Intermittent Fasting is being lauded as your road to golden health. This simple ritual, rooted in antiquity, can actually allow you to feast better, discovers Behnaz Sanjana.
Since time immemorial, fasting has been deemed a way to cure and prevent illness by ancient cultures worldwide. Noted Greek physician and father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, endorsed it in the fifth century BC, believing that abstinence from food allows the body to heal itself naturally from certain illnesses. Notice how the body naturally loses its appetite when you are under the weather? Animals, who are so much more in sync with their circadian rhythms, also abstain from food when they feel unwell.
Medical and nutritive sciences also recognise the benefits of intermittent fasting, which is a pattern of eating, not to be confused with the term ‘dieting’. Renowned health coaches have long sung its praises as a way to recover from lifestyle diseases, and maintain robust health.
Based on the idea that you are not only what you eat, but how and when you eat it, it is quickly being adopted by the health-conscious.
To explain the fundamental behind it, Luke Coutinho, holistic lifestyle coach practising in the field of integrative medicine, says the body undergoes two phases every day: the building phase, when cells are receptive to nutrition; and the elimination phase, wherein the body detoxifies, cleanses, repairs, rebuilds and rejuvenates itself. When we feed the body in the elimination phase, it results in weight gain, acidity and a weakened immunity. If we allow the body undisturbed elimination, it functions just as it was originally designed to.
It’s all about listening to the body – so, if you are not hungry in the mornings, it means your body is still in the elimination phase. When hunger comes along, it signals the start of the building phase.
This is supported by the theory that many evidence-based resources, such as Harvard Health, cite – when we are not snacking, our insulin levels go down, thereby allowing the stored fat in our cells to be used as energy. Result – a leaner, fitter body.
How To Go About It
Intermittent Fasting encourages eating during only specified hours of the day, and fasting for the rest of them. There are various theories revolving around how to fast – like the 16/8 method: eating only during eight hours of the day; the Eat-Stop-Eat method: a complete 24-hour fast twice a week; and the 5:2 diet; wherein only 500-600 calorie are consumed on two non-consecutive days of the week, with a full calorie intake for the rest of the days.
The 16/8 method is deemed easiest. Beginners are encouraged to start off with just 10 hours of fasting, moving on to 12-14 hours a day, which may be just right for someone who is relatively fit and doesn’t need to shed too much toxicity. So, if your last meal of the day is by 7pm, your breakfast the next day can be at 9am, with no restriction on water intake.
The key is to listen to the body’s reaction to fasting and make tweaks along the way.
BENEFITS:
Reducing:
– weight.
– blood sugar and insulin resistance, protecting against Type 2 Diabetes.
– inflammation.
– LDL cholesterol and blood triglycerides for a healthier heart.
Promoting:
– growth of new brain cells.
– cellular repair.
– gene expression; changes in the function of genes related to longevity and protection against disease.
