Benefits of Fasting
Fasting is the process of not eating food.
For example, someone may choose to undertake what is called One Meal A Day (OMAD). This is where a person only eats one large meal per day, and does not consume any calories at any other point in the day.
Other popular routines are the 16/8 which is where the person has an 8 hour window to consume food, and the 16 hours of fasting per day.
There are many positive effects of fasting.
Insulin Resistance 🔗︎
When you eat food, your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin into your body. This moves glucose from digestion into your bloodstream so your body can use it as fuel. The excess is stored in your liver as glycogen. When your liver is full, the excess is stored as body fat.
Being resistance to insulin means that your cells require more insulin that normal to force glucose into your bloodstream. This process then continues and means that your body ends up storing more fat.
When you fast, the pancreas stops releasing insulin. It depletes the glycogen stores of your body and means that your body starts to use fat as fuel.
Only 11-12 hours of fasting are needed for this process to begin.
Muscle 🔗︎
Some people are worried about losing muscle when fasting.
It turns out that when you fast, your body releases more adrenaline and growth hormone. Both of which support your body holding on to its muscle.
My Fasting Experience 🔗︎
I have done OMAD over a few periods in my life, usually in summer when I’m trying to slim down to show off the beach body.
I tend to get a bit hungry but that is what happens when you are trying to lose weight.
I have found that I lose really no muscle at all, mostly because my body fat is not getting to a really low percentage.
I find it much easier to lose weight this way as I can limit myself to eating in certain parts of the day much easier than limiting my portion sizes for each meal. For example if I didn’t want to eat at work then I just wouldn’t take food with me to work and eat when I arrive home. It makes things quite simple.
Conclusion 🔗︎
For a deeper look at fasting and other links have a read here: