Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?
Should you go hours at a time without food as a way to detox and accelerate weight loss?
You may have heard your friends talking about intermittent fasting and wondered what it was all about. Sure, you’ve missed a meal or two and lived to tell the tale, but you’ve never fasted for longer than a day or under strict guidelines. So, how do you know if intermittent fasting is right for you?
What options do you have for fasts? Also, what can you drink when you’re avoiding eating foods? Is there one method of fasting that gives people better results than others?
You’ve got valid questions that deserve answers. Knowing as much as you can about the subject prevents you from misunderstanding the purpose of intermittent fasting and taking it to extremes. The reason it’s intermittent is that you do it for a specific amount of time, and then you go back to eating regularly.
It’s a method that kickstarts the body’s ability to lose weight and is known to be safe as long as it doesn’t create an eating disorder. Fasting isn’t starving because you do it in short intervals. You are not depriving your body of nourishment for days.
To better understand the rules of intermittent fasting, you should first know what makes a person choose to fast. Picking the right method for you to try takes careful consideration. It requires you to think about your current lifestyle and how your schedule comes into play. Below, you’ll learn about three different fasting methods so you can choose one to implement into your routine right away.
Types of Fasting Methods Available
As with every kind of diet, there are multiple ways to fast. Three stand out the most because of their popularity with people. They are the 24-Hour Fast Once a Week, the 5:2 Diet, and the 16/8 Method. So you better understand how each one works, we’ve listed a small snippet of a description below.
24-Hour Fast Once a Week
For one day or 24 hours, you eat nothing at all. You can drink allowed beverages such as water, coffee, and certain varieties of green tea. You’ll want to avoid consuming lots of caffeine, however, because it is very drying to the body.
5:2 Diet
For most of the days of the week or five total, you eat as you usually would. The remaining two days involves extreme calorie restriction. You eat no more than 500 to 600 calories per day. Avoiding exercising on your restriction days is highly advisable because you’ll burn through what you’ve eaten for the entire day in less than an hour if you’re not careful.
16/8 Method
For 16 hours a day, you eat nothing whatsoever. There is an eight-hour window, however, wherever you enjoy food and beverages. The rest of the day, you’re allowed to drink only the permitted drinks on the list (water, coffee, and green tea).
How Long Does a Typical Fast Last?
The most prolonged fasts typically last for 24 hours. The body can do without food for longer, but you don’t want to harm yourself during a fast. Following instructions strictly ensures that you’re able to get the most good out of the fasting process.
Some people fast as part of their religion. Specific guidelines are governing when they start and stop eating. It takes some getting used to, but if you’re committed to intermittent fasting, you’ll find it becomes easier each time you do it.
No matter what your reason for trying an intermittent fast is, know that you’re not alone in the process. Many people around the world are now doing something that others did in the past as a way to give the body a break from digestion and to initiate its ability to heal. Considering the number of toxic substances a person ingests on any given day, it’s essential to make regular detoxes through fasting a part of your healthcare routine.
What are the Benefits of Intermittent Fasting?
You must know what the benefits of intermittent fasting are before getting started. That way, you know the reason behind your actions. Intermittent fasting is a popular way to ‘reset’ your body by naturally detoxing it.
Some other ways it could potentially help you is by removing waste from cells, accelerating fat burning through lower blood insulin levels, protecting the body from disease, burning belly fat, initiating weight loss, reducing risk of Type 2 diabetes, helping strengthen your heart, and increasing longevity. The more you experiment with intermittent fasting, the better you’ll get at mastering it.
One of the most significant obstacles people experience is having a fast interfere with their schedule. It’s crucial to plan to fast around important appointments and obligations as well as life events. For example, it may not be easy to fast on a day where you’re cooking for family and friends.
Similarly, fasting on workout days isn’t recommended. You should make it so those days are your recovery days so that you won’t put your health in danger by running on fumes calorically. Be mindful of what you already have scheduled and adjust your fast to meet your lifestyle needs best.
Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?
Is intermittent fasting right for you? Only you know the answer. If you don’t have a medical condition that prevents you from safely fasting, then there shouldn’t be any reason why you can’t.
Explore the different types of fasts available, and as always, consult your medical doctor for tips and recommendations. Doing so ensures that you’re safe at all times while abstaining from eating food. Be committed and disciplined, so you’re able to benefit from each fast you go on.
Many studies focus on intermittent fasting, and no real evidence exists that it’s harmful. You don’t need expensive juices or one type of fruit to flush toxins from your body. By changing how often you eat and don’t eat, you’re able to give your body a fresh start for the week by allowing it to refrain from digesting, storing fat, and doing all of the things it does with food when you’re always eating.