Intermittent fasting | Beneficial or Harmful

Intermittent fasting

We are in the 21st century, where world has become all about comparisons. Comparison of wealth, comparison of looks. The later has led many people go through body shaming and body insecurities. Weight imbalance is the top most concern of people in today’s world. People follow all kinds of fad diet to keep looking slim and thin, which have dragged them onto unhealthier side instead. Intermittent fasting has come as a storming boon currently which also keeps us healthy and helps control weight *feeling blessed*. So let’s get some insight of this wonderful lifestyle change. Let’s see how intermittent fasting works and benefits us.

What is intermittent fasting?

This trending way of fasting, intermittent fasting aka IF, is a kind of lifestyle change. Word intermittent means something which is not done continuously and is done at regular intervals Here you fix the hours of eating, and in the rest of hours you fast. 

Now you might be thinking that like any other newly manufactured fad diet, how do we trust this diet style? So let me tell you this isn’t a new thing. Fasting is religiously practiced by many who follow Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity or Islam. But way before these religions came in the world, when humans were not civilized. Back when humans had not developed agriculture. They would either rely on seasonal wild fruits or they would hunt. Fruits won’t be available all the time and would not suffice the population. And hunting was difficult, preys can’t be caught whenever you wish, they just elope. So this made a pattern that when they have food they eat, but in the rest of the time they fast. Even after agricultural practices had started, food was not available year long. And with no refrigerators and preservation techniques having food all day was also not possible. So unknowingly, intermittent fasting was done by our ancestors.

Today we have access to food whole year, in all seasons, at all times. Our all day sitting and snacking lifestyle is creating hell big problems. Eating more with no to little workouts have led to many health issues among us. Diabetes type 2, heart diseases, low immunity are all causes of bad lifestyle that we carry. This needs to change before the numbers of early age diseases and death reaches to high count. Intermittent fasting can make a good difference with all these current lifestyle. So lets see how to do intermittent fasting.

How to do intermittent fasting? 

There are many ways of doing intermittent fasting. But the strategy remains the same, stop eating for fixed hours of a day or a week. Do you know we all naturally do intermittent fasting? Yea, you can’t eat anything while asleep, :p . For example, you finish your dinner by 9 pm, and have breakfast at 7 am in morning; you have already done fasting for 10 hours. Now to jump into intermittent fasting, all you have to do is extend the gap between these two meals. Simple, isn’t it? 

The most commonly followed way is 16:8 type intermittent fasting. Your eating window is compressed to 8 hours so you fast for 16 hours. This seems to work for majority of people focusing on weight loss. Other than this 14:10 type is also followed by many.

eat-stop-eat type is more relaxing as well as testing. Here on one or two fixed and non consecutive days of week, you do 24 hours fast. Dinner to dinner or lunch to lunch fasting is observed in this method.

Another method is 5:2. Here unlike the other two methods, your fasting hours or eating hours are not fixed. You consume 500-600 calories on two non-consecutive days of week and remaining days are left for the usual eating.

Here it is important that to achieve betterment with intermittent fasting, you need to control what you eat even during your eating period. The main purpose of this method is to reduce calorie intake as well as compulsive eating. So mindful eating in the eating hours is important. 

Does Ayurveda supports intermittent fasting? Yes, you’ll be astonished to know that Ayurveda also supports this new trend of IF. Because it isn’t actually a new thing. Ayurveda has always promoted fasting in between two meals. One of the important rule of Ayurveda is you should let the real hunger bang on before you eat your next meal. This is fasting in between two meals. Newly followed IF only gives us fixed hours of fasting, but Ayurveda adds on the timing also. According to Ayurveda, one should take early dinner i.e. before sunset. So when you’re following IF and you take dinner let’s say at 7 o’clock in evening, so you can also take light breakfast in morning at 9 o’clock. This is because Ayurveda suggests that our digestive fire(Agni) slows down after sunset and reaches to its peak at noon. Hence lunch is supposed to be the heaviest meal of the day according to Ayurveda.

Benefits of intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle change. Once you hop on it and are settled with it, there’s no looking back. The reason behind this is, your body feels great benefits from this practice. Let’s discuss the known positive sides of IF.

Weight loss: when you stop eating for longer period of time, body does metabolic switch. After consuming all the sugar and active calories, body produces hormones and chemicals to metabolize stored fat. Hence weight loss is seen while practicing IF. 

Physical performance: intermittent fasting helps with increased Human growth hormone (HGH) production. This in turn leads to fat loss and muscle gain. This in turn gives better physical performance. Experiments have shown that people doing intermittent fasting are playing sports better.

Diabetes and obesity: Because of the metabolic switch, insulin sensitivity of the body increases. Hence insulin levels are found at lower levels in intermittent fasting followers. Low insulin levels promotes lipid metabolism and hence obesity can also be controlled with intermittent fasting.

Heart health: Utilization of fat reduces the levels of LDL aka ‘bad’ cholesterol as well as triglycerides. These are key holders for heart health, and so IF help to keep our heart healthy and happy <3.

Cancer: It is proven that fasting helps promotes cell rejuvenation. Autophagy takes place during this time, where all the unwanted debris and toxins from cells and tissues are removed. This would be helpful in preventing certain cancers also.

Mental health: Intermittent fasting calls for better control over compulsive eating behavior.  Moreover intermittent fasting promotes formation and growth of new nerve cells, that would be amazing for health of our nervous system and brain. Some research also claims that IF can also prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Long life: Studies have shown that intermittent fasting promotes new cell growth in body, hence it will be anti-aging. 

Healthy lifestyle: intermittent fasting helps ease our lifestyle healthy. Because you have restricted time of eating, there are chances that you will have less junk food, right? Moreover, IF would balance your digestive fire, giving you better gut health.

Side effects of Intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is healthy lifestyle change, but it can also show adverse effect on some people. Some of them are

Hangry feeling: In the beginning of intermittent fasting practice, you might feel too much hunger which can lead to anger issues. But trust the process, and you will learn to manage your hunger.

Fainting: if you are underweight and doing intermittent fasting, there are chances you get fainted. This is because insulin levels lowers which can cause a black out.

Irregular periods: periods in women body are very sensitive to any change that you make in your lifestyle. So intermittent fasting can cause irregularities in your menstrual cycle.

Please make a visit to your health practitioner, if any problem arises.

Can women practice Intermittent fasting?

Many health practitioners suggest that women who are trying to conceive shall avoid IF. 

Studies have shown that intermittent fasting can be helpful to women health if it is done in synchronization with their menstrual cycle. This is called as phase dependent intermittent fasting. 

In this style, as your menstrual phase changes the duration of fasting changes. 

Follicular phase- long fasting hours can be done i.e. 16 hours

Ovulatory phase- moderate  fasting hours are suggested 14-15 hours

Luteal phase and menstrual phase- fasting hours should not be more than 12 hours

Who should not do intermittent fasting?

After reading these immense health benefits of IF, anyone would be interested in hoping on to it. But it is always advisable that before starting Intermittent fasting of any type, you should have a talk with your general physician. Because there are chances that IF would not suit your body, and rather than getting benefits you end up falling sick because of it.

Doctors generally deny to IF in certain conditions. Those general conditions are as follows:

Anyone with age below 18

Pregnant women

Breastfeeding mothers

People with type 2 diabetes

People with eating disorders

Underweight people

So don’t always begin any lifestyle change after seeing others benefiting from it. Always discuss it with your doctor, get a go ahead and begin.

We hope this blog has give you a deep understanding of phenomenal Intermittent fasting. Please do it mindfully and benefit from it. We hope you like this read, if yes, then share it with someone who might find it helpful.

Stay healthy and happy.

URVI BHANUSHALI
M. Sc, Microbiology