Intermittent Fasting: Why Your Body Was Built for This

It is as simple as stopping eating completely, or almost completely, for a certain amount of time. You may be thinking, "ok and why would I want to stop eating, that sounds hard?" That would be a great question — there are many reasons why you should consider fasting.

There is much to fasting and the many ways it will benefit you. So let's break it down even further to why these aspects are so important to your health and your life, and hopefully by the end, you will be convinced that fasting is for you.

Healing the Metabolism, Fat Burning, and Restoring Insulin Sensitivity

Besides the obvious reason of looking good and having an endless supply of energy, these components are important for staying healthy, not getting diabetes, staying lean and not being obese, keeping a healthy heart, and preventing cancer.

To sum up — when there is insulin resistance in the body, the consumption of carbs causes insulin in the body to increase but the cells resist it, and so there is more insulin secreted which causes inflammation in the body and increases the carb craving. Insulin also is in charge of delivering certain nutrients to the cells but when the body resists it, then it can't do its job. Insulin resistance causes fat storage and people who find themselves with this resistance will have more abdominal fat, fatty liver disease, elevated triglycerides, and other unhealthy fat deposits.

This is where fasting comes into the picture. Fasting naturally gives your blood and cells a chance to use up their glucose storage and reset insulin receptors. This means that fasting uses the fat that is already stored within the body and processes it so that our body can catch up. Another thing that fasting does is it naturally kicks you into ketosis, which is a form of metabolism that creates a lower amount of oxidative stress. Inducing ketosis improved almost every marker of metabolic health.

Anti-Aging: Look and Feel Years Younger

If you still aren't convinced that fasting is what you need, how about preventing aging and increasing your youthful looks? Sound enticing yet?

Fasting is proven to increase your HGH — the hormone that keeps us young. Why waste thousands of dollars on anti-aging creams when all you need to do is eliminate food for a certain amount of time? Hormone replacement therapy of HGH helped with aging but caused side effects of elevated blood sugar, elevated blood pressure, and increased fluid retention. But with fasting, elevated levels of HGH were produced with no shown negative side effects. And did you know that HGH prevents the body from going into starvation mode while fasting and enhances skin repair, heals internal organs, protects the brain from deterioration, and maintains bone marrow? If you want to look good and stay looking good, fasting is the way.

Stem Cell Activation

Stem cells are the cells that develop into blood, the brain, bones, and all of the body's organs. They have the potential to repair, restore, replace, and regenerate cells, and could possibly be used to treat many medical conditions and diseases.

When you fast, you increase the stem cells in your body. The level of stem cell activity seems to be dependent on the length of the fast. The longer that you fast, the higher levels of stem cells are produced — for up to 5 days — and then the stem cell production plateaus.

Debunking the Myths

Now that this is all clearly laid out, what is still holding you back? Oh, you have heard all the myths about fasting! You've probably heard that you lose muscle or that it will cause nutrition deficiencies — well I am here to ease your mind and put your worries to rest.

Myth 1: You will be nutrient deficient. This is a myth. Fasting actually aids with being able to absorb nutrition better. Fasting does this by giving your gut bacteria and the whole digestive system a break that is well deserved. What actually causes nutrition deficiencies is a consistently poor diet — not fasting.

Myth 2: You'll lose muscle. Not true — if you eat enough nutrient-dense calories and protein, fasting promotes the ideal hormonal conditions for building muscle and burning fat at the same time.

How to Fast: 7 Methods (From Easiest to Most Advanced)

There are several ways that you can fast. Here are the 7 ways that you can fast, the easiest being the simple fast which is 12 hours:

• Simple Fast (12 hours) — Stop eating after dinner and don't eat until morning. Most people already do this without realizing it.
• 16:8 Fast — Eat within an 8-hour window, fast for 16 hours. Most popular and sustainable method.
• 18:6 Fast — Eat within a 6-hour window. More aggressive fat-burning and autophagy.
• One Meal a Day (OMAD) — Eat one large meal per day.
• 5:2 Fast — Eat normally 5 days a week, restrict to 500–600 calories on 2 non-consecutive days.
• 24-Hour Fast — One complete day without food, once or twice per week.
• Extended Fasting (3–5 days) — Maximum stem cell activation and metabolic reset. Should be done with medical supervision.

For some, this may still be hard, so you can gradually ease your body into the idea of eating less food. Start by eliminating sugar, and use these strategies to help with cravings: drink plenty of water and herbal teas, eat more healthy fats and protein to stay satiated, and get adequate sleep (poor sleep dramatically increases hunger hormones).

Hopefully, you are convinced why you should fast and have gotten an understanding of what fasting is, what it is good for, and the myths about it — to help you on your journey to better healing, and a happier, healthier self.