As I am in the process for preparing for my wedding, I am hoping to lose weight by July, so that I may fit better in my dress and feel better about walking down the aisle. As I have planned and prepped for beginning to eat healthier meals, and exercise more, intermittent fasting was brought to my attention as a potential booster within this journey as well.
Health.harvard.edu gives us the background on when intermittent fasting really came around and made its way into the spotlight
“Intermittent fasting as a weight loss approach has been around in various forms for ages, but was highly popularized in 2012 by BBC broadcast journalist Dr. Michael Mosley’s TV documentary Eat Fast, Live Longer and book The Fast Diet, followed by journalist Kate Harrison’s book The 5:2 Diet based on her own experience, and subsequently by Dr. Jason Fung’s 2016 bestseller The Obesity Code. Intermittent fasting generated a steady positive buzz as anecdotes of its effectiveness proliferated.”
Benefits
As one of the most popular fitness and health trends in the world, intermittent fasting has become a popular weight loss tool but also contains extreme benefits for your body and mind as it is fund that it continues to be more natural for the body to eat no more than 3 meals a day and maybe a few light snacks in between. Intermittent fasting doesn’t restrict your diet but more so restricts when you’re able to eat. For instance, Healthline.com talks about the different methods into intermittent fasting that seem to be the most popular
“The 16/8 method: Also called the Leangains protocol, it involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 1–9 p.m. Then you fast for 16 hours in between.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week, for example by not eating from dinner one day until dinner the next day.
The 5:2 diet: With this methods, you consume only 500–600 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days”.
During your fasting times you are able to snack a little bit, but the idea is to thoroughly let your body digest. The periods where you actually do get to eat, they say to stay away from over eating as that would make the whole process besides the point. When we fast, research suggests that
“Human Growth Hormone (HGH): The levels of growth hormone skyrocket, increasing as much as 5-fold. This has benefits for fat loss and muscle gain, to name a few…
Insulin: Insulin sensitivity improves and levels of insulin drop dramatically. Lower insulin levels make stored body fat more accessible.
Cellular repair: When fasted, your cells initiate cellular repair processes. This includes autophagy, where cells digest and remove old and dysfunctional proteins that build up inside cells…
Gene expression: There are changes in the function of genes related to longevity and protection against disease…”
Does it really work
Most people I know who participate in this have truly lost great amounts of weight. They make sure they don’t overeat the first week as your body will take time to adjust to the newness of the situation, but once you find yourself within that rhythm you will start to see changes in your overall wellbeing. Although there are methods in which you can follow for fasting, you can always change the time schedules so they fit your overall routine during the day, as long as you incorporate around 10-12 hours for fasting.
Recently the pattern that I have done is no breakfast until 9am. I then go about my day as usual with lunch around 11-noon and I then try to eat dinner before 7pm which keeps me within at least 10 hours. This works best for me and my normal schedule since I work very early mornings and am not off until mid afternoon. You definitely want to incorporate a schedule around when it is convenient for you otherwise you wont hit your marks and will become frustrated with not seeing the results you want.
Remember to have patience with yourself and your body especially during this difficult year and the months to come. A happy you is a healthy you!
