Fasting has been commonplace for a while. It’s used for religious, cultural, or losing weight purposes. Fasting is characterized by abstaining from all or some drinks or foods for a certain period.
Now more than ever, fasting has proven to be beneficial to many individuals.People trying to lose weight find this method effective and offers pleasant results. Ithelps to minimize the calories intake in your body. Whencombined with other lifestyle routines like exercises, fasting is the perfect way to lose more calories than you consume. Different ways of fasting are suitable for different individuals with varying body needs. So, is it worth fasting? Here are the benefits of fasting.
Is it safe to fast?
Before anything else, you should be sure that you’re in the right condition to fast. Some individuals may be doing more harm than good if they stay for a long time without enough food. Fasting for a few hoursprobably is harmless to healthy individuals, as long as they have enough water to keep them hydrated. But fasting for too long is not healthy for those with illnesses. The body requires vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients to maintain a healthy body. If you don’t provide your system with enough diet requirements, it can be life-threatening for you.
Who cannot fast, even for a short time?
Fasting, even if it’s only for a short time, can be risky for some individuals. If you have diabetes, avoid missing meals because it can result in harmful dips and rises in blood sugar. Other groups that should avoid fasting are pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, people with chronic illnesses, the old, and children. Still, even healthy people should confirm from their doctors if fasting is a wise choice. Let your doctor help you create a healthy diet plan or recommend you to a qualified dietician who will help you in your fasting journey.
What are the benefits of fasting?
After you’re sure you’re fit for fasting, you may want to know why it’s important to go into your new diet. These are the amazing outcome of fasting;
- Improves the cognitive performance and offers protection against neurodegenerative disorders
- Offers protection against obesity and chronic illnesses
- Improves health by reducing inflammation
- Promotes overall fitness
- Results in weight loss by reducing calorie intake
- Minimizes the risks of metabolic diseases
- Helpful to cancer patientsby maximizing the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatment
- Can delay aging and increase your life span
- Promotes a healthy heart by improving blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides levels
What are the different types of fasting?
Intermittent calorie restriction
It involves minimizing the number of calories you consume in a day. It’s achieved by reducing the calories intake by a half and limiting your carbohydrates for two consecutive days in a week. This approach helps you avoid eatingunnecessarily and only provides what’senough to fuel your normal activities for the day.
Time-restricted feeding
This process involves limits calorie consumption to a limited timeframe that fits with your twenty-four-hourcycle routine. It’s also known as circadian rhythm, which is the natural body clock that alertsthe body when to sleep, eat, rest, and so on. For example,only taking meals during 8 to 12-hour period daily and fasting between 10 am to 6 pm. It’s often associated with religious fasting but still effective for other purposes too.
Periodic fasting with specific diets
This method demands that you limit your calorie consumption for three to five days, making the cells use all the glycogen stored in the body and resume ketosis. While this approach is achieved without eating food, it’s not so safe. This 5-day calorie-restricted diet offers the body about 1000 calories a day, ensuring you’re not depleted of nutrients.
What are the easiest ways of fasting?
Choosing the right fasting that’ll fit your lifestyle will make it easier to stick with it. Consider;
- Water fasting- you’ll only drink water, but in a set time
- Juice fasting- only drinking fruit or vegetable juice for a specific period
- Partial fasting- specific foodsor drinks like the processed foodstuffs, caffeine, or animal products are removed from your diet for a certain period.
What are the negative consequences of fasting?
Even though there are many benefits of fasting, it’s not always a healthy route to take. Keep yourself safe by asking your doctor first if you have any health condition or want to fast for more than 24 hours. Fasting may deny you essential nutrients in your body or provide you with them but in insufficient amounts. Not getting a balanced diet may make you have symptoms like intolerance to cold temperatures, dehydration, fatigue, constipation, and fatigue. The extreme result is death.
Does fasting always work?
Whether you’re targeting to lose weight, detox your body, or just as a spiritual thing, you’ll need effort and patience to achieve your goal. If you aim to lose weight, you may have to reconsider your approach because fasting does not provide long-term weight loss. If you’re determined to detox your body, you don’t have to rely on fasting completely. After all, the body can naturally detoxify itself. You can try better detoxifying methods instead of fasting.
What can make fasting not make you lose weight?
Anytime you consume less food than you need, your body gets into starvation mode. With time your body’s metabolism slows down to save energy. For a while, you’ll losefats, but once you resume your normal diet, you’ll regain the weight you had lost. While fasting, your body adjusts to your limited appetite, and you’ll eat less. Still, after you quit fasting, your appetite will raise to its normal range. You’ll feel hungrier and may find yourself overeating.
Conclusion
Gaining results with fasting is possible. However, you need to have a clear goal before getting into it. Keep in mind you cannot achieve along-term outcome unless you’re planning to fast forever in your life. Fasting can be life-threatening if not well implemented. Always seek advice from the experts before trying it. As you fast, always hydrate regardless of your restricted diet.
