Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting (IF) is an eating pattern that revolves between periods of eating and fasting. It has become one of the most famous health and fitness trends. People are using intermittent fasting to reduce weight, boost health and increase their life span. Different studies found that intermittent fasting can have amazing effects on your body and brain and even help you to live longer.
Intermittent fasting doesn’t specify which foods are good to eat but rather when you should eat them. In this sense, it’s not a diet but an eating pattern. Intermittent fasting methods contain daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, two times a week. Fasting is also performed for religious or spiritual purposes.
Intermittent Fasting Methods
There are different ways of intermittent fasting that require splitting the day or week into eating and fasting periods. During the fasting periods, you can eat either very small or nothing at all. These are the most famous fasting methods.
The 16/8 method: Also known as the lean-gains protocol, this contains skipping breakfast and limiting your daily mealtime to 8 hours, which include 1–9 p.m. Then you should fast for 16 hours in between.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours once or twice every week, as an instance not eating from in the future to the next.
The 5:2 Diet: With this method, you consume only 500-600 calories on two consecutive days of the week and eat usually in the other 5 days.
By decreasing your calorie intake, all of these methods should lead to weight loss unless you compensate for overeating during meals. Many people think that the 16/8 method is the simplest, most sustainable, and easiest.
A Very Powerful Weight Loss Tool
One of the most common reasons for people to try intermittent fasting is weight loss. Eating fewer meals and fasting periodically can automatically reduce calorie intake. In addition, intermittent fasting adjusts hormone levels to aid you to lose weight. In addition to lowering insulin and upgrading growth hormone levels, promotes the release of the fat-burning hormone norepinephrine (noradrenaline). Because of these hormonal changes, short-term fasting can increase your metabolic rate by 3.6–14%.
Studies show that intermittent fasting is a powerful way to lose weight by aiding you to eat less and burn more calories. A 2014 review study found that eating this diet can lead to 3–8% weight loss in 3–24 weeks, a significant amount compared to most weight loss studies.
Another study shows that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than a more standard method of low-calorie restriction. Intermittent fasting aids you to eat fewer calories overall that’s why it is very successful. However, if you overeat during your meal periods, you will not lose weight at all.
Makes Your Healthy Lifestyle Simpler
Healthy eating is easy, but maintaining it can be incredibly difficult. One of the main hurdles is all the work that needs to be planned and healthy cooking. Intermittent fasting can make things simpler and easier because you don't have to plan, cook or clean up after the first meal. Due to this, intermittent fasting is very famous among fitness builders, as it promotes your health while at the same time making your life easier.
Health Benefits
Many studies on intermittent fasting have shown that it has powerful effects on weight management and the health of your body and brain. It can also help you to increase your life span.
The main benefits of intermittent fasting are the following:
Weight loss: As mentioned above, intermittent fasting can help you to lose weight and belly fat, without any restrained calories.
Insulin resistance: Intermittent fasting can lower insulin resistance, reduce blood sugar by 3-6%, and fasting insulin levels 20-31% by protecting against type 2 diabetes.
Inflammation: Some studies show a decrease in inflammatory markers, a key driver of many chronic diseases.
Heart health: Intermittent fasting aid to reduce "bad" LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, and insulin resistance. These are the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Cancer: Different animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting reduces the risks of cancer.
Brain health: Intermittent fasting promotes the brain hormone BDNF and can increase the growth of new nerve cells. It can also help to reduce the risks against Alzheimer's disease.
Anti-aging: Intermittent fasting increases the lifespan of rats. Studies show that fasting rats live 36-83% longer. However, keep in mind that the research is in the early stages now.
Skinny Bunny's AM & PM Teas
What’s great about (IF) is that during the fasting window you can still drink Water, Coffee and our favorite, Tea. Skinny Bunny’s AM & PM Teas are great to drink before and after your fasting window. You don’t have to worry about breaking your fast. There are no calories in Skinny Bunny’s teas, just tons of flavor and a little sweetness added from Stevia. Try the AM blend to get your body going in the mornings. It will help fight any hunger you feel and will keep you energized. In the evenings after your last meal you can drink our PM teas as a dessert and to relax your mind and body before heading to bed!
