Human fasting is not a new concept. People are doing intermittent fasting for many decades may it be for religious reasons or due to a hectic work routine and our body is totally capable of handling this.
People may say I don’t want to starve myself for health benefits, it is the misconception that intermittent fasting is starving yourself. Intermittent fasting is not a diet, it’s an eating pattern in which we focus on when to eat rather than what to eat. In this eating pattern, you don’t starve yourself for a longer period of time. Here fasting is an extended break given to your body where you don’t deprive yourself of any essential vitamins and nutritions.
The eating pattern of IF
Simply there are two windows in intermittent fasting and that is the eating window and fasting window. There are many patterns of Intermittent fasting, but the most followed pattern is 16;8 hours. In this pattern, you eat 8 hours and in the remaining 16 hours, you fast. For example, if you have your dinner at 8 then you can not eat anything till 12 pm the next day. After 12, you can break your fast with fruits or some light meals and after that, you can take your regular meal and this cycle continues in this way.
But, in an eating hour, you can not eat takeaways or junk, you will have to eat healthy foods made at home such as rice, chapati, etc. In a fasting window, you can take non-calorie beverages such as black coffee or tea without sugar.
How it helps to reduce weight
When we are fasting, we do not take any additional calories from outside and hence our body uses the fats that have been stored, and that helps to break down your stored fat.
In intermittent fasting, you limit your eating hours. That means you eat fewer calories overall than the normal eating routine. Intermittent fasting also increases the metabolic rate of your body which also helps you to lose the stubborn fat.
Benefits of Intermittent fasting
- Fat-burning hormone (norepinephrine) gets activated
- The metabolic rate gets improved from 3.4%-14%
- Insulin level drops and sugar in our body also decrease which prevents type 2 diabetes.
- It activates Human Growth Hormone which is helpful for anti-aging and longevity of life.
- It prevents heart disease because it helps to reduce bad cholesterol of heart.
Who Should Not Do Intermittent Fasting
- Some research has shown that some of the women’s menstruation cycles get disturbed because of intermittent fasting. So, if any women facing disturbed menstruation cycle during intermittent fasting then they should stop it there.
- Breastfeeding women and women who are pregnant should not follow it.
- Underweight people and people who have low blood pressure level should not follow intermittent fasting
- People who have any health disorder and are taking medicine continuously should not follow IF.
- If anyone has an eating disorder then he/she should not do intermittent fasting.
If you want to lose weight and want to get benefit from it then you can try it once but if you face any health problems then you should not continue it.