Intermittent Fasting

A great thing has happened in my life!  I saw a commercial for Dell where you can buy a laptop and get a free TV, so Justin and I decided to just go for it, let's get a new laptop.  The old one works okay-ish, it's just super slow and frustrating when I try to use it for photo editing and whatnot.  So the new laptop came, the old one moved to my office, and now during my freetime at work I can finally BLOG again!!  I'm so happy!  I've missed this so much, but at home there are things higher on my priority list than sitting at the computer typing my thoughts about healthy lifestyles.  For instance, actually living the healthy lifestyle I talk about is important.  Instilling that in my kids, teaching them about good food and natural healing, staying healthy and what to do to take care of your body when you do get sick.  I grew up with a natural healing mindset, and that's why I have a broad spectrum of knowledge on it today.  I want that same thing for my kids.

Anyway!  Gosh, so much has happened since I last blogged... We took a family vacation to Myrtle Beach, we went camping, Justin and I ran our first official 5k in two years, and in the meantime I've been really encouraging Harlee's interest in cooking, too, as my Facebook friends have probably noticed with all the "Chef Harlee" videos ^_^.  I've tried and invented new recipes, learned new bits of information, discovered new remedies, so it's hard to narrow down my list of things to share on this blog and choose just one for this post.  I figured I'd just follow up with my last post, in which I mentioned intermittent fasting.  Then I'll go from there!

Intermittent Fasting

I've been giving the intermittent fasting thing a try, and I must say I'm sold.  There is a lot of information out there to back up why it's so effective, and according to my results, I'd say it's working.  I wanted to be sure to share this information with you and tell you about my experience.  Because, guess what?  It's a super easy way to lose weight!  Who doesn't want that??  But there are more important things to it than just losing weight, which makes it even better.

Here's the article from The Paleo Mom that I shared in my last post (I may have talked about Sarah, "The Paleo Mom" before, but I'll just briefly mention that I love her articles, she takes a very unbiased, scientific approach to things, backing her work with tons of research, and she's got an impressive educational background to support it).  I'll share a few tidbits from that article in this post.

What Is It?

Intermittent fasting is a way of scheduling your eating, rather than a diet.  You can still consume your normal amount of calories, just in a different time span, and you'd fast the rest of the time.  This doesn't have to be done daily, but you can.  The most beneficial amount of time to go on a fast is between 16 and 24 hours.  It takes anywhere from 6-12 hours for your body to completely deplete its glycogen, or stored sugar.  So if you eat three meals a day, your body never depletes its glycogen, and you're constantly burning that as your fuel rather than being able to switch to your body to burning fat as fuel.  Of course there are a lot of other elements to this, such as what you eat as well as when you eat (like restricting your carb and sugar intake to switch into fat burning mode).  But I'm finding that IF-ing is a super easy way to switch your body into burning fat for fuel.

For most people, the easiest way to fast is to simply skip breakfast.  For example, you finish eating dinner at 8pm, and you don't eat again until noon the next day, which would be 16 hours later (nearly twice as long as it takes you to deplete your glycogen).  If you want to go the full 24 hours, you won't eat again until 8pm the next day.  Or you can skip dinner, and stop eating after lunch at noon and start eating again at noon the next day.  You can tailor it to your lifestyle, which is one of the many nice things about IF-ing!

Now, if 16 hours is plenty to get your body to burn energy from your fat stores, why would you go a full 24 hours?  Well, there are a ton more benefits than just weight loss and fat burning.

How Does it Work?

Let's get all sciency!  What's going on in the body when we eat?  So as I already explained, it can take 6-12 hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores and burn it up before it can start burning fat.  So your body will burn energy from your blood stream - aka the food you just ate - before it'll burn your fat.  If you ate a lot of carbs/sugar, it'll burn that up first.  That's why it's hard to lose weight if you consume a lot of carbs/sugar.  And if you keep replenishing your glycogen by eating frequently, it's harder for your body to burn your fat as fuel.

However, if you're fasting, your body doesn't have any food to burn energy from, so it automatically burns from your fat stores.  Yay!

If you want to look at this on a cellular level, you'll see a process called "autophagy", which is when a starving cell breaks down its own components (including damaged elements of the cell) to fuel more important cell processes.  Autophagy has many benefits such as destroying viruses and bacteria, or helping the cell identify a viral infection, or even preventing cells from becoming cancerous!  I think I like that even better then the weight loss!

More Benefits  

Now that you know how it works on a basic level and a scientific level, let's list some of the benefits of intermittent fasting (copied from the Paleo Mom article):

1. Increase lifespan. 
2. Increase insulin sensitivity, which can result in an increase in insulin signaling in the brain which is thought to be how fasting/calorie restriction works to increase lifespan.
3. Lower blood lipids, triglycerides and other markers of metabolic syndrome.
4. Fight/prevent cancer.  There is also some evidence that fasting before chemotherapy treatments can help reduce the negative side effects. 
5. Increase growth hormone secretion (which builds muscle and burns fat).
6. Normalize expression of the hunger hormone ghrelin, thereby reducing appetite.
7. Promote brain and peripheral nervous system health which can result in boosting the mood, memory, and mental clarity.
8. Increase dopamine production, meaning we get more enjoyment from less food. 
9. Increase energy through regulating metabolic hormones.

And one of my favorites: Intermittent Fasting is a little like hitting a reset button.  It can help curb sugar cravings, restore energy, and even promote deeper sleep.

Guess what?  I've experienced a lot of these benefits.  My hunger and appetite have been curbed and I'm less interested in food, I've been sleeping amazingly well and I feel so refreshed in the morning, I'm less and less interested in sweets the more I try fasting, and I've been feeling overall GOOD.  Plus, I've been losing weight without losing strength.

Another thing I like about it is that it's an easy way to restrict calories in a day.  Calorie restriction has been proven to have TONS of benefits, but it's next to impossible to stick with as hunger is a basic human function that's hard to override, when you cut your meals down to smaller sizes, that'll probably drive most of you crazy.  With intermittent fasting, you eat normal-sized meals, but in smaller windows of time (such as skipping breakfast as mentioned above). Here's a little more information about all that.

Why It Makes Sense to Me

Since discovering Paleo, I feel like I've compared everything to "the caveman days".  Not that I know exactly what those days were like - for instance they probably ate bugs, and I'm not real keen on that idea, and they very well could have eaten grains, which the modern Paleo diet says they didn't.  Another example is that if I were a cavewoman, and I found a peanut, I'd eat the peanut.  Modern Paleo is against peanuts.  There's a lot of gray area, and I just kind of hang out in that gray area rather than go full-blown strict with it.  But there are a lot of elements that make sense, like eating what's available to us through nature, because that's what our bodies were designed to consume from day one.  That, to me, is the focal point of Paleo.  Intermittent fasting fits very will with the Paleo lifestyle, because I'm sure our primal ancestors didn't schedule specific mealtimes and eat around the clock.  They ate depending on what was available to them, and that may have meant going without eating for spans of time depending on the success of their hunt or what they gathered or foraged.  Our bodies would have had to be able to still function in a fasting state - we'd have been in big trouble if it was necessary to our health to eat constantly throughout the day.

Where I'm At on my IF Journey

So far, I've loved my experience with IF-ing.  It took a little bit of growth and self-awareness to get to a good place with it, though.  One of my pain issues has been junk food.  I have definitely noticed that I don't crave sweets nearly as much, if at all, when I'm fasting, but that craving isn't gone permanently.  During my research to learn more about the health benefits of IF, I came across this article, which was full of good information but also a bad statement:

It’s with an intermittent fasting protocol that I feel you really can have your cake and eat it too. You need to be strict with the timing aspect, but besides that I’ve found you can eat a lot more of the foods you love but “should” abstain from on a daily basis.

Yes. Daily. (I’m not saying you should go and eat McDonalds every day, but treats can certainly be included).

I latched onto that and started using IF as a crutch.  I'm human, and I'm not going to hold back the negative details from you!  I started learning about IF around spring/early summer.  We had lots of picnics and parties and holidays and therefore lots of bad food.  I got excited when I read the article I just mentioned because it basically said it was okay to eat that stuff, I'd just have to fast before or after doing it to deflect the negative consequences.

It took a few times of feeling like absolute crap after eating junk (tired, fatigued, run-down, foggy brain, etc.), regardless of the fasting, to remember that I'm on a health journey here.  I'm in this for the long haul.  I want to keep my body healthy, and not only look good but feel good.  Paleo has become a lifestyle for me, and I want to keep it that way.  I think it's okay to indulge on treats every great once in awhile, but not make it a habit, and definitely not make excuses for it by fasting around it.

So now, at this point in my journey, I'm being careful with it.  Yes, if we wind up going out and I overindulge on not-so-healthy food, I will fast afterward to help my body along.  But I'm careful with my mindset - it's not an excuse to eat junk, and I'm not going to make a habit of it.  However I am human, and sometimes I just want to taste junk food.  Otherwise, I fast when it's convenient.  I don't do it daily, but usually 2-3 times a week.  Sometimes I'm rushed in the morning and it's just easier if I don't have to think about my own breakfast, then I wind up waiting until lunch to eat.  I've been continuing to lose weight, inches, and body fat, so whatever I'm doing is working for me.

Is This For You?

Intermittent fasting is not for everyone!  If you have a health concern, like diabetes or hypertension or whatnot, you should probably talk with a health care professional first (preferably someone with an open, holistic mindset!).  Especially if you have a blood sugar-related disease, IF-ing isn't for you.  Of course if you're pregnant or nursing, you should hold off on trying it as well.  Also, if you're happy with where you're at in life, your current diet and exercise plan is working great for you, and your body and health is right where you want it, then you probably don't need to mess with IF.  Though according to the research, a good 24-hour fast a few times a year may not be a bad idea!

Also, I came across a couple articles about how IF-ing may not be the best thing for women.  I haven't found any issues while trying it, but it's worth mentioning too.

Here's a very good article about possible health concerns regarding women and IF-ing:  http://paleoforwomen.com/shattering-the-myth-of-fasting-for-women-a-review-of-female-specific-responses-to-fasting-in-the-literature/

And here's a very interesting story about one woman's demise with IF-ing: http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/reviews/how-intermittent-fasting-saved-mewhile-slowly-killing-me/

I'm sharing that with you because it's not a perfect approach.  Yes, it can be "too good to be true", especially if used incorrectly.  I could have wound up where Kaleigh, the author of the last article I just shared, wound up.  Luckily I had a wake-up call before it got out of control.

Be Smart

Don't obsess over it.  LISTEN TO YOUR BODY.  That's the number one important thing!  Nourish your body with healthy foods found in nature, not processed junk from factories.  Fasting can have wonderful health benefits, if you're doing it with the right intentions and the right goals.

I'm going to stick with this IF lifestyle, I'm really liking it!  Especially now that I feel that I'm doing it for the right reason - to obtain the health benefits from it, not six-pack abs.  I'm not fasting every day, but rather at the most convenient times throughout the week, between 1-3 times a week for 16 hours at a time, or a full 24 hours if I really feel I need a recharge (but that's only maybe once a month).  I break fast with clean, Paleo or mostly-Paleo foods, I don't binge on gigantic platefuls of food when I break fast, and I stick with clean foods throughout the days between fasting.  I try to focus on eating when I'm hungry, and stopping when I'm full.  Plain and simple.  And IF has actually helped with my stress levels too, as when I fast it usually involves skipping breakfast, which allows me more time in the morning to get the boys' breakfasts made and while they're eating I can prepare lunches for the day or get caught up on some cleaning or whatever - who doesn't like extra free time in the morning??

So I'm happy with where I am right now.  If you decide to try it, let me know what you experience!  But most of all BE SMART and BE SAFE about it.  Obsessing over it or using it as an excuse to eat poorly can ruin everything.  Make your health your priority, and find what works for you!

For more information about IF, check out this article on NerdFitnes.com, it's a good one!