Intermittent Fasting – Weight loss and more

You’re keen to loose a little weight, you feel that belly becoming a little round or maybe the bloat is back. Then have you given intermittent fasting a go?

Intermittent fasting is a great strategy that my clients like to use. That shortened period of eating, that you can do every day, or just some days of the week. It creates new patterns and behaviours and can cut a negative cycle or pattern one may have towards food. It is also very powerful for many that use it to become better connected to tuning into their body. To really learn and listen and appreciate what is happening when you have an illness or concern. It begins the process of connecting with the power of the mind the unconscious that is ruling our actions or noting if it is that physical desire to have some food that is the ruler.

It is normal for most of us to be doing a 12hr fast already by sleeping through the night. We stop eating by 7 – 8pm the night before and then eat again the next day around 7 – 8am. With this easily completed it then becomes a matter of skipping that first meal of the day and waiting until midday for your first taste of food the 16hr mark. Most people utilise this method successfully and feel comfortable within a week or two, not missing that eating in the morning. The outcomes are weight loss, lower inflammation, improved cholesterol, greater metabolism, and improved glucose and insulin response. All makers that your doctor would be impressed about if they were monitoring you.

If you are wanting more significant health results you will want to give the extended fasting periods a go too. At the 18hr mark the real magic begins. Your body has entered the autophagy stage and will now start to utilise the damaged cells within the body as fuel, eliminate mitochondria dysfunction and repair damage from oxidative stress. Such a body regenerator especially as it also increases the number of stem cell production, which means new growth and replacement of the old. Referred to as age reversing these 18-24hr fasting windows are gold for the body.

Short and Longer periods of fasting are also great, meaning 1 – 3 days or 5+ days in a row of refraining from eating. Here are what some of the health studies are showing as benefits of fasting
Many studies show that strategic fasting can:

1: Have powerful effects on your brain and fight against Alzheimer’s
2: Help you live longer (study shows that rats live as much as 36-83% longer)
3: Increase Growth Hormone as much as 5-fold
4: Improve cellular health through a process called autophagy
5: Protect against disease
6: Increase insulin sensitivity
7: Boost metabolic rate, while helping you lower calorie intake
8: Burn more belly fat
9: Reduce Inflammation
10: Improve heart health and reduce bad (LDL) cholesterol
11: Reduce cancer risk

So if you keen on experiencing more of the many benefits to fasting such as resting the digestion and allowing other functions to be done, then why not give it a go. The more often you do it the easier it becomes.

I do a variance every week and actually look forward to the periods of refraining from food. It not only calms me, it empowers me too.