Fasting means choosing not to eat food for a period of time each day. You might not eat for several hours or only have one meal a day. Not eating for certain periods can help raise ketone levels. Ketones are chemicals your liver makes that your body uses as energy. But that's not all fasting does. It also offers health and mental benefits you might not expect.
How Fasting Works
The liver's ketone-making process looks something like this: Glucose (sugar) is the main fuel your cells use to produce energy. Fasting uses the liver’s store of glucose, causing cells to release fats. When these fats travel to your liver, they’re converted to ketones your body uses for energy.
Before humans learned how to farm, people hunted and gathered food to survive. They would go long stretches without eating. It took a lot of energy and time to gather nuts and berries or hunt game. The human body adapted to that by using what stores of energy it had. Today you don’t have to hunt and gather your food the way your ancestors did, but fasting may still benefit your physical and mental well-being.
With intermittent fasting, you can eat only during a specific time. When you go hours without food, the body uses all its sugar stores and starts burning fat. This is a phenomenon known as metabolic switching. As your body burns through the calories consumed during your last meal, intermittent fasting prolongs that period and then begins burning fat.
During the times you’re not eating, you can drink water and zero-calorie beverages such as black coffee and tea. And during your eating periods, you can “eat normally,” but that doesn't mean eating whatever you want. It’s recommended to stay away from high-calorie junk food, fried food, and treats.
Reasons we should all fast
1. Fasting is the most efficient way to lose weight.
Forget the fat burning foods, forget the cleanses and detoxes. Not eating is the key to losing weight. But do it intermittently. That’s why it’s called intermittent fasting. Chronic calorie restriction doesn’t work long term since it forces our bodies to reduce our resting metabolic rate (RMR), thus stalling weight loss and increasing frustration. Intermittent calorie restriction, on the other hand, allows for weight loss without changing our RMR, the key to healthy and successful long-term weight loss.
2. It is a great way to lower insulin.
It just makes sense. If there is no food coming in, there is no need for insulin to rise. Insulin will stay at its low steady basal rate, and there will be no elevations or spikes. That keeps the area under the curve low, right where we want it. Low insulin means we can mobilize our fat stores, and possibly more importantly, it protects us from the harmful long-term effects of hyperinsulinemia.
3. Intermittent Fasting is the key to longevity.
The one consistent finding in longevity research, from single cell organisms up to primates, is that calorie restriction works. But as we have learned from chronic calorie restriction experiments in humans, it’s not so clear cut. First, its miserable and most people would rather die younger that live longer with chronic calorie restriction. Agree?
Second, our bodies adapt to chronic calorie restriction and thus make it difficult to maintain the health benefits. Intermittent calorie restriction, on the other hand, has the promise of all the longevity benefits without all the baggage that comes with it. The fountain of youth only helps if we like how it tastes.
4. It’s easy!
What’s easier than skipping breakfast? No planning, no shopping, no cooking, no cleaning. Simply walk out the door. In our hectic everyday lives, we should welcome anything that takes less time and makes our lives a little easier. Fasting does exactly that. Just make sure you bring a water bottle with you wherever you go, and maybe some sea salt to put in your water. Stay well hydrated and enjoy the simplicity.
5. There are many ways to make fasting work for you.
There is more than one way to have a successful fast. As mentioned previously, 18:6 can work wonders for most people. For those who are more adventurous, a 72-hour water fast can have amazing results. And there is everything in between. Just follow the simple rules of staying hydrated, paying attention to how you feel, avoiding anything with calories, and even avoiding calorie-free sweeteners. The rest of the details can be individualized to fit your life and your goals.
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