What Is Intermittent Fasting?
First, let’s decompose the three words. Let’s start with the basic question.
What Is Fasting?
People usually assume that fasting is the same as skipping meals. Even though it may look like that, the short definition of fasting is “GOING WITHOUT.”
Using this definition, you could actually apply it to many areas of your life. For example, you could fast from bad habits like alcohol, smoking, social media, cell phone, bad thoughts, or any other habit that makes you unhealthy.
The type of fasting we will be discussing in this post will be going without food.
What Is Intermittent?
According to the Cambridge dictionary, “not happening regularly or continuously; stopping and starting repeatedly or with periods in-between.”
This means you are going without food periodically, repeatedly, or stopping and going. In the end, you can not fast from food forever, so you would technically always be doing some form of intermittent fasting, never just fasting.
Why Should I Start Intermittent Fasting?
The why will vary from person to person, but the most common reason why Intermittent Fasting has become a trend is its health benefits.
The thing is, there are many health benefits that you can get from intermittent fasting, and there are many different ways you could do intermittent fasting to achieve the benefits you want.
Defining your why will simplify the journey and make it easier to achieve your desire results. If you are not sure how important it is to define your why, I recommend checking out Simon SinekĀ“s book “Start With Why,” where he dives through the importance of how this one question will impact every aspect of your life.
Before starting anything new or trying to change something in your life, you need to have a clear mind of why you are doing it, so it’s sustainable. Not answering this question will decrease progress and affect your results.
So having said that, let’s take a look at some of the why’s you might want to do intermittent fasting.
What Are Some Of The Benefits From Intermittent Fasting? (Backed By Science)
- Autophagy (Self-Cleaning/Detox)
- Weight Loss (Calorie Restriction)
- Insulin Sensitivity (Pre Diabetes)
- Increase Growth Hormone (Exercise/Muscle Growth)
- Increase Energy (Ketosis)
- Healing The Gut (Digestion)
- Metabolic Flexibility (Fuel Source)
- Stem Cells (Longevity)
- Reduce Inflammation (Absence of Toxins)
When you read this list, it sounds like you are describing a magic pill right?
Usually, when we want to try and fix something in our lives or our health, the first thought that may come up is what I should do to improve my health instead of what I should stop doing to improve my health.
This mindset is one of the hardest things to realize and accept since we are not used to thinking this way. We probably would prioritize giving the body more nutrients, more exercise, or more of something to nourish it.
But when did the paradigm started to change?
Did you know that in 2016, Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the mechanisms of Autophagy?
This was a game-changer and one of the biggest reasons why Intermittent Fasting has been trending in the last years. Before his discovery, Intermittent Fasting was not really “legitimized” by medicine as healthy. Before this, fasting was usually done for religious or spiritual purposes.
But even though his research was not on Intermittent Fasting, he explains that this is one of the mechanisms to achieve autophagy.
But what came after his discovery was many more studies that have created the list of benefits mentioned above that are now backed by science.
But as mentioned before, not all benefits are achieved by doing the same type of intermittent fasting. In the end, it’s not that complicated. Everything will be related to TIME.
How long will you go without food and how often will you do it.
So now that we know the benefits, let’s dive into how we can achieve them.
How Long Should I Fast To Achieve The Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting?
Remember that every person naturally fasts for at least 6 – 8 hours (when we sleep). So the idea of fasting is actually to start increasing this amount of time.
Most of the benefits mentioned above start showing up on the 14-hour mark, so if you are waking up and having breakfast at 6 am and having dinner at 9 pm, you are not even getting 12 hours of fasting which should be the minimum daily.
You can actually breakdown your Intermittent Fasting Goals into 5 categories:
- Intermittent Fasting For Blood Glucose And Insulin Sensitivity
- Intermittent Fasting For Autophagy And Human Growth Hormone
- Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss And Ketones
- Intermittent Fasting For Intestinal Stem Cells
- Intermittent Fasting For Immune Reboot
Types Of Ways To Do Intermittent Fasting Daily
Intermittent Fasting 16/8
This is one of the most popular options out there.
The name basically describes how to do it. You fast for 16 hours and feast (eat) for 8 hours.
Many people (including me) started doing the 16/8 by skipping a meal. And even though that may be one of the easiest ways to do it, you can actually have many meals during your 8 hours of eating.
So here are some examples of how you could achieve this type of fast:
- Breakfast 10:00 am, Lunch 2:00 pm, Dinner 6:00 pm
- Skip Breakfast, Lunch 1:00 pm, Dinner 9:pm
- Breakfast 7:00 am, Lunch 3:00 pm, Skip Dinner
Notice that in the 3 examples you are eating in an 8-hour window and not eating in a 16-hour window.
You can play around with the times and the meals as long as you keep the eating and feasting hours.
Depending on if you are a morning person, a night person, or someone that likes to have at least 3 meals a day, you have the option available to eat as many meals as you want as long as you fast for 16 hours.
Warrior Diet (20/4)
I don’t really like the name Diet when you describe a fast because you are not really restricting any food; you are only restricting the time you will eat.
This is very confusing but that is the name it was given.
Having said that, the Warrior diet could be called the 20/4 because you basically will eat in a 4-hour window and fast for 20 hours.
In this case, you will not have many options on how many meals you want; the common thing is to eat 2 meals in the 4-hour window.
OMAD – (23/1)
This is the acronym for One Meal A Day.
You are basically increasing the time and only eating once a day to reach a 23 hour fast.
I Want All The Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting?
If you’re the type of person who wants to become superhuman and get all the benefits from intermittent fasting, try doing the following steps.
- Daily Basis – 16/8 (Blood Glucose And Insulin Sensitivity)
- Weekly Basis – OMAD (Weight Loss And Ketones)
- Monthly Basis – 36 Hour Fast (Autophagy And Human Growth Hormone)
- Quarterly Basis – 72 Hour Fast (Stem Cells and Immune Reboot)
I want to clarify that just by doing the 16/8, you will achieve almost all the benefits, at least in a small portion. The thing is that with Autophagy and Stem Cells, you will get most of the benefits after 1 or 2 days of fasting, so that is why it’s good to do extended fasts every now and then.
What Can You Eat And Drink During A Fast?
- Water (Regular or Sparkling)
- Minerals (Salt)
- Black Coffee (No sugar)
- Tea (No sugar)
These are safe options that most people would agree you can have. The thing is, if you are trying to achieve ketosis, you could actually eat fats (like coconut oil or mct oil) and drink bulletproof coffee. This is where it starts getting a little confusing because depending on what you are trying to achieve, you can eat/drink different things.
What Breaks A Fast?
Usually, the rule of thumb is that anything that raises your insulin breaks a fast.
The general standard is that you can consume from 0 – 50 calories. The safe option is not consuming any calories at all, but as always, it depends.
You can actually achieve Weight Loss and Ketones with the Keto Diet without fasting. That is the reason why both are usually paired together as healthy options.
Can I Take Supplements When Doing A Fast?
How To Prepare For Fasting
First, you need to know what is your current status. Are you at least getting a 12 hour fast on a daily basis?
If not, then start by pushing your breakfast at a later hour and/or having dinner at an earlier time. It doesn’t have to be dramatic changes; you can start by pushing 15 minutes a week your meals and get the body used to it.
So, for example, if you eat a 7 am breakfast, 1 pm lunch, and 7 pm dinner, try having breakfast at 7:15 am or take an earlier dinner at 6:45 pm. Keep pushing either one a little bit until you get your 14 hours fast a day.
Then what you need to do is check what you are eating. If you have a high sugar diet, you will definitely have cravings. Try to reduce the amount of sugar (especially in drinks), so you reduce your cravings during the day.
Something that really helps is taking apple cider vinegar in the morning since it usually aids with suppressing hunger. It doesn’t work for everyone, but you could give it a try.
Keep doing little changes every week and in no time you will be in the intermittent fasting world!
