What You Get When You Do Intermittent Fasting?
One way or the other, you may have heard about intermittent fasting but is not really informed about how it works. Well for starters, it’s not a diet program as most people would think because it’s more of an eating method that alters your meal pattern for healthy results.
But what’s the real score about this healthy and wholesome way of eating? How will it benefit your body? And can you even exercise while on the process of fasting? Learn more about this as we go over today’s entry.
Get To Know What It’s About First Before We Get Into The Details
To explain it simply, intermittent fasting is a method of changing the way you eat food in order to limit calorie intake and to initiate the process of burning fats. Basically, you eat for a certain time of the day and fast at the other.
Our brains and bodies are programmed to eat 3 times a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner). To some extent, some people may even go for 5 meals a day by adding snacks in between meals. By altering our eating habits and incorporate a period of fasting, we can now limit the calories of the food we eat and also trigger the body to burn fat reserves as the days go by. The act of fasting has long been proven to have beneficial effects on the body. And in recent years, these health effects have been recognized again due to our awareness of healthy living.
There are actually different ways of doing intermittent fasting, but the most common of which is the 16:8 approach where you have an 8-hour eating window to consume food and then fast at the remaining 16 hours (which is recommended for optimal fat loss). Aside from that here are some other types of this healthy method of eating:
- 24-Hour Fasting – You fast for the entire day and then have a hearty meal afterwards.
- The Warrior Diet – Fasting for 20 hours and consume food within a 4-hour window.
- OMAD – One meal a day diet
- 36-hour fasting – Fasting for 36 hours then have a hearty meal on the third day.
- Extended fasting – Fasting for 2 or more days without eating food.
- Alternate Day Fasting – Eating regular meals for a day then fast the other day and so on.
The main goal of this eating method is to initiate autophagy which is a state when the cells of the body are disassembled to take away their dysfunctional components which leads to fat loss as one of its side effects.
Can You Consume Anything During You Fast Period?
Taking water is definitely recommended because you need to stay hydrated as you fast. Aside from that, you can also consume liquids that would not break your fast like black coffee, herbal teas, salt water, and etc.
Final Word
Finally, intermittent fasting combined with exercise will yield the best results. So engaging in physical activity is perfectly safe as long as you eat the right kind of foods that will give you enough energy as you work out during your fast period.
And to ensure you are feeling comfortable during exercise, we also recommended that you wear suitable workout clothing and gear like Copper Compression gloves and leg sleeves to maximize your performance while breaking a sweat at the gym.
