First of all, fast is not hunger. Hunger is an involuntary abstinence forced by foreign forces to eat; this happens when war and famine are scarce. On the other hand, fasting is voluntary, conscious and controlled. Food is easy to get, but we choose not to eat it because of mental, health or other reasons.

Fasting is as old as manankind and older than any other form of diet. Like the Greeks, ancient civilizations recognized something that was essentially beneficial for periodic fasting. They are often referred to as healing, cleaning, purifying or detoxifying times. In fact, every culture and religion on earth has some rituals of fasting.

Before the advent of agriculture, humans never ate three meals a day plus snacks between meals. We only eat when we find food that may be separated by hours or days. Here, from an evolutionary point of view, eating three meals a day is not a necessary condition for survival. Otherwise, we will not survive as a species.

Fast forward to the 21st century, we have forgotten this ancient practice. After all, it's really bad for the business! Food manufacturers encourage us to eat more meals and snacks every day. Nutrition authorities warn that not eating a single meal can have serious health consequences. Overtime, this information has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Fasting has no standard duration. It may last for hours to days to months. from

Intermittent fast from

 It is a diet that we cycle between fasting and regular eating. Shorter 16-20 hours of fasting usually take place more often, even daily. Longer fasting times, usually 24-36 hours, 2-3 times a week. As it happens, we will fast for about 12 hours a day between dinner and breakfast.

Millions of people have completed fasting for tens of millions of years. Is this unhealthy? Do not. In fact, many studies have shown that it is good for health.

What happens when we keep eating?

Before starting the benefits of intermittent fasting, it's best to understand why eating 5-6 meals a day or every few hours [as opposed to fasting] may actually do more harm than good.

When we eat, we consume food energy. The key hormone involved is insulin [produced by the pancreas], which increases during meals. Both carbohydrates and proteins stimulate insulin fat to cause a smaller insulin effect, but fat is rarely consumed alone.

Insulin has two major functions –

• First, it allows the body to start using food energy immediately. Carbohydrates are rapidly converted to glucose, raising blood sugar levels. Insulin directs glucose into somatic cells for energy. Protein is broken down into amino acids, and excess amino acids can be converted to glucose. Protein does not unnecessarily raise blood sugar, but it can stimulate insulin. Fat has little effect on insulin.
• Second, insulin stores excess energy for future use. Insulin converts excess glucose into glycogen and stores it in the liver. However, how much glycogen can be stored is limited. After reaching the limit, the liver begins to convert glucose into fat. The fat is then placed in the liver [excess, into fatty liver] or body fat deposits [usually stored as visceral or abdominal fat].

Therefore, when we eat and eat snacks all day, we are always eating and insulin levels are still high. In other words, we may be spending the main stored food energy of the day.

What happens when we fast?

The process of using and storing food energy while we eat is reversed when we fast. Decreased insulin levels cause the body to start burning stored energy. Glucose glycogen stored in the liver is first obtained and used. After that, the body begins to break down the stored body fat to gain energy.

Therefore, the body basically has two states – a fed state with high insulin and a fast state with low insulin. We either store food energy or are burning food energy. If eating and fasting are balanced, there is no gain. If we eat energy and store energy for most of the day, overtime is likely to eventually increase weight.

Intermittent fasting and continuous calorie restriction

Part of the control strategy for continuous calorie reduction is the most common dietary recommendation for weight loss and type 2 diabetes. For example, the American Diabetes Association recommends a lack of energy of 500-750 kcal/day and regular physical activity. Dietitians follow this method and recommend eating 4-6 small meals throughout the day.

Can some control strategies be run for a long time? Very few. A 9-year follow-up cohort study of 176,495 obese individuals showed that only 3,528 people successfully reached normal weight by the end of the study. That is a 98% failure rate!

Intermittent fast is not a constant thermal limit. Limiting calories leads to compensatory increases in hunger, and even worse, the body's metabolic rate drops, double cursing! Because when we burn fewer calories a day, weight loss becomes more and more difficult, and it's easier to lose weight after we lose it. This diet puts the body in a “starvation mode” because metabolism is reduced to save energy.

Intermittently fast without any of these shortcomings.

The health benefits of intermittent fasting

Increased metabolism leads to weight loss and body fat loss

Unlike daily calorie-reducing diets, intermittent fasting increases metabolism. From the point of view of survival, this makes sense. If we don't eat, the body uses the stored energy as a fuel, so we can live to find another meal. Hormones allow the body to convert energy from food to body fat.

Studies have clearly demonstrated this phenomenon, for example, by rapidly increasing the basal metabolic rate by 12% for four consecutive days. The neurotransmitter norepinephrine levels prepared for physical activity increased by 117%. As the body shifts from burning food to burning stored fat, the fatty acids in the blood increase by more than 370%.

No loss of muscle mass

Unlike a constant calorie-restricted diet, intermittent fasting does not burn muscles as many people fear. In 2010, the researchers observed a group of subjects who were fasted every other day for 70 days [one time a day, the next fast]. Their muscle mass starts at 52.0 kg and ends with 51.9 kg. In other words, there was no muscle loss, but they did lose 11.4% of fat and saw a significant improvement in LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

During fasting, the body naturally produces more human growth hormone to keep lean muscles and bones. Muscle mass is usually retained until body fat drops below 4%. Therefore, most people do not have the risk of muscle atrophy during intermittent fasting.

Reversing insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and fatty liver

Type 2 diabetes is a disease in which there is too much sugar in the body. from

 It is the extent to which cells can no longer respond to insulin and absorb more glucose [insulin resistance] from the blood, leading to high blood sugar levels. In addition, when the liver attempts to convert excess glucose into fat and store it as fat, the liver becomes rich in fat.

Therefore, to reverse this situation, two things must be done –

• First, stop adding more sugar to the body.
• Second, burn off the remaining sugar.

The best diet to achieve this goal is a low-carb, medium-protein and high-healthy fat diet, also known as the ketosis diet. [Remember, carbohydrates increase blood sugar at the most, protein levels increase to a certain extent, and fat is minimal.] This is why low-carbohydrate diets help reduce the burden of glucose input. For some people, this is enough to reverse insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. However, in more serious cases, diet alone is not enough.

How is the exercise? Exercise helps eliminate glucose in skeletal muscle, but does not eliminate all tissues and organs, including fatty liver. Obviously, exercise is important, but in order to eliminate excess glucose in the organs, it is necessary to temporarily "starve" the cells.

This can be achieved quickly and intermittently. This is why in history, people call it quick cleaning or detoxification. It can be a very powerful tool to get rid of all the excessive behavior. This is the fastest way to lower blood sugar and insulin levels and ultimately reverse insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and fatty liver.

By the way, taking insulin to treat type 2 diabetes does not solve the root cause of the problem, that is, excess sugar in the body. Indeed, insulin drives glucose away from the blood, causing blood sugar to drop, but where does the sugar go? The liver only turns it into fat, fat in the liver and fat in the abdomen. Patients receiving insulin therapy eventually gain weight and worsen diabetes.

Enhance heart health

Overtime, hyperglycemia in patients with type 2 diabetes can damage the blood vessels and nerves that control the heart. The longer you have diabetes, the more likely you are to have a heart attack. Lowering blood sugar by intermittent fasting, the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke is also reduced.

In addition, intermittent fasting has been shown to improve blood pressure, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein [bad] cholesterol, blood triglycerides and inflammatory markers associated with many chronic diseases.

Improve brain power

A number of studies have shown that fasting has many neurological benefits, including attention and attention, response time, immediate memory, cognition, and the production of new brain cells. Mouse studies have also shown that intermittent rapid reduction of brain inflammation and delay of symptoms…

A powerful tool for weight loss and diabetes: intermittent fasting was originally published on Spring