It turns out skipping meals is one of nature’s best kept anti-aging secrets! And there’s a whole science to back it up. Let’s explore.
So you’re probably thinking: Great! After following diet trends like a lost sheep for years – (or decades? Come on, so did we…) – , now you’re telling me the secret to health and weight management has been self-imposed starvation all along?
Aaah, yes. And yes, we hear you. Every meal is a mental battle: what foods to eat? What foods to discard? Which macros in what ratios? How many calories? Should you download an app or weigh and measure yourself daily? In the last century, eating – the most natural behaviour programmed in all living creatures for survival – has become a battlefield paved with diets, sheer confusion and misery, and dangerous eating disorders. There is low-fat, full-fat, low-carb, carb-loading, Banting, Atkins, South Beach, the Zone, Weight watchers… our head is spinning too. And there’s the psychological side too, where preparing and eating meals together is incredibly enjoyable or installed as a habit – we eat according to times of day, for emotional comfort, out of boredom or even politeness. But here is the good news:
no diet works for all – choose and adapt what works best for YOU (according to your medical results, not just your jeans size)
incorporate fasting into your current eating lifestyle – no dietary changes necessary!
The thing about meal-skipping, is that it’s nothing new for the human kind. For thousands of years, fasting has been promoted as a spiritual healing practice, employed by religions around the world. The widely recognized “father of modern medicine,” Hippocrates, wrote, “to eat when you are sick is to feed your illness.” Hippocrates regularly prescribed fasting as a way to speed up the healing from a variety of ailments. Biologically, we automatically lose appetite in order for our body to focus all its energy on repair.
We unconsciously go through 12-hour fasting periods each night before we break our fast with the morning meal: break-fast. But you won’t have to go to those lengths (literally). Even giving your bodily systems 7 hours of metabolic rest will yield amazing results. The practice of fasting can lead to a number of physiological changes within the body. They typically begin approximately three to five hours after eating, when the body enters a “post-absorptive” state – rather than the state of ongoing digestion, where eating frequent meals means the body is always involved in some sort of digestive activity.
Here is what you can expect from intermittent fasting:
An increase in your Fat Burning Hormone by 700%
Control of your “Hunger Hormone” and an End to cravings
A decrease in your stress hormone so you Burn More Belly Fat
Increase in your brain function for better Memory and Concentration
A boost in your Metabolism & Energy
Reduced Risk of Diabetes & an easing of symptoms
Increased Testosterone (if you’re a man)
Increased insulin sensitivity so you can Eat More & Stay Slim
Faster Weight Loss
Reboot of your Immune System (2-4 day fast)
Decreased inflammation so your Joints Heal & Feel Better
Rapid Cleansing & Renewal of your body at a cellular level
Skin Rejuvenation
There are various ways to incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle – alternate day fasting, one day per week fasting, or 7-24 hour plans – but all provide similar benefits. It’s important to ensure that your diet remains healthy, and that you’re not overeating during your feeding periods – especially if one of your goals is to lose weight.
As more people recognize the power of intermittent fasting, the more important this self-healing practice will become – and the fact that many groups and individuals continue to fast to this day proves this ancient practice has earned a place in the modern world’s quest for longevity. As more people recognize the power of intermittent fasting,
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