Do you think skipping breakfast is bad for you or staying 16 hours without food bad for you? You will have to reconsider your opinion. Intermittent fasting is actually an effective way to reduce fat and also stay healthy. I have been doing it and have noticed the change. I don’t feel weak or fatigued, rather I feel energetic and strong. It is easy to implement in your life, without any fad diet plan.
What is intermittent fasting?
First of all it is not a diet but a way of eating pattern. It is changing your meal routine and not what you eat.
Most of the diet plans have crazy routines with the aim to cut down you calorie intake. You may also have to spend a good amount of money to follow those diets. But here you eat what you were eating before; you just eat them in a restricted time frame. You are free to eat of your choice. In fact most people per meal in intermittent fasting. It is a good way to keep muscle mass as well as staying lean. As like any other diet plan, the purpose of intermittent fasting is also to lose fat.
How does it work?
For this you have to understand how your body reacts when you are well fed and how it reacts when it is in a fasted state. In your fed state the body is digesting food and absorbing it. It lasts from the time you start eating till 3-5 hours after it. When you have eaten something then it is difficult to lose fat as you have a higher level of insulin.
After this time gap your body is not processing the meal and it can last for 8-10 hours till you take the next meal. This is a fasted state where it is easier to burn fat as the insulin level is low. It takes 12 hours of fasted state for the body to start burning fat. For this reason intermittent fasting works in burning fat.
BENIFITS
It makes the days easier as you have to plan and prepare one less meal in a day that is the breakfast. If cooking was always a problem for you then you have one less problem and more time in the morning.
It helps in living longer. It has the same effect when we reduce calorie intake to lose weight. When we go on a fasting mode the body finds a way to extend life. With intermittent fasting it happens without depriving yourself of your favourite food.
It is much easier than dieting. Dieting means giving away your favourite food, and replacing it with a diet which you may actually not like to eat. But you eat it to follow the routine, this makes continuing a diet for a long time impossible. But here you are free to eat what you want so it will be easier to continue for a long time. The quickly adapts to the routine of the intermittent fasting.
Different routines of intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting can be done daily, weekly and also on alternate days. The daily fasting is the most practiced one. The most popular is the 16 hour fasting and 8 hour eating period. You can decide for yourself at what time you want your 8 hour period to start and end. Most people keep the night time as fasting period as we are asleep most part of it. But depending on your work routine you can decide for yourself and there is no restriction to it.
A beginner can start with the weekly or the alternate day fasting. In weekly fasting you can keep one week fasting in a month or you can do once in a week also. Alternate day fasting is self explanatory.
Another important thing to know is that during the fasting period you can drink water, green tea of fresh lime water. This will keep you satiated if you start feeling hungry. Also it can be done by both men and women. Though the 16 hours time may look long but you will be surprised as to how easy it is to do it. Some people start with 12 hours rotation and then move on the 16/8 hour rotation also.
