Key Messages
The Benefits Of Fasting: Learn How Timing Your Meals Can Make You Healthier And Leaner
Gin Stephens’ book, “Fast.
Feast.
Repeat”, shows that the timing of your meals can make all the difference when it comes to weight loss and overall health.
Stephens goes into detail about a number of different fasting regimes and how they can help you lose weight and improve your health.
For example, Ramadan fasting is great for improving heart health as well as providing other physical and mental benefits.
Stephens also suggests ways in which to ensure that you are getting the most out of your fast, as well as varying your routine from time to time so as not to get bored with it.
In short, this book provides valuable insight into how fasting can be an effective tool for weight loss and improving one’s overall health – it’s worth checking out for anyone who is looking for ways to stay healthy and reach their fitness goals!
Fasting Beats Dieting Hands-Down: Why Fat Loss Is Easier With Fasting
When it comes to fat loss, fasting is more effective than traditional dieting.
That’s because the body responds differently when food intake drops due to fasting compared to when it drops due to calorie restriction.
When you fast, your body draws on its stored energy reserves of fat and does not register this as starvation in the way it would if you were restricting calories through a regular diet.
This means that your metabolic rate stays consistent, avoiding the slowing-down of metabolism which can happen if weight is lost through dieting alone.
Additionally, fasting helps to reduce the amount of insulin circulating in your bloodstream which stops your body from tapping into its reserves of fat.
What’s more, fasting alters the level of hormones such as Ghrelin and Leptin, making them less likely to cause hunger and make you overeat – something that often occurs on restrictive diets.
The Health Benefits Of Fasting Go Far Beyond Weight Loss
The health benefits of fasting are astounding and go far beyond just losing weight.
For instance, studies suggest that reducing your insulin level by fasting can significantly reduce the chance you’ll develop serious medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes.
Fasting has also been shown to tackle chronic inflammation, a condition which can cause life-threatening illnesses like heart disease and cancer.
In addition, it supports something called autophagy in the body, which help break down and repurpose unwanted or damaged parts of cells.
This not only helps prevent cancer and liver disease but also slows down aging and increases longevity.
Ultimately, with multiple potential benefits ranging from reduced risk of diabetes to slower signs of aging, it’s clear that the health promotion of intermittent fasting is much greater than simply aiming for weight loss alone.
Discover The Different Types Of Intermittent Fasting To Find The Right Eating Pattern For You
If you’re looking to get into intermittent fasting, you’ll be happy to know that there are a lot of different ways to do it.
For instance, you can use an eating window approach, where you eat only during a set number of hours each day and avoid calories the rest of the time.
People usually refer to these windows with ratios – 16:8 meaning 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours eating; OMAD stands for one meal a day – usually eaten over 3-4 hours; and 19:5 meaning that you have 19 hours of fasting followed by a 5 hour eating window.
On the other hand, there’s also the up-and-down-day approach.
This is where “up days” are days that you eat, and “down days” are those where you don’t.
Again people use ratios to explain this – like 5:2 which means five days of eating followed by two of fasting.
For down days some people like to go without food while others prefer one small meal with up to 500 calories.
Either way these methods can give you great results as studies show fat burning accelerates when someone fasts 18-24 hours!
Mixing up your fasting schedule with unrestricted and restricted days can also help prevent your body from adapting to undereating and thus aid weight loss in the long run!
Clean Fasting: What To Avoid And Why If You Want To Maintain Your Fast
When it comes to fasting and getting the best results, there are a few things to keep in mind.
First of all, if you want to fast in a “clean” manner then you should avoid sweetened and food-like flavors – even zero-calorie options!
This means that diet sodas, flavored waters, fruity teas, chewing gum and anything else with a sweet or food-like taste should be off limits while you are fasting.
The only beverages that are allowed during a clean fast are still water, sparkling water, black coffee or plain tea.
It’s also important to stay hydrated during your fast but take care not to interfere with your efforts by consuming something that could trigger an insulin response in your body – like sweeter drinks for example.
A study from 2008 even showed that simply swishing around a sweetened solution can already raise insulin levels significantly.
Vary Your Fasting Routine To Maximize Weight Loss Benefits
Fasting is hard, and once you find a fasting strategy that works for you it can be tempting to stick with it indefinitely.
However, to maximize the benefits of intermittent fasting, you must vary your approach from time to time.
When we fast, our bodies tend to stay in what’s called “homeostasis” which is the tendency of our bodies to seek out balance and stability.
Homeostasis is something we need in order to survive but when trying to lose weight this can make it harder as our body adjusts to new circumstances.
To get around this our body needs a change every now and then so that it doesn’t settle into any one rhythm.
There are several ways to achieve this: first off try switching up your entire approach like going from 16:8 fasting protocol to up-and-down-day approach; second try changing the length of your eating window like 19:5 on some days and One Meal A Day on others; finally, mix and match all of these methods with extended fasts thrown in here and there (but be aware that extending your fasts too much can slow down the metabolism).
Intermittent Fasting Can Help Reset Appetite And Promote Nutritious Eating Habits
It’s clear that intermittent fasting has many benefits when it comes to improving your health and helping you to lose weight.
But the real beauty of fasting lies in the fact that it can also help you to start eating more healthily.
This is because one of the key things fasting encourages is listening to your body and learning what it needs rather than relying on external cues like calorie counting.
For example, studies have demonstrated that with just six days of doing 18:6 fasts – alternating periods of eating and not eating – levels of hunger hormones (ghrelin) decreased and levels of hormones that signal satisfaction increased, making people feel fuller sooner.
Furthermore, people often report changes in their food preferences when they undergo intermittent fasting – forsaking unhealthy processed junk food for nourishing meals that provide their body with what it really needs.
Fasting can be the starting point to launching a healthier lifestyle with healthy eating habits.
Wrap Up
The final message of “Fast.
Feast.
Repeat” is simple: timing your meals and getting the right nutrition can yield remarkable outcomes when it comes to your health, your weight, and potentially even your life expectancy.
In order to make the most of fasting, switch around your meals every now and then, nourish your body with good food, and pay attention to what’s driving your hunger.
During a fast, if you find yourself really hungry, take a moment to pause by setting a timer for 30 minutes — afterwards you should know whether those pangs were just randomly occurring or you really need something healthy to eat!
Ultimately this book shows that with intermittent fasting and healthy eating habits you can start living better very quickly.
