What is Intermittent Fasting?

What is Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting is also referred as IF.

Intermittent Fasting is not a type of any diet but it is a set period of time wherein you don’t eat food for a certain period of time and effects of these are amazing.

Let’s say you bought a new car and if you drive that 24/7 continuously without giving any rest then your car would not be up to the mark.

Same is with your body, it requires a time off from the eating and digesting the food because it takes a lot of energy to digest the food.

When you are going without the food, then it optimizes your body to use the stored food and burn fat and it makes your cell healthier.

Take your dinner and wait a min of 16 hours window before eating any food ( healthy ).

We will tell you the power of IF.

It’s not the diet but the style of eating.

Since a long time, we have been believing and accepting the fact that we should not skip breakfast because it is the most important meal of the day.

Make sure you start your day with a healthy breakfast to kick-start your metabolism.

Healthy breakfast is the meal that you don’t want to miss if you WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT.

But there is more to the concepts than this simple story.

That is Intermittent Fasting.

I was truly amazed from the results that I got after skipping the breakfast for a couple of weeks and will keep this strategy applicable for long-term now.

Many of you will not accept this fact and honestly, I have not received a much positive feedback from many personal trainers and sometimes from their statements, I feel that I have committed a big crime.

After all, I am just skipping a meal.

I was also very cautious before starting this style of eating but then I backed the lack of information with a lot of reading and research.

WHAT IS INTERMITTENT FASTING?

As stated above :

Intermittent Fasting is not a type of any diet but it is a set period of time wherein you don’t eat food for a certain period of time and effects of these are amazing.

People mostly follow two most popular intermittent fasting routines i.e. 16:8 and 20:4.

Let us discuss this in a more detailed way below.

let’s say you do five meals a day in a below manner:

brekafast-> snacks-> lunch-> snacks-> dinner-> snacks

regardless of what you eat, you will release insulin and so that we will switch to 3 meals a day and skip snacks.

Take 3 meals a day and if you want to increase the fat burning process I would suggest you do 16:8 fasting which is to do 16 hours of fasting and eating in the 8-hour window.

let’s say you wake up at 6 o clock and so don’t eat till the time you are hungry and let’s say you start eating at around 12 noon, so you would have your last meal by 8 PM and then you will again fast for next 16 hours.

If you really want to take it further and take 20 hours of fasting and only 4 hours windows of eating in scenario lets say you eat at 12 o clock and next meal you eat at 4 o clock and then do 20 hours of fasting and if you involve HIIT then it will be an icing on the cake.

But this will take time and will not happen overnight as this requires serious changes in the metabolism and you should do that under medical supervision.

16:8 fasting transition can take up to 3 weeks and 20:4 fasting can up to 4 weeks.

SOME OF THE BENEFITS THAT I OBSERVED IN THIS SHORT SPAN OF TIME.

It triggers the hormone, especially the growth hormones which protects muscles, anti-aging.

If I need to tell you in the most laymen term then make a note that in the presence of insulin you cannot lose weight.

If the insulin levels are high makes your gut and store the maximum amount of fat in your body.

When you have too much insulin, the cells start blocking it and there is no communication and then the pancreas doesn’t get the feedback and there is a resistance of insulin and more insulin in releases and generates more storage of fat in your body.

Intermittent Fasting will lead you to skip one meal and that is how you will eat less and consume fewer calories.

This is followed by a very simple process. For Example, when you get your car filled with petrol, it consumes that petrol instantly and runs on the road but if the car runs out of petrol then the car uses the petrol in reserve section.

It is absolutely same as the food that we consume and the energy that is released from the food that helps our body to perform the tasks.

If we consume less food and follow intermittent fasting, then our body will use the stored fat and hence will increase the fat burning process.

HOW INTERMITTENT FASTING AFFECTS YOUR BODY AND BRAIN.

When you eat food, you store the energy in the liver as glycogen but after 12 hours of noneating, the glycogen reserves will be minimal.

Little glycogen will release fat cells and when there would be no glycogen, fat will be released from the stored fat.Intermittent Fasting may also lead to the state called KETOSIS, burning fat will release the chemical called ketones.

Intermittent Fasting helps build neurons which helps improve memory.

Ketones also reduce low cholesterol. To gain maximum results you should cut back the carbs and increase good fat in your diet.

Intermittent Fasting increases ketones level by 4 times, fasting compared to the ketogenic diet will release more good results.

Also, when you are doing intermittent fasting, you are less worried about the food that you will eat because most of the time in the day you will be fasting.

With all the information spread around pointing to the negatives of Intermittent Fasting, I personally have not experienced any out of the box problem with it.

There was a little bit of extra effort required in the beginning to adjust your body for Intermittent Fasting but your body will soon adapt the functionality of intermittent fasting.

DO NOT MAKE A MISTAKE of doing intermittent fasting but eating more than your calories.

Get a more clear understanding of BMR and TDEE and keep a track of your macros and increase self-awareness to keep yourself busy but fit.

There are many myths running around the concern where people are worried if there would be any muscle gain when they follow intermittent fasting.

I am following intermittent fasting from past 2 weeks and I am in the process of losing fat so I am making sure that I won’t lose enough muscle being on a caloric deficit diet and following intermittent fasting.

I have not seen any adverse effects of intermittent fasting on myself but please make a note of this that I am not a doctor and this is not a doctor’s advice blog so you are requested to get a medical advice before starting any type of diet.

You may also be thinking about the increased hunger that you may experience after going on 16 hours fast and what if you workout in the morning being in a fasted state for past more than 12 hours.

WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO LIFT ENOUGH WEIGHT IN THE GYM?

YES, YOU WOULD BE!!

Here I am doing a 300 plus kgs of Leg Press after 14 hours of fasting.

At last, I just want to state that Intermittent Fasting can significantly have some very positive effects on your weight loss process or muscle building process.

Everyone will have different results because not everyone’s body type is same, so you will come to know the results only after implementing it.

Take photos during the course of time when you are following intermittent fasting or when you are following any diet or workout plan. Tracking your progress will help you to stay motivated towards your fitness goal.

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