Intermittent fasting is currently one of the most popular way of losing weight. Not only is it great for weight loss, it is also a type of diet that is great for your lifestyle. The 16/8 is one of the most popular forms of intermittent fasting. In my opinion, the 16/8 is one of the easiest and most convenient form of intermittent fasting to do. In fact, intermittent fasting has been done for centuries. Our ancestors most likely practiced intermittent fasting due to the lack of food. In prehistoric days, people would go days without food and yet they are still able to stay healthy.
The 16/8 intermittent fasting involves eating all your calories within 8 hours and spending the remaining 16 hours not eating any calories. Most people tend to do this by skipping breakfast and starting your fast after dinner. Doing it this way will allow you to allocate your sleeping time into your fast. This makes it much easier as you don’t eat while you are sleeping and therefore it reduces the amount of time you have to stay without eating while you are awake and conscious. Within the 8 hours time frame, you can eat all your meals and snacks. But once your 8 hours are over, you should not consume anything that contains calories. Ideally, this means that you stick to just drinking water, tea or black coffee. On a side note, studies have shown that drinking green tea can help with the fat burning!
This time frame is generally considered to be one of the more generous versions of intermittent fasting. There are other types that involves fasting for 24 hours or consuming only 500 to 600 calories on two days in a week. This diet is easy to follow, flexible and something you can do in the long run. If you have problems with keeping the time and schedule, you can always download an app that helps you record what time you started and duration of your fast.
While intermittent fasting is focused on when you are eating, you should also be considerate of what you are putting into your body. Even though the fasting plan technically doesn’t specify what you can or cannot eat, you should know how much calories you are putting in and burning off. Consuming too much food will cause weight gain regardless of intermittent fasting. You should stick to a balanced diet and make sure you drink water. Staying hydrated will help keep you from binging as sometimes people mistake thirst for hunger.
Eating during a restricted period of time can help you reduce the number of calories you consume. Studies have also shown that intermittent fasting might be able to boost your metabolism. This increase is generally believed to be due to the rise of the hormone norepinephrine. The hormone norepinephrine is a stress hormone that improves your attention and is involved with your fight or flight response. When norepinephrine is increased, it leads to your body telling the fat cells to release more fatty acids and therefore allowing your body to burn more fat.
Another hormone that is involved with intermittent fasting and weight loss is insulin. The hormone insulin is linked with diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Food that is broken down into sugar are used for energy, if it isn’t used for energy, insulin helps store the energy as fat in our fat cells. When we don’t eat, our insulin levels will go down and the fat cells will break down and be used as energy. The idea of intermittent fasting is that while we fast, we can burn off the stored fat. Research has shown that it is possible to get significant results in lowering your insulin in as little as 2 weeks.
During your fasting phase, it is possible that your blood levels of human growth hormone can increase. This is a hormone that helps with fat loss and also might preserve your muscles while burning fat. Studies have shown that skipping meals doesn’t break down your muscle, we retain our muscles due to the human growth hormone. Generally, most people tend to lose both fat and muscle when they lose weight. Therefore, it’s pretty neat that there’s a chance that intermittent fasting can help you retain your muscle instead.
Intermittent fasting might also help regulate your blood glucose levels. When your blood sugar levels are high, your pancreas will release insulin. This removes the sugar (glucose) from your blood and sends it to your liver to store. When your glucose levels are high and stays high, your pancreas eventually won’t be able to produce enough insulin to remove the sugar. This is how some people get type 2 diabetes. Studies have shown that some people with type 2 diabetes who participates in intermittent fasting were able to lose weight and also stop requiring insulin therapy. It generally takes around 2 to 4 weeks of intermittent fasting to see an improvement in blood sugar levels. In addition, if you want to stop fasting, studies have also shown that caloric restriction also has a positive effect on your blood sugar levels.
Intermitted Fasting also promotes autophagy. Autophagy is a natural process where unwanted parts in the body are destroyed and recycled into new parts for your body. Studies have shown that autophagy can help stop the development of cancer cells in your body. It is possible that autophagy can help prevent many diseases. Even though autophagy is naturally occurring, it is possible for people to induce it by fasting. When you fast, your body puts your cells under stress and autophagy makes the body remove and recycle any damaged cells in your body.
Although 16/8 intermittent fasting is associated with many weight loss benefits, some people might have difficulty with it. Reducing your food intake to within 8 hours might cause people to eat more than they usually do. This will eventually lead to weight gain or even a development of unhealthy eating habits.
Some people might even feel temporary side effects such as hunger and fatigue. This might be due to the fact that their body hasn’t gotten used to the fasting schedule. This eventually will go away after your body gets used to the routine.
16/8 intermittent fasting is pretty safe for everybody. However, if you have underlying health conditions, you should consider talking to your doctor before giving intermittent fasting a try. Don’t forget, even if you’re doing intermittent fasting, it doesn’t mean that you can skip the healthy diet you should be eating.
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