WHAT IS INTERMITTENT FASTING?
There’s no one correct way to do intermittent fasting. However, one of the most popular version of the diet seems to be the following: you fast for 16 hours of the day, and have 8 hours to consume your meals. This is called the 16/8 diet. There also are other forms of IF, such as fasting for 24 consecutive hours a few times a week, but since the 16/8 seems to be the one people want to follow, let’s keep our focus here. Therefore, when I’m talking about intermittent fasting, I mean the 16/8 diet.
WHY PEOPLE START INTERMITTENT FASTING?
People have different reasons to start intermittent fasting, but oftentimes people tend to try the diet in order to lose weight, control their appetite or they just enjoy fewer, but larger meals instead of more smaller meals.
WHAT CAN YOU EAT WHEN YOU’RE DOING INTERMITTENT FASTING? WHEN?
Intermittent fasting isn’t a typical diet where you have a list of foods you can and cannot eat. Instead, intermittent fasting is all about when can you eat. Let’s say that you’ll stop eating at 9 PM. This means that you’ll break your fast at 1 PM the following day. During the fast it’s OK to drink water, but not to eat anything. Nonetheless, the idea is not to stuff your face with cake and chocolate the whole 8 hours, but rather to consume larger, more filling meals.
PROS & CONS
Studies have shown positive health effects, such as reduced blood pressure and lowered cholesterol, to intermittent fasting, despite skipping “the most important meal of the day” (breakfast). However, intermittent fasting isn’t made for everyone. If you have a long-term illness (e.g. diabetes mellitus), adopting this kind of lifestyle may not be the best choice. Moreover, intermittent fasting isn’t usually recommended for children or adolescents, but let’s remember that everyone is an individual.
Intermittent fasting has become a widespread way of living, especially during this decade. Combing the previous with the fact that most of the studies on intermittent fasting focus solely on one form of the diet, the amount of data, especially on long-term effects, is lacking. All the same, intermittent fasting most likely will work for you if you find it fitting to your lifestyle and enjoy it. On the other hand, if you wake up hungry at 6 AM and hate the idea of fasting, this one probably isn’t the one for you.
Have you tried intermittent fasting, and if you have, how do/did you find it? I'd love to hear your experience!
-Jasmin ❤
Hey @jasmink I just posted a blog and video where I tried intermittent fasting for a week. Would love to know what you think!
https://steemit.com/health/@skylife/we-tried-intermittent-fasting-for-one-week
Seems interesting, I'll go check it out right away! 😊
I'm pretty much an intermittent faster of a few years now simply by not eating breakfast. Never really liked eating in the mornings because a) I wasn't really hungry b) I'd rather spend my time with sleeping than waking up to eat, lol, but that's just me.
First meal is usually at work, because of lunch hour when there's literally nothing else to do other than to eat - something light and not too much so that I don't fall into food coma in the middle of a day (that happened way too often in school, can't resist free food, haha). On a typical week day I have about an 8-10 hour eating window. On weekends or non-workdays I might start eating as late as 6PM. Sometimes I'm just so engaged with something that it would be awkward to stop eating which might cause me to break focus.
It all comes naturally to me and I don't need or want to look for an exact eating window. Also the body is very adjustable, some Youtuber had tried eating only every other day, and soon he indeed only felt hungry every other day after his body had picked up the new rhythm. So hunger itself doesn't necessarily mean you need food but has a lot to do with eating habits also.
Seems like it really works for you! It's not restrictive, but rather fits to your day-to-day life. I've always been the kind of person who needs breakfast in order to start the day properly, so intermittent fasting has been quite hard for me to understand. Only a few years ago there was no way I was able to understand how anyone could skip breakfast, but now I look at it very differently. If you aren't hungry in the morning, and feel like you don't need anything to eat, then why to do so? In addition, there also are people who start to feel nauseous from eating early in the morning...
I think this proves how well the diet/lifestyle fits for you. Probably you'd follow intermittent fasting, even if no one had created the term, since it's natural for you. But that what you said about adjusting the body also makes sense, our bodies just need time to break habits and create new ones.
Thanks for your comment, it was really nice to hear about your experience! :)
Yeah, I only discovered the term 'intermittent fasting' after I had already eaten like I do.
Hey @celestal! Was curious what youtube you were referring to! I just put up a video on YouTube and blog on steemit where I tried intermittent fasting myself. Would be curious to know how you think my experience compares the other YouTuber you were talking about.
Ahh... I can't remember anymore who it was, but I'll check out your blog about it.
Dear lovely @jasmink, thanks for sharing your great post about fasting. It is always a try worth and yes, you might feel hungry and hopefully after a while the feeling is gone. Let´s say having a day with not eating isn´t bad, more the opposite, because your machine (body) needs the time without food to have the energy left to work on other parts, like cleansing. After that time, even if you just start fasting with just 3 days, gives you the opportunity to get a new view to the amount you normally eat, how often and how long are your breaks between the meals. I´m totally agree with you, that everyone is different and should just find out their own rythm in fasting. To your answer, yes the first fasting is interesting and a new experience for this person, right? My first wasn´t for example 21 days. No, and that´s okay! You are doing it for you, not for someone else. So, allow yourself to choose the time you woul like to take for the first time. In my case, it was a week, so 7 days. To your post belongs, intermediate fasting works fine. Just don´t eat the whole next day and start the day after at mid with a fresh pressed juice :) May it is not the exact amount of hours, however it is more the point of "not eating at a special time, and you should decide how long this short time will be!" That all honey! Think about sugar for example: Why people adding sugar? Because you would like to have something sweet, right? So, everything what is sweet works, if you don´t wanna use the typical cristal sugar for example. Get inspired of everything in life, but always create and follow your own inspiration you get out of it :)
I wish you all the best, your @diemama :)
...yes, and resteemed...
Thank you for your comment and the resteem dear @diemama! You're so right, fasting is always worth a try, but nowadays we easily see it as something bad, and hard to execute because of the overabundance of food (at least in the Western countries). Your comment really made me think about juice fast/cleansing, of which I got interested by the document Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. There are just an abundance of different fasts and ways to cleanse one's body, and they should be more disclosed. Today we're eating way too much junk and causing a lot of strain to our bodies.
One sentence of yours really hit me, "You are doing it for you, not for someone else." This is something we all should keep in mind, always! For example, if we want to fast, we should do it for our own good, and not for anyone else.
Have a lovely week! :)
You too sunshine and thanks for your great feedback. I really appreciate it!