Intermittent Fasting - 3 Ways

Several things happen in your body when you don't eat for a while. The main benefits are found when the body initiates important cellular repair processes and changes hormone levels to make stored body fat more accessible during a time when no calories are consumed.

Here is a quick look at some of the beneficial changes that occur in your body during fasting:

• Insulin levels: Blood levels of insulin drop significantly, promoting insulin sensitivity while also facilitating fat burning.
• Human Growth Hormone: During fasts, blood Growth Hormone levels may increase as much as 5-fold! Growth Hormone has been touted as the ‘anti-aging hormone’, and higher levels of this hormone can facilitate significant fat burning and muscle gain..
• Cellular repair: The body induces important cellular repair processes, such as removing waste material from cells, repairing damaged DNA, supporting general health and removing dead or damaged Mitochondria.
• Gene expression: There are beneficial changes in several genes and molecules related to longevity and protection against disease.

So What's the Bottom Line?

When you start intermittent fasting, insulin levels drop, and human growth hormone increases. Your cells also initiate important cellular repair processes and change which genes they express. To simplify further, your body heals, grows and burns fat!

Now that we have established how intermittent fasting works, the remainder of this article will focus on several fasting models./p>

Here are 3 of the most popular ways to implement a fasting diet plan:

1. The 5/2 Diet

This is a popular introduction to intermittent fasting times for a number of reasons, but primarily because it does not involve fully-fledged fasting. It is essentially a structured approach to calorie restriction.

The basics of this intermittent fasting diet plan are on two non-consecutive days of the week, you will eat approximately 25% of your daily caloric needs.

For the average male, this will work out to be around 500-600 calories, and for the average female, it will be approximately 350-400 calories.

This diet will generate a calorie deficit of approximately 3000 calories per week in men or 2200 in women per week, which is nearly half a kilogram of weight loss worth of calories you are no longer consuming every week!/p>

It’s that simple! Eat normal 5 days per week and restrict calories on the other two days. It is relatively easy to stick to and it will benefit your health.

2. The 16/8 Intermittent Fast (IF)

Popularised by such celebrities as Terry Crews and Joe Rogan, the 16/8 intermittent fasting approach is perhaps the most flexible and adaptable strategy to implement.

Essentially, you fast for 16 hours of the day and restrict food into a convenient 8-hour window. An example would be having an ‘eating window’ from 10 am to 6 pm and then fast times until the next morning at 10 am.

Most people can withhold breakfast until 10 am, and most can have dinner by 6 pm, allowing 16 hours of fast times where they are repairing, building and burning.

3. 24-hour Fasts

Definitely the least popular of all the fast times, the 24-hour straight fast has fantastic health benefits. However, there is one major drawback... VERY few people have the willpower to not eat for 24 hours straight on a regular basis! /p>

This is not to discredit the method! 24-hour Fasts will have the most pronounced health benefits for significant weight loss, cell repair and hormonal optimising of all 3 fast times approaches.

For example, provided you normally eat on days not fasting, the average male with a 2000-calorie daily requirement will lose approximately 300 grams, or 1/3rd of a kilogram per week, just from one day of intermittent fasting per week!

For example, provided you normally eat on the days not fasting, the average male with a 2000-calorie daily requirement will lose approximately 300 grams, or 1/3rd of a kilogram per week, just from one day of fasting per week!