FAST LIVING
You are when you eat
When you eat is important. We have been hearing for the past 25 years to eat multiple small meals spread out throughout the day. This is wrong, and this is not what people have done through most of history. Fasting for hours every day or days every week has major health benefits.
HOW DID WE GET HERE
Fasting was the norm
Daily fasting was the norm 50 years ago. People ate breakfast at 7AM and supper at 6PM and didn’t eat for 13 hours until the next morning. That fast was broken with break-fast. This is a form of intermittent fasting: restricting eating to specific hours in the day. The Greeks and Roman ate one or two meals per day. Similarly, in the Bible, two meals were the norm.
Breakfast
Many people are not hungry when they wake up. This is even though they may not have eaten for 12 hours. This has to do with our daily rhythm. We don’t get hungrier the longer we haven’t eaten. We don’t need to eat breakfast if we are not hungry. The old wisdom was to never skip breakfast. And there is some truth to this. Your body can handle carbs much better in the morning than in the evening.
Eating at night
Your mother or grandmother probably told you not to eat at night. There is a scientific reason for this. Early in the day, our body can process carbs better. A recent study found that the same food eaten earlier in the day rather than later resulted in weight loss—with the same food! When you eat matters.
Expanded snacking
In the previous generations, there was no snacking, only three square meals a day. There was no after-school snack, “You’ll ruin your appetite.” Now it is common to eat three meals and 2—3 snacks a day. Eating all day overloads the pancreas and digestion system.
Feast and fast
The ancient cycle was to have feasts throughout the year. We still have these: Thanksgiving and Christmas. These are feast days. Almost everyone has big meals around these holidays, but the ancients also had fast days. We’ve kept the feasts and abandoned the fasts, with predictable results.
CONSIDER FASTING
Why fast
Fasting is healthy and can help you feel better. Fasting improves many health markers. It can also help you lose weight. Diets, which are based on trying to eat less all the time, don’t work. They are difficult and almost impossible to maintain long term.
Improved Metabolism
Also, when you eat less every day, your body adjusts to run on less fuel. This doesn’t happen with intermittent fasting. With fasting, you eat normally when you eat but have periods where you don’t eat. A fast does not reduce your metabolism but increases it.
Not for everyone
Fasting is not for children, pregnant or breastfeeding women, brittle diabetics, or others with serious health concerns such as kidney disease. If you’re over 70, it is good to check with your doctor before starting a fasting regime. Also, if you have low body fat, have trouble keeping weight on or have had an eating-related disorder, you should not fast. And if you take any medication, check with your doctor first.
Flexible fasting
One of the benefits of intermittent fasting is that it is flexible. You can choose the hours you eat and even change the hours you eat. You can fast 16 hours every day or do a 7-day fast every other month. You can fast tomorrow or at the end of the week. Plan your fasting around your life. When you have events with the family, eat and fast another time. Fasting is also something you can do anywhere. No matter if you are home or away, you can fast.
Hunger
Events that trigger hunger
It may seem that by limiting your eating hours to 6-8 hours a day, you will be hungry all day. We usually get hungry 4 hours after we eat. But often, our hunger is related to when we typically eat. Once we set our body to eat at a particular time, it gets hungry at that time. Often, we get hungry during a specific activity. When we go to the movies, we get hungry for popcorn. This is a good reason not to eat while watching TV. Don’t link TV with eating in your brain. If you do, you will always be hungry when you watch TV. Eat only at the table. Once we reset our eating schedule, hunger is not a problem. Fasting controls hunger.
Hunger hormone
There is a hunger hormone that fluctuates throughout the day. It is usually lower in the morning. That is why we don’t wake up hungry. It tends to peak in the evening. During a longer fast, this hunger hormone peaks around 2 days. After that, it falls. That is why, if you can get through the first 2 days, you can do a 7-day fast.
Hunger fades
At first, when you switch your eating habits, you will get hungry at your regular eating time. This will be the most challenging time. Have some tea, coffee, or water. Once you get past the first few hours of hunger, the feeling of hunger will fade. This trains your body to burn fat instead of carbs. And most people have plenty of stored energy.
FASTING BENEFITS
Insulin management
Insulin stores fat
Insulin causes weight gain. It’s a fat-storage hormone. When blood sugar goes up, the pancreas injects insulin into the blood and helps the body’s cells take up sugar to use. If there is too much sugar to use and store in your liver and muscles, your body puts the sugar in fat cells for long-term storage.
Greater cell response
Simple carbs like those in white bread, white rice, and potatoes raise insulin the most. When insulin is high, the body stores fat. When you don’t eat for a while, especially carbs, your insulin level goes down. Fasting is the best way to lower your insulin levels. This helps make your cells more responsive to insulin and counters the effect of type II diabetes, which develops when your body’s cells don’t respond to insulin.
Diabetic fasting
Fasting can help with diabetes, but if you do start fasting, be sure to check your blood sugar levels often. And it is a good idea to check with your doctor first. Fasting when you use insulin injections is dangerous. Even fasting while taking other diabetic medications can be risky. In general, fasting can improve diabetes, but do it with the guidance of your doctor.
Weight loss benefits
It is almost impossible to lose weight and keep it off. On the TV show The Biggest Loser, most contestants lost huge amounts of weight. Many lost over 100 pounds. But 6 years after the show, 13 out of 14 people had gained the weight back, and some were heavier than before. Losing weight by eating less doesn’t work. Your body adjusts to the smaller amount of daily food.
Insulin and weight loss
High levels of insulin make it almost impossible to lose weight. Insulin is a fat-storage hormone. To lose weight, you have to lower your insulin levels. Intermittent fasting reduces your insulin levels.
Health benefits
In addition to lowering insulin, fasting has other health benefits. It lowers blood pressure and decreases cholesterol. Fasting every other day has been shown to reduce cholesterol and tri-fats in the blood. A fasting scheme can drop both more than taking statin drugs. Fasting also reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s by protecting our brain. It reduces inflammation, which is the root cause of many health problems. Fasting improved many health markers.
Builds healthy gut
Fasting also has the unlikely benefit of improving healthy gut bacteria. It seems that a period of rest for the digestive system strengthens beneficial bacteria compared to harmful bacteria.
Spikes growth hormones
After 24 hours of fasting, the amount of circulating growth hormone is increased. Growth hormones helps maintain muscles and makes it easier for your body to burn fat. Growth hormones are power tool for cells. Cells rebuild faster.
Renewed cell systems
Our body has billions of cells that are constantly maintained and replaced. Cells break down over time and need to renew their worn-out parts. If our body can’t keep up with the maintenance of cells that have worn-out parts, the cells get older and less effective. This is ageing. As our whole body ages, our cells are replaced at a slower rate. Also, as cells die they are replaced with new cells. We are not the same person we were yesterday. Every day, about 300 billion cells are replaced! Some of the shortest-lived cells are in the digestive system. Fasting gives them a break to perform repairs. Fasting slows the ageing process.
Food delays cell repair
When we eat carbs or proteins, insulin signals cells to delay repairs to the broken bits of cells. When we haven’t eaten for a while, our cells start to look for the most damaged and diseased bits of cells, take them apart, and send them to the liver for recycling. These recycled cell parts are mostly amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein.
Detox
This is why fasting is often called a cleanse or detox. A fast can clear the most diseased and damaged parts of cells.
Disease and cell recycling
Some disease processes are related to cell maintenance. Alzheimer’s is the build-up of trash bits in the brain that start to clog thinking. If these bits are not removed before they build up, they can cause Alzheimer’s. Similarly, some cancers can be treated by accelerating the cell recycling process.
Mental clarify
The brain is sensitive to insulin. After we eat a big meal, our brain seems slower, often we think best in the morning before eating a big meal. When your insulin levels are lower, your mental clarity is higher, and fasting is the best way to lower insulin. Fasting is like a vacation for your brain. A high insulin level impairs your ability to learn new things and interferes with memory. Insulin also affects your mood. High insulin levels are associated with anxiety. One of the biggest benefits of fasting is mental clarity and improved mood. You may think of fasting as a miserable task. Once your body has adapted, fasting becomes a pleasurable state.
Spiritual benefits of fasting
Nearly all religions promote fasting---Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others all fast for spiritual reasons. Fasting also breaks the power of one of the strongest desires in our life---hunger. Fasting can clear your soul as you turn your focus from food to higher things. The clarity of mind that accompanies fasting can give us new spiritual insight. When we fast, the transcendent world comes into focus as physical desires fade. If you are a spiritual person, you may want to incorporate some prayer or spiritual practice into your fasting.
Long-term fasting
The benefits of fasting add up over time. After 6 months of fasting one day a week, your insulin levels will be lower, and you will likely have lost some weight. Your energy level will be higher, and your thinking will be clearer.
HOW TO FAST
Eat whole before fasting
Fasting is not a license to eat junk. When you’re not fasting, eat whole food. Eat whole foods like fruits, berries, vegetables, and whole grains. Get healthy fats: nuts, avocados, olive oil, grass-fed butter. Avoid packaged foods and sugar. Limit bread, pasta, sugar, margarine, processed vegetable oils, alcohol, and processed meats. Processed meat is meat such as bacon, sausages, hot dogs, ham, salami, and pepperoni. The best foods are those without a box or label. Get plenty of protein and fat for a last meal before a fast.
Drink while fasting
While in the fast hours, drink only water, tea, coffee, or bone broth. Make sure to get enough liquids. Avoid alcohol during fasting. Alcohol interrupts cell repair, which is one of the main benefits of fasting. Make sure to drink water, regular or sparkling. You can add a squeeze of lemon. If you start to feel hungry, make a cup of coffee, green tea, herbal tea, or black tea, either warm or cold. Preferably black, but it is OK to use cream or whipping cream in your tea and coffee. You can also add some cinnamon. Try to avoid artificial sweeteners and especially sugar if you can.
Bone Broth
During a fast, you can also consume bone broth. Ideally, a homemade bone broth is best, but if you use a packaged one, be sure it’s high quality. Real bone broth will contain gelatin. Gelatin is made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. It is OK to use as much bone broth as you need to get through the fast. Bone broth has the added benefit of containing the electrolytes you need during a fast.
Electrolytes
When you fast, especially your first few times, you may crave salt. If you experience muscle cramps, nausea, or dizziness, this can signify low electrolytes. It is OK and helpful to take a teaspoon of salt a day when you are fasting. When you fast for more than 16 hours, your insulin level gets low, and your kidneys flush out a lot of your stored sodium and other minerals. It may also be wise to take a magnesium supplement. A magnesium supplement at bedtime can also help you sleep.
Eat a big lunch
Most North Americans eat their main meal for supper. This is the time our hunger is highest, often resulting in overeating. It is also the time of day that our insulin is least effective. The ideal time to eat your main meal is at lunch. This is common in many European countries.
Stay busy
The best way to avoid hunger is to stay active and busy. If you are just sitting around looking at food or watching TV, you will get hungry. Who hasn’t been so busy doing something that you forgot to eat? Hunger doesn’t interrupt if your mind is occupied.
Exercise
You can exercise during a fast. It helps your body burn fat. If you have never fasted, and you eat a lot of carbs, you will get tired the first few times you fast. You may even feel a bit unwell. Your muscles have to be trained to burn fat instead of sugar. Once they are trained, you will find your energy level during the fast is not low but high.
Blood Sugar Brain Food
Low blood sugar
When you fast, your blood sugar doesn’t go to zero. Your body keeps your blood sugar in a tight range. Your body stores about a day’s worth of carbs. About 6 hours after eating, the liver starts using up stored sugar. After about a day or two, your body has no more sugars, and your brain only burns sugar. What then?. The brain burns about 1/5 of the total sugar the body consumes.
Ketosis
When you fast for more than a day or so, your body goes into a state called ketosis. In ketosis, your body doesn’t have enough carbs, so it switches to fat and creates ketones for your brain. Your brain can’t burn fat, it usually burns sugar, but during ketosis, it burns ketones. Ketones are better brain fuel than sugar. A very low-carb diet that constantly makes your brain run on ketones cures some forms of epilepsy.
Ketoacidosis
If you’re a diabetic, you may have heard of ketoacidosis. It sounds like ketosis, but is entirely different. Ketoacidosis is when your body makes ketones and your blood sugar is high. In this state, your brain still burns sugar, and the ketones build up. Unless you are a type I diabetic, you don’t have to worry about this.
GETTING STARTED
How to start
Start fasting by eliminating after-supper snacks. Once you have done that successfully for a week, eliminate bread and grains from your breakfast. Eat only eggs, meat, and fruits or vegetables. Once you have done this for a week, try moving breakfast later in the day. If you start eating at 10AM and finish by 6PM, you are now on a 16:8 fasting plan.
Start With 16:8
The 16:8 fast is eating for only 8 hours per day and fasting for the other 16. The eating hours can be 9AM to 5PM, or if you want to eat a bit later, don’t eat until 10 and then stop eating at 6. In the morning, you can have your coffee, ideally with no sugar or cream. The beauty is the flexibility. You move the eating window to the time that works for you. After a week of adjustment, most people have no trouble with a 16:8 fast. You can shrink the eating period to 6 hours and do an 18:6. The longer the fast, the better your insulin levels will be.
5:2 Fast
Another form of regular longer fasts is 5:2 fasting. This program involves eating normally for 5 days and restricting eating for 2 days per week. To start this, you can eat a small amount on the two fast days, but once you have the confidence, try only coffee, tea, or bone broth on these days. The fast days should not be consecutive. Choose two days per week when you will eat less. One big advantage of this regular weekly fast is that you teach your body to burn fat.
Stay Flexible
Also, remember you can break the fast anytime. If your family shows up for dinner, go ahead and eat. You will get another chance to fast. Similarly, if you get super hungry, eat and don’t consider it a failure. Listen to your body and try again when you are under less stress. Don’t start a long fast when you are at your wit’s end.
Longer Fasts
In addition to a daily eating window, it can help to add longer fasts to your schedule. Once a week, try a 36—42 hour fast. At first, it will seem impossible. But once your body has adjusted to 16 hours without food every day, the transition to a day-long fast is not hard. Your body already knows how to function without food. You can add a 7-day fast. A 7-day fast is not much more difficult than a two-day fast. A 7-day fast will rapidly improve most of your health markers. You will lose weight, your blood sugar will improve, your blood pressure reduced, and your thinking clarified.
Extended fast safety
When you do a multi-day fast, there are additional risks to note. Do not attempt a multi-day fast if you are on medication. Check with your doctor first. Also, if you eat bone broth and take a multivitamin, you shouldn’t have problems with low electrolytes. And even though you are not eating, continue all your regular exercise. The exercise you do during fasting will be total fat burning. Also, you want to keep your muscles strong throughout the fast. If you are at all underweight, you shouldn’t do longer fasts.
Worth a try
There are many fasting programs you can use to improve your health. Choose the one that works for you. Want more energy, better health, a few lost pounds, and more mental clarity? Try fast living.
