Top 5 Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting, what is that? We’re glad you asked, but before we get into it, we want to ask you… does it feel like your getting advice about your health and weight loss from everywhere? After all, it is coming from magazines, the television, and probably most of the time, even friends and family, that can hurt. But you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t at least thinking about it your health and seeking a way to better it, correct? That said, we wanted to share some health benefits of intermittent fasting.
Intermittent fasting is a technique that has been known for quite a long time, but in recent years has been gaining more and more traction. It’s a pattern of eating that consists and not eating over specific time periods throughout the day. A common rule or method used is known as the 16/8 rule. This is where you eat during an eight-hour window of the day and fast for the remaining sixteen. A very simple concept and one that can be easily followed if timed correctly.
This type of fasting is not so much a diet, but rather a change in your schedule or the way you do things daily. It also allows you to eat some of the things you still, love, within reason. Okay, now that you have the idea of what you need to do to set yourself up for success, lets talk benefits, sound good?
1. Reduces Caloric Intake; Reducing Weight
This change in your lifestyle will help you reduce your caloric intake and by doing this, you will naturally lose weight over time. Even if you’re only interested in intermittent fasting for the short term, the impacts on weight loss can be huge. Your insulin levels will lower as your metabolic rate increases, helping you to burn more calories.
2. Lower Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
In recent years Type 2 Diabetes has sadly become increasingly common. This type of fasting can help to drop your blood sugar and insulin levels, helping to make your stored body fat more accessible. This also allows you to burn more fat and calories, yay! Lowering your blood sugar and insulin can be helpful for those who are at risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes but remember, you should always consult your doctor before doing anything that cal alter your blood sugar and insulin levels.
3. Improve Heart Health
In animals, intermittent fasting quickly showed an improvement in blood pressure and the resting heart rate, as well as reducing unhealthy LDL cholesterol. That is the cholesterol that gathers in the walls of your blood vessels. Although there have been fewer studies of the impacts intermittent fasting could have on human heart health, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence.
4. It’s Good For The Brain
Feel like your having some memory loss? Some studies show that many people who experiment with intermittent fasting have noted an improvement in memory. Intermittent fasting can reduce oxidative stress on the brain and has been known to also improve the production of the brain hormone known as “brain-derived neurotrophic factor” (BDNF) which is good for your brain development.
5. It Decreases Inflammation
Lastly, Intermittent fasting has been known to reduce markers of inflammation in the tissues and joints of the human body. This is important for many people because inflammation is a key component of chronic pain and sufferers may find that fasting helps with pain relief. In the end, fasting can then help with improving one’s overall performance in a positive way.
