Day 113 of 365 - Fasting, Yeah or Nay?
I've written a little about fasting in a previous post, but, I want to delve a bit more into it today. This is primarily as a reminder and motivator for me. Perhaps you will learn some interesting information too.
The kind of fasting with which most of us are familiar, is that done for religious reasons. It may involve just abstaining from particular foods, like the Catholic tradition of eating fish rather than meat on Fridays. Or, it could be abstaining from food for certain hours of the day for periods of time, like the Islamic tradition during Ramadan of not eating from sunrise to sunset.
It turns out that there are many health benefits to fasting, in addition to spiritual ones. However, fasting can feel punitive or very depriving. Lots of people, for example, try to give up something like sweets during Lent, and find it hard to maintain for forty days.
Some people choose to start a weight loss program with fasting. It's a way to reset the metabolism before beginning a different way of eating. This was one of the suggested options for the ketogenic diet which I pursued last year; to begin with a water or liquid only fast for a few days. It will help jump start the body's ability to burn fat for fuel, rather than sugar. If it is something you have not done before, it's best to do on days you know you will be less active.
There are lots of different types of fasting/eating dietary protocols that have become popular in recent years. What I ended up adopting and have maintained pretty well is called intermittent fasting. For me, that means on most days, eating only within an eight hour window and fasting the other sixteen hours. In addition to that, I have occasionally done a 24 hour fast, when I hit a plateau of weight loss. It was a way to nudge my metabolism to shift again.
Some advocates of fasting recommend four or five days a week of intermittent fasting, one or two days a week of water fasting and one or two days a week of 'feasting' during which you temporarily increase your carbs and protein. One of my reasons for writing this post today is to motivate me to do another 24 hour fast, which I have not done for several months.
It's good for the body to make seasonal changes in the way we eat. A common practice early in the new year, and especially in the spring, is to do a 'cleanse'. This often includes a near fasting dietary component as well as taking various purgatives to clean out the digestive system. Instead of doing that, it would actually be healthier to fast for three to five days at the beginning of each season.
Here are the main benefits of fasting:
It stimulates fat burning.
It improves energy levels.
It reduces inflammation.
It takes stress off the digestive system
It improves insulin sensitivity.
It stimulates cellular autophagy, or the clearing out of older, damaged cells.
It stimulates the development of stem cells, the new kind of cells we want to replaced damaged ones.
It improves genetic repair mechanisms.
It reduces chronic disease risk.
It creates enhanced appreciation of food.
Interestingly, for those of us who might find the idea of doing a seasonal five day fast as onerous or impossible, research by Dr. Valter Longo has developed something called the Fast Mimicking Plan. You do actually eat in a prescribed way for five days. It's recommended to be done every six months, or seasonally if you wish. The biochemical effects have been found through research to be the same as more aggressive fasting. Dr. Longo has written a book called The Longevity Diet in which you can read the details. Or, you can find information about this approach online.
So there you have it. I have my reminders to support my healthy way of eating through this new year. I hope you learned something too.
The kind of fasting with which most of us are familiar, is that done for religious reasons. It may involve just abstaining from particular foods, like the Catholic tradition of eating fish rather than meat on Fridays. Or, it could be abstaining from food for certain hours of the day for periods of time, like the Islamic tradition during Ramadan of not eating from sunrise to sunset.
It turns out that there are many health benefits to fasting, in addition to spiritual ones. However, fasting can feel punitive or very depriving. Lots of people, for example, try to give up something like sweets during Lent, and find it hard to maintain for forty days.
Some people choose to start a weight loss program with fasting. It's a way to reset the metabolism before beginning a different way of eating. This was one of the suggested options for the ketogenic diet which I pursued last year; to begin with a water or liquid only fast for a few days. It will help jump start the body's ability to burn fat for fuel, rather than sugar. If it is something you have not done before, it's best to do on days you know you will be less active.
There are lots of different types of fasting/eating dietary protocols that have become popular in recent years. What I ended up adopting and have maintained pretty well is called intermittent fasting. For me, that means on most days, eating only within an eight hour window and fasting the other sixteen hours. In addition to that, I have occasionally done a 24 hour fast, when I hit a plateau of weight loss. It was a way to nudge my metabolism to shift again.
Some advocates of fasting recommend four or five days a week of intermittent fasting, one or two days a week of water fasting and one or two days a week of 'feasting' during which you temporarily increase your carbs and protein. One of my reasons for writing this post today is to motivate me to do another 24 hour fast, which I have not done for several months.
It's good for the body to make seasonal changes in the way we eat. A common practice early in the new year, and especially in the spring, is to do a 'cleanse'. This often includes a near fasting dietary component as well as taking various purgatives to clean out the digestive system. Instead of doing that, it would actually be healthier to fast for three to five days at the beginning of each season.
Here are the main benefits of fasting:
It stimulates fat burning.
It improves energy levels.
It reduces inflammation.
It takes stress off the digestive system
It improves insulin sensitivity.
It stimulates cellular autophagy, or the clearing out of older, damaged cells.
It stimulates the development of stem cells, the new kind of cells we want to replaced damaged ones.
It improves genetic repair mechanisms.
It reduces chronic disease risk.
It creates enhanced appreciation of food.
Interestingly, for those of us who might find the idea of doing a seasonal five day fast as onerous or impossible, research by Dr. Valter Longo has developed something called the Fast Mimicking Plan. You do actually eat in a prescribed way for five days. It's recommended to be done every six months, or seasonally if you wish. The biochemical effects have been found through research to be the same as more aggressive fasting. Dr. Longo has written a book called The Longevity Diet in which you can read the details. Or, you can find information about this approach online.
So there you have it. I have my reminders to support my healthy way of eating through this new year. I hope you learned something too.
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