate certain brain hormones and may aid the growth of new nerve cells. It may even protect against Alzheimer’s disease.