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There are so many health benefits to intermittent fasting (IF), you may want to give it a try and see if it is right for you.

After reading The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung I realized there were many more benefits besides just losing weight.

Recent lab results showed remarkable improvement over my results last year.

My doctor was so impressed with recent lab results, she asked “What have you been doing??” When I said IF and Keto she lit up.

I assumed she was going to say it was the Keto, but surprisingly, she said she loves IF! She said she suggests it to several of her patients due to the many health benefits.

A funny meme on Facebook recently – Leave it to millennials to give skipping breakfast a cool new name. ?

Fasting has been around a lot longer than millennials, but I thought that was a good one.

Below are the benefits you could see if you try IF.

Losing Weight

Let's start with the main reason most folks start IF, to lose weight. Have you tried every diet under the sun, especially calorie counting and nothing works???  Been there done that for almost 50 years.

Intermittent fasting was a key ingredient in being able to control my weight and maintain it.  There are many scientific studies on why this works, but it is all mainly about keeping your insulin resistance under control.

When your insulin spikes, your body sends hunger signals to the brain and then you want to eat. This was constantly happening to me when I was trying to eat 6 small meals a day. I was hangry all the time! ?

The key is to let your body rest at least 12 hours before your next meal.  I usually fast 16 hours, sometimes 14.

 Read about different IF schedules here.

My insulin stays much more level and I don't get those ups and downs I used to experience. Dr. Fung points out in his book that excess insulin causes obesity. He has proven this fact with numerous studies he has conducted on diabetic patients.

Combining IF and Keto help me drop 40 pounds all together and resulted in many other health benefits I will outline below.

Flatter Stomach (Lose Belly Fat)

This was probably the most surprising benefit to me.  I wasn't working out a lot and certainly wasn't doing 50 crunches a day and all of the sudden I noticed my stomach was flatter.

Why do you lose belly fat? The decrease in insulin being pumped in your body several times a day and the fat burning affect of IF, results in the stubborn belly fat burning away.

Belly fat is the most dangerous fat you can have as far as heart health, so it is crucial to maintain a healthy waist line.

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Reduce Insulin Resistance

Insulin is the hormone that moves excess glucose out of the blood and into the liver, muscles, cells and body fat. Too much insulin being dumped into the blood from eating too often and too many carb rich foods, can create insulin resistance.

If you google insulin resistance, you will find it defined as “an impaired response of the body to insulin, resulting in elevated levels of glucose in the blood (a key component of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome).”

This means your body has dumped insulin into your blood so often that your cells have stopped accepting the glucose as energy.

This is important because now the insulin is dumping into your body, not the cells, resulting in the cells continually asking for more insulin. This starts a bad circle that leads to obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

By limiting the number of times you eat during the day, you are slowing down the amount of insulin entering your blood. Each time you eat, the insulin is released to carry the glucose to the cells to be used.

Fasting allows the body to rest from sending out insulin and doesn't over stimulate the cells, preventing them from locking up and rejecting the insulin.

Increase Human Growth Hormone

IF can increase human growth hormone (HGH), which increases the availability of fats for fuel instead of fat storage.  It can also help preserve your muscle mass and bone density.  This is exceptionally important as you age.

HGH decreases as we age and Dr. Fung points out in his book, The Obesity Code, that one of the most potent stimuli to HGH secretion is fasting.

During studies Dr. Fung watched HGH double during a five-day fasting period. The net physiologic effect is to maintain muscle and bone tissue mass during the fasting period.

Pick up Dr Fung's book, The Obesity Code here

Reduce the Oxidation Process

Think of oxidation as the body literally rusting.  Because your body is an oxygen burning machine, every minute, biochemical reactions are occurring in the body generating exhaust called oxidants, or you may have heard them called free radicals.

These free radicals are whittling away at your body each day and creating the rusting or oxidation. This is why your joints start to get stiff, arteries get hard and your skin starts to wrinkle.

Poor food choices and dumping insulin into your body throughout the day creates a back up of these free radicals.

Giving the body time to rest during fasting helps the the free radicals get cleared out, slowing down the rusting process.

Organ Detoxification

On average it takes 4-6 hours for your body to fully digest a meal. Resting your body during fasting allows your organs to detox.

Think about how hard each organ has to work to digest the food and everything that goes on when you eat.  By allowing the organs to rest, they can be ready for the next meal and digest it much better.

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Decrease Inflammation

Reducing inflammation has been one of my favorite benefits of fasting.  I struggled with autoimmune diseases for several years and the inflammation and pain was sometimes unbearable.

If you struggle with inflammation, you will find that by giving the body time to rest, the inflammation will lessen. The reasons are very similar to the reasons for reducing the body's oxidation process.

If you struggle with inflammation, I also suggest cutting out sugar.  I was surprised at the research about sugar when I went through my health coaching classes and wrote this article about sugar.

Improve Heart Health

Deceased inflammation, less belly fat, allowing the body to rest and detoxification all contribute to improved heart health.

My latest lab results showed an improvement in cholesterol, blood sugar and many other factors!  This is so important since my dad passed away in his mid 40's from a heart attack.

Another point – The affects of sugar on the heart totally shocked me, I always thought fat was the culprit until I researched it and wrote this article about sugar and it's affects on the heart. 

Autophagy and Cellular Repair

According to Priya Khorana, PhD in nutrition, via healthline.com, autophagy is the body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells, in order to regenerate newer, healthier cells.

Included in this article, is the fact that Columbia University researchers found that removing the autophagy gene in mice caused weight gain, lethargy, higher cholesterol, and impaired brain function.

According to another article by Paige Brown Jarreau, studies were conducted where researchers found that fasted mice’s intestines recovered much more quickly than mice fed ad libitum.

In Jarreau's article, she also states that “there is mounting evidence that intermittent fasting can improve metabolic health, accelerate fat loss, reduce oxidative stress and improve tissue function in diverse organs including the liver, the gut and even the brain.

Another fascinating statement from her article is ““Acute fasting regimens have pro-longevity and regenerative effects in diverse species, and they may represent a dietary approach to enhance aged stem cell activity in tissues.” — Cell Stem Cell, 2018

I find this information about stem cells to be exciting news and one reason IF is considered to help “keep you young”.

Help Prevent Cancer

As you are slowing down oxidation in the body, lowering insulin resistance, decreasing inflammation and increasing cell repair you are boosting your immune system. Anytime you can boost your immune system and lose weight, you are helping ward off cancer.

According to an article,Can fasting help fight cancer?, by Jamie Eske, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the role of fasting in both cancer treatment and prevention.

Growth of cancer cells has been linked to the excess of the hormone insulin and estrogen in the body. As we read above, fasting helps reduce the amount of insulin released, thus reducing the chances of insulin resistance.

As a cancer survivor, I have no doubt that I was in insulin resistance for several years.

Improve Brain (Cognitive) Health

Brian fog is a real thing and not fun!

Your hypothalamus, or the control center of the brain, is busy helping your body produce hormones multiple times a day.  It and your pituitary gland are in communications often throughout the day to stimulate hormone production.

When you consume excess amounts of food, especially high carb foods, this communication can break down.  The brain starts to get sluggish, creating communications to start breaking down in other areas.

By allowing the brain to rest from constantly trying to decide if hormones need to be produced, it can be clearer and focus on other important duties like helping me remember where I left my cell phone. ?

I've noticed much more focus since I started fasting. This may lead to the next benefit – Spriitual Reasons

Spiritual Reasons

Spiritual fasting has been practiced for thousands or years by ancient philosophers such as Hippocrates, Socrates and Plato.

The Bible, both the old and new testament, teach the value of fasting. Matthew 6:16 doesn't say if you fast, but rather when you fast. Buddhism and other religious practices also have various ways that followers should fast.

The physical denial aspect of healthy fasting is a way to clear the mind and body to focus on prayer, meditation, or deep thought.  This can allow you to be more in tuned with the world around you or a higher power.

Increased Energy

I have so much more energy now that I fast.  I'm not really sure why, but I am going to guess it is due to all the benefits listed here, especially the fact that I am using the glucose now as energy and not fat storage.

Extend Your Life

Improve all the things listed in this article and more than likely you are going to extend your life.

Other things can happen, of course, to take your life, but being healthy increases your odds of living longer.

Another thing – I”m not afraid of dying as much as I am growing old and feeling so bad I don't enjoy life. Or maybe even worse, spending all my money I worked hard to save on retirement for medical bills.  ?

Less Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

One of the big reasons Dr. Fung started his research was to help patients with diabetes. He is a kidney specialist and was trying desperately to help his patients on dialysis.

By losing weight, reducing insulin resistance and overall improving your health, you reduce your chances of getting Type 2 Diabetes drastically.

One of my previous blood labs showed me to be borderline diabetic. My doctor was amazed at how much I lowered my blood sugar by fasting and following a low carb lifestyle.

I also used a Keto Diet to lose weight, combined with IF and you can read more about how I started Keto here.

Now I'm maintaining my weight with fasting and eating under 50 carbs a day.

Save Money

When you think about it, skipping breakfast and snacks saves you money. When you travel you don't have to pay for that extra meal. Do an extended fast – like 24 hours and save money on 3 meals!

Learn more about traveling and staying healthy. 

improved health also saves you money on medical bills. According to CNBC, two-thirds of people who file for bankruptcy cite medical issues as a key contributor to their financial downfall.

When you invest in your health, you are investing in your future and in a way saving for retirement.

Improve Sleep

First off – I love the time I sleep because it is natural fasting – can't eat while you're sleeping. ?

When we overeat or eat too late in the day, our body is still digesting food while we're trying to sleep. Research shows, this can make your sleep more restless and less refreshing.

By not eating a few hours before bed time, you're allowing your body to be in an optimal rest state. My mom used to say “no eating after 6pm” and I never really understood why.  I guess she was on to something. ?

Slow Down Aging

With all the benefits listed here, how could it not slow down the aging process? Some call intermittent fasting a fountain of youth.

It makes sense with the autophagy and cellular repair, improved sleep, boosted immune system, better brain focus, spiritual healthy, slow oxidation, increased HGH and all the other reasons listed, you would slow down the aging process.

Experience Better Workouts and Sports Performance

Clients ask me all the time, can you workout while fasting? Sure you can!

I was surprised the first time I worked out while fasting. I thought I would be light headed and not be able to do much.

The opposite happened. I felt light on my feet and focused on the workout. Also, by working out the last few hours of a fast, you accelerate the fat burning process.

When Not To Fast

This way of eating is not intended to help you go completely without eating.

Please, PLEASE, if you suspect at all that you may have an eating disorder seek help. (Resources below this post) Your body needs its daily caloric requirements met regardless of how you choose to process them.

I would also not recommend this if you have health issues or are pregnant. You should always consult a medical provider before starting a new way of eating

Learning More

If you want to learn more about the science behind fasting, I highly recommend Dr Fung's book.  If you enjoy watching Youtube videos, check out Fledge Fitness.  He explains fasting in an easy to understand format. In this video he talks about how IF helps burn fat.

I also did a live Facebook video here on Intermittent Fasting if you want to hear me talk about my results.  

Free Recipes 

Want over 23 Keto and gluten free favorites recipes to eat while you are not fasting, including a Keto friendly pizza and desserts?

Go grab your free book now!

To your health,

Jamie

Remember, I am a health coach, not a licensed medical professional and the advice on this page is from my personal experience, health coach certification training or from the experience of friends or clients. You should talk with your medical professional when seeking advice about a medical condition. 

Resources for Eating Disorders

U.S.:

• National Eating Disorders Association
• www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
• 1-800-931-2237

UK:

• beat (beating eating disorders)
• www.b-eat.co.uk
• 0845 634 1414
• 0845 634 7650 (youthline)

Canada

• National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC)
• www.nedic.ca
•  1-866-NEDIC-20 (1-866-633-4220)
•  416-340-4156 (Toronto)

Australia

• The Butterfly Foundation
• www.thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/
• 1800 33 4673