We like to take every diet trend with a great big grain of salt. But there’s an approach to eating right now that might be worth its weight when it comes to finding your healthiest you.
Intermittent fasting (or IF for short) is essentially reducing your food intake for a part of your daily or weekly schedule. Proponents claim that by cutting calorie intake on certain days or during certain hours, you can actually improve the body’s overall health and lower your risk of disease.
There are all sorts of IF programs out there with trendy names like 5:2, 16:8, eat-stop-eat, purported to be the secret weapon of celebs like Hugh Jackman and Beyoncé. But far from being just another fad, the research is saying IF might have real benefits for our health and longevity.
So, what actually happens to your body when you skip a meal?
Why intermittent fasting might be the secret to better health.
We’ve become so accustomed to eating three main meals a day, every day, that skipping them altogether might sound a bit extreme to some.
However, numerous studies point to the idea that intermittent fasting can do wonders for our health. The science is still young, but current research says IF may:
- Reduce stress and inflammation and decrease risk of common stress-related diseases.
- Promote cellular repair and prime the body to remove waste.
- Lower biomarkers for common lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
- Decrease insulin levels in the body and help burn fat.
- Help with weight loss. One scientific review found IF could cause a 3–8 per cent drop in weight over 3–24 weeks and significantly decrease dangerous abdominal fat.
- Encourage us to be more mindful about what we’re eating and break unhealthy habits around food.
What the critics say.
While the scientists continue to knock noggins on the matter, the critics say there’s just not enough research on humans out there yet for us all to be giving up brekkie willy nilly. Others say fasting is just too impractical for most people.
Practicing endocrinologist, researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of nutrition at Harvard, Dr David Ludwig suggests that while fasting may have its benefits, simply limiting sugar and other processed carbohydrates (and eating more natural fats, protein and unrefined carbs) might be a more practical approach to reap similar rewards.
The difference between fasting and starving.
Another trap for rookie intermittent fasters is the idea that you can eat whatever the heck you like in the “on” times. Or that pushing calorie restriction to the extreme will reap even more benefits (particularly when it comes to weight loss). But this approach means you could end up starving your body of real nutrients.
If you do want to give intermittent fasting a try, make sure you’re filling your eating windows with nutrient-dense meals packed with plenty of veg, proteins and healthy fats, so your body has everything it needs to keep you nourished. And still keeping the sweet stuff to very special occasions, of course!
What are your thoughts on intermittent fasting. Would you give it a try?
0 comments :
Post a Comment