What is intermittent fasting? How does it affect your body?
Intermittent means doing something after a particular period of time. There are things that we do at irregular intervals but there are also things which occur regularly and we cannot avoid it as per our normal routine. One of them is consuming our daily meals. Whether as children or as adults, we never miss our daily meals. After all, food is necessity for survival and we all have our own liking towards different foods.
Understanding Intermittent Fasting:
The idea is to take a break from consuming any kind of meals for a particular period of time. This can be a day’s gap per week or hour’s gap per day for two or three times a week. It is basically about when you should eat and not what should you eat. This method of fasting has a higher positive impact on your body.
Common Methods of Intermittent Fasting:
There are many methods or patterns followed. Some of them are:
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- The 16/8 Method: Here you need to fast for 16 hours consecutively and eat only between the rest 8 hours. E.g. you can fix a time in between say for example 7 AM to 3 PM you can eat during this time and after that you are not supposed to eat anything or drink anything except water for next 16 hours.
- The 5:2 Diet Plan: Here you consume less than 500 calories for two alternate days in a week while consuming normal food for the remaining five days.
- Eat-Stop-Eat: You can fast for a day once or twice a week where you do not eat anything for an entire day from today’s dinner until tomorrow’s dinner.
Advantages of Intermittent Fasting:
There are numerous advantages of intermittent fasting. If you fast for 24 hours, your digestive system will be at rest and gives it enough time to be ready for the food you consume afterwards. The body goes through many hormonal changes in this while where your growth hormones are accelerated and your insulin level drops down. It also helps you in building your immune system strong enough to tackle future problems.
The body cells repair themselves in the meantime and your genes undergo changes where they build themselves stronger and resistant against diseases and prolonged illness that ma ybe related to genes and heredity.
It also reduces chances of cardiac arrest, cancer and type two diabetes. Weight loss is also an important factor here. You will feel more energetic and focused after you start following this routine. There may be some disadvantages as well for different types of people who may have other health complications. It may prove useless for someone who consumes excessive meal after the intermittent fasting instead of consuming only what they eat on normal days at that particular time.
Intermittent fasting is something you must try at least once to see the results and also get an idea as to how your body reacts to this process.
