Intermittent Fasting Can Work Miracles
16:8 intermittent fasting is not just for weight loss
Fasting. It has so many benefits for a healthy metabolism.
Have you tried it before?
Fasting isn’t a weird fad. It’s what our bodies have evolved to do. Throughout human history, obtaining food has been challenging.
But even though that’s still true for some parts of the world, most people in modern society can’t imagine going without a meal or two.
Humanity has always been able to go hours without eating large meals. There were no supermarkets or drive-through windows in the Stone Age.
The human body evolved to survive for a few hours, or even days, without food being crammed down its throat.
What if food abundance is one of our biggest problems?
Maybe we shouldn’t force ourselves to eat three square meals a day.
Maybe we should snack less. We don’t need to graze all day like cows.
It’s easy to put too much energy into our bodies.
Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment/ informational purposes only. Please consult a medical professional before fasting.
I’m 56, But I’m Healthier Than I Was in My 30's
Fasting is keeping me young.
I passed my last physical at the doctor with flying colors, and all of my bloodwork shows healthy levels. For a 56-year-old guy, that’s a big deal.
I have regular blood pressure.
I’m not on a single medication. Except Vitamin G (gratitude!)
I’m constantly mistaken for a man ten to fifteen years younger than my chronological age. I’m loaded with energy and feel healthier than I did in my 30s.
On special occasions, I eat breakfast. Otherwise, I will wait until noon or later.
I’m happy with my weight. I don’t count calories or pay attention to how much I eat. (But I pay attention to WHAT I eat - I keep the Frankenfoods low!)
How Does Intermittent Fasting Change Your Body?
Eating and food digestion are complicated. I won't pretend to understand the entire process. Here is a basic description of some things that happen when you use IF (Intermittent Fasting.)
Your body uses up all the readily available glucose first. The speed of this process depends on several factors. Your diet, overall condition, activity level, etc determine the exact length of time until you run out of glucose.
The glucose stored in your muscle tissue and liver gets used up. This takes, at minimum, 8 hours. If there is still food in the digestive tract, this timeline is affected, as energy and nutrients are absorbed. If you’ve got an extra full belly, it will take longer than 8 hours.
Once there is no glucose left, your body begins to break down the fat and convert it into a usable form. You are now fasting and have started to benefit from the following eight processes and effects that result from that fast.
1. Maintain Muscle While Losing the Flab
There’s evidence at PubMed.gov to show that intermittent calorie restriction conserves lean mass.
It’s widely accepted that calorie restriction alone can lead to the loss of muscle mass over time. Intermittent fasting doesn’t seem to cause this.
Dr. Jason Fung, a Canadian nephrologist and top expert on IF, has found that intermittent fasting does not result in losing all of your lean muscle mass. He wrote three books on obesity, diabetes, and fasting.
“It is virtually impossible that humans were designed to store food energy as body fat, but when food was not available, we burn muscle. This would mean that all peoples up to the 20th century following this feast-famine cycle either through periodic starvation or fasting would be almost pure fat. Instead, they were lean and strong.” — Dr. Jason Fung
I proved the truth myself. I’ve been fasting this way for four years. If I were losing muscle mass continually, I’d be weak, skinny, and near death. My arms and legs would look like sticks, and my chest would be scrawny. Instead, I’ve gained lean muscle mass through regular workouts and exercise.
2. Lower Chronic Inflammation Levels Everywhere
Are you inflamed? If your body has a hidden condition called chronic low-level inflammation, your cells are being silently damaged.
Inflammation is part of your body’s defense mechanisms. Fluids from the lymph and circulatory system are sent to an injury or an infection. It causes heat, pain, redness, and swelling at the site of an injury as your body initiates the repair process. This is natural.
But when your body enters an inflamed state and can’t get out of it for days, weeks, or months, your healthy tissues get attacked, too. This abnormal condition hurts cells, tissues, and organs. You will get DNA damage and tissue death, and be at risk for diseases like arthritis or cancer.
Due to diet or environmental factors, your body can be in a chronic, low-level state of inflammation for years. This inflammation may increase aches and pains without presenting any specific symptoms.
Three separate clinical studies have demonstrated that intermittent fasting reduces blood markers associated with inflammation. Fasting may help alleviate any undetected inflammation.
There’s a relationship between high levels of insulin in the bloodstream and inflammation. If you’re developing insulin resistance due to diet or other factors, your body will be more inflamed. But in a fasted state, insulin levels drop since there’s less glucose present, and you don’t need to release as much.
Why not reduce the risk of diabetes and low-level chronic inflammation by lowering your insulin resistance? Fasting will do that.
3. Reduce Free Radicals and Oxidative Stress
Lowering inflammation is closely linked to removing free radicals and reducing oxidative stress.
Free radicals are naturally created within your body as you break down food to produce energy or consume it directly. Smoking, chemical exposure, and fried foods will load you up with extra free radicals. These reactive molecules will bind to your cells and tissues, causing damage or oxidative stress.
Antioxidants are all about reducing free radicals. Aside from loading up on blueberries and leafy green veggies, you can use intermittent fasting to help remove these harmful molecules. One study noted that “the beneficial effects of IF and CR result from at least two mechanisms — reduced oxidative damage and increased cellular stress resistance.”
If you want to maximize the effects of any healthy foods and antioxidants from your diet or supplements, IF might be a great way to target those free radicals from both ends and really clean house.
4. Puts Cellular Repair Into Overdrive
Speaking of cleaning up, IF can help you optimize the process of autophagy. The body breaks down old cells and uses their components to build new, healthy cells. You don’t want misfolded or damaged proteins and other metabolic byproducts clogging the works.
IF increases autophagy in your body. Interesting findings from a study called Autophagy and Intermittent Fasting: the connection for cancer therapy, shows us that there’s definitely something to it.
Whenever you are full of food, a lot of your body’s resources go to digestion. Broken-down nutrients flood the bloodstream and are distributed throughout the body. Extra food gets stored as fat. Repairs go on the back burner while you deal with the inbox.
It makes sense that your body will be able to focus on junk removal and repair when it isn’t spending all of its time dealing with digestion.
Fasting = body repair time!
5. Target Visceral Fat
Belly fat is part of the picture. And what about all the fat packed around your heart and internal organs? It’s challenging to measure without a CT scan, but you can make an educated estimate based on your waist circumference and body mass index.
Visceral fat can be highly harmful, giving you a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, heart disease, and certain cancers. It’s also a big part of the chronic inflammation problem mentioned above.
It also affects your appearance. Everyone wants a smaller middle. Carrying a spare tire makes you less healthy and look less appealing. When I was bulging out of my pants, I felt terrible about how it made me look.
Intermittent Fasting can help reduce visceral fat, especially when combined with exercise and healthier eating habits.
6. Lower Your Blood Pressure and Reduce Heart Disease
According to the World Health Organization, heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide. It causes an estimated 17.9 million deaths each year. Using any tool we have to maintain our heart health makes sense.
If you lose some visceral fat, it will significantly reduce the body's load.
Imagine the extra blood flow and blood pressure required to maintain pounds of fat around your middle. The more of you there is, the harder the heart works, and the more strain there is on the entire system.
Research indicates that intermittent fasting can help lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol levels, manage diabetes, and promote weight loss. If we can accomplish all of these things, it will make our hearts healthier.
7. Live Longer
Lower your inflammation levels. Reduce free radicals. Boost autophagy. Drop a few pounds. Have a healthier heart.
There’s no doubt that if you achieve all of those things, you have a better chance of living a long, healthy life.
Compare an IF user to someone who uses the let-er-buck method of eating and has 15 pounds of fat, filling all the extra space in the body cavity. This person might be a walking time bomb with multiple diseases in an advanced state and not even know it.
With aging, nothing is guaranteed. But the odds are against you if you are overweight, have chronic inflammation due to insulin resistance, and have a massive buildup of free radicals that your body never got around to dealing with.
Intermittent fasting may not be a magic bullet, but it appears to help alleviate many of these issues, and research on both humans and animals supports this finding.
7.5 Bonus Point — Good For The Brain!
Experts think that IF can help maintain a healthy brain as you age. It has been shown to assist memory and keep cognitive abilities sharper.
More than a few neurosurgeons recommend IF as the best diet for mental sharpness. For more information, have a look at Life Lessons From a Brain Surgeon.
“I recommend it for anyone who wants to improve their mood and hit peak cognition.” — Rahul Jandial, MD, PhD
There is a lot of data from studies showing a reduced risk of neurological disorders. IF might help mitigate Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke. It makes sense that your brain will work better if the rest of you is in better shape because of intermittent fasting.
Intermittent Fasting Can Be Convenient and Easy
This isn’t as much about what you eat as when you eat.
A 16:8 intermittent fasting eating plan means you will eat all your food in an 8-hour window. For convenience, most IF users skip breakfast and start eating at noon. Then, we close the food window at 8:00 PM and reopen it at lunchtime the next day.
Skipping supper and breaking your fast at breakfast might be as effective, but it’s hard to align with our lives. If you skip evening eating, you miss out on a chance for social contact during meals. The social aspect is why most restaurants focus on supper, not breakfast.
Use This Simple Plan to Try 16:8 Intermittent Fasting Yourself
Decide on a frequency to try this method of eating. You could start with once or twice per week before considering making it an everyday habit to see how it fits best in your schedule.
Pick an eight-hour eating window. Many people choose the time from noon to 8:00 PM. Some go from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. There is evidence to suggest that starting earlier in the day is beneficial. But for most of us, having a long gap between dinner and bedtime will mean lots of temptation and snacking opportunities, so you might prefer to eat later in the day.
To maximize the benefits of your fasting, choose a variety of healthy food options. Use most of your eating window for veggies, fruit, lean protein, and whole grains. If you eat the right foods first, you’ll be less hungry for what you know you shouldn’t eat, like giant sacks of Oreos or potato chips.
When you are in the fasting window, drink plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration and headaches. Start with plain water. Herbal tea, black coffee, or fruit-infused water are also great options to keep your stomach empty between meals. Remember, fruit juice has a lot of calories, so it can break your fast.
A hot drink, such as tea, black coffee, or herbal tea, is a great way to curb hunger. Remember not to add cream or sugar, and end your fast before the eating window.
Substack Fasting Posts
Here are a couple of fellow Substackers who talk about fasting.
Books About Fasting
The Complete Guide to Fasting (Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting) by Dr. Jason Fung, with 4.7/ 5 stars and 9,682 ratings on Amazon.
The FastDiet — Revised & Updated: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting, by Michael Mosley, with 4.3/ 5 stars and 9,387 ratings on amazon.
Eat Stop Eat: Intermittent Fasting for Health and Weight Loss, by Brad Pilon, with 4.3/ 5 stars and 654 ratings on amazon.
Reasons to Fast:
Maintain muscle while losing unwanted weight and becoming a lean, mean, life-loving machine!
Lower chronic inflammation levels that are causing you to feel bloated and unwell.
Reduce free radicals that are running rampant, smashing DNA.
Boost the autophagy process to eliminate the cellular debris within you.
Get rid of visceral fat that is packed around your internal organs, quietly choking the life out of you.
Reduce your risk of heart disease.
Live a longer, healthier life and outlast the losers.
Keep your brain in top shape so you can outsmart the corporate bullshit!
If you tried intermittent fasting, how did it go? I’d love to hear your story.
I intermittent fast intermittently. I skip breakfast if I wake up and am not hungry, and since I try to walk early in the morning, I do that in a fasted state. I’ve read that fasting is supposedly stressful for women, but I’ve never noticed any effect. It helps to be keto adapted before trying it because that takes ‘hangry’ out of the picture.
Great article, going deep on this topic, Tim.
Very relevant to me after almost 5 years of intermittent fasting. Makes getting in enough protein a little challenging, but doable with a protein based snack.