Perhaps you’ve heard of intermittent fasting as it has been quickly gaining traction. Most Americans struggle with issues such as excess fat, low energy, and imbalanced blood sugar.

Did you know this one simple and free technique can help combat all this and more? You can start tomorrow!

Intermittent fasting is not a tough 4 or 5 day fast but a fast of mere hours; 12-24 hours to be exact.

Many studies are measuring the physiological changes in the body with fasting. This means consuming nothing but water, coffee or herbal tea between the time of your last meal of the day and your first meal of the following day, and therefore eating only during specific hours each day. Or only one meal a day. This should be set times to gain the most benefit.

Intermittent fasting alone has been shown to better regulate blood glucose and lipids, thereby shedding pounds, as well as having anti-aging and increased energy level benefits. It does not put the body in full blown cell autophagy (the bad cells getting eaten by the good cells),  but it does help reset and restore the body since it is not focusing all of its energy on digestion throughout the day.

You might not start out with the will power to abstain from food for 3-5 days to reach cell autophagy, but could you do one meal a day?   It an adjustment for sure, since one cannot just eat whenever they feel like it.

To ease into this lifestyle, there are some simple steps to take.

First, you need to know what your average eating window is. Do you eat all day long from wake to bedtime? Do you only eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day? Or maybe you only eat lunch and dinner, but knowing is the first step.

Once you have the awareness of this, begin with omitting one meal or snack per day, for a week. Or try decreasing the window of time that you eat each day for a week.

Whichever way you choose, begin increasing this steadily until your desired fasting time is reached. Please do not fill up on junk foods and fast foods! It’s important to eat nutritious meals.

Here’s an example for a person who currently eats all day from 8am to 8pm right before bedtime. (8am breakfast, 11am lunch, 3pm snack, 6pm dinner, 8pm snack before bed)

• If your goal is to eventually get to one meal a day, then you could start intermittent fasting by skipping morning breakfast for a week, then skipping breakfast and lunch for the second week, and gradually skipping additional meals/snacks over time, until you reach one meal a day at dinner time.
• Alternatively, if your goal is to reduce the amount of hours that you eat each day (eating more than one meal a day during specific hours)- say to 6 hours per day, then reduce the hours you eat gradually each week. In the example, you currently eat from 8am to 8pm (12 hours total) so the first week try to decrease to 9am-7pm (10 hours total). The second week 10am to 6pm (8 hours total) and so forth until you reach your desired 6 hour time frame.

It’s ok to have coffee, tea, or water during the fasting periods, just don’t over do it on the coffee or tea! Be sure to get plenty of water! Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the U.S. and studies of intermittent fasting have found benefit for cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, cancers and even neurological conditions.

Give it a try and see how much you can gain by losing with intermittent fasting! Contact us for more support on your wellness journey.