10 Reasons Why You Should Be Doing Intermittent Fasting for 3 days or more

Fasting is a willing abstinence or reduction from food, drink, or both, for a period of time. Fasting puts your body into repair mode at the cellular level and it can restore normal hormonal function.

Researchers from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles say that not eating for between two and fourt days at a time protects against immune system damage and promotes immune system regeneration.

A 2014 study done in animals have shown fasting improves health: blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and inflammation. These results suggest intermittent fasting can improve health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases.

What Is Intermittent Fasting

Most people who practice intermittent fasting, fast for sixteen hours and utilize eight hours for feeding. The feeding period tends to be between noon and 8 P.M. This is generally the easiest schedule to start with, since around half of your fasting time is during sleep. 

People who eat on an intermittent fasting schedule usually consume some calories in the form of low-calorie beverages such as coffee or tea.

During the feeding time, it is recommended to minimizing carbs and replace them with healthful fats: coconut oil, olive oil, olives, butter, eggs, avocados, and nuts. One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome when you first begin intermittent fasting is, your body will have to adjust to fewer meals. Your body’s production of the “hunger hormone” (ghrelin), has to adapt to your new feeding schedule which typically takes several weeks. 

 

10 Reasons Why You Should Be Doing Intermittent Fasting for 3 days or more

•Adjust your insulin and leptin sensitivity to a normal level
•Improving biomarkers of disease
•Regulates the hunger hormone level
•Lessens free radical damage and reduces inflammation
•Lowers triglyceride levels
•Preserves memory functioning and learning
•Burns fat allowing for weight loss
•Reduces side effects during chemotherapy treatments
•Fights against cancer cell proliferation
Brain Health
Fasting is actually good for brain health. It promotes neurogenesis and increases neuronal plasticity. A study of mice who ate larger meals more infrequently saw greater increases in brain and overall bodily health. Benefiting peripheral nerve function in mice, by encouraging the maintenance of the neuronal pathways, putting their brains in repair, or maintenance mode.

Weight Loss
When you’re in the fasted state your body can burn fat that has been inaccessible during the fed state. Our bodies enter the fasted state 12 hours after our last meal. Most people on a “normal” eating cycle typically fast an average of eight hours, while they are asleep and are never able to enter the “fat burning” mode.
This is one of the reasons why many people who start intermittent fasting will lose fat and increase muscle mass without changing their overall lifestyle.

Prolonged Life
It was discovered in 1945 at the University of Chicago, that intermittent fasting extended life in mice. McCay’s explained, intermittent fasting “seems to delay the development of the disorders that lead to death,”.
More recently, a study found that fasting also ramps up autophagy, which gets rid of damaged molecules, including ones that have been previously associated with neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s.