Top 5 Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting

Health Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting

Studies show that there are many health benefits of intermittent fasting, making it very useful for weight loss. Contrary to what people may think, intermittent fasting is not a diet plan.

It is an eating pattern where you alternate between periods of eating and fasting. There are three different types of intermittent fasting methods, which are:

1. The 16/8 Method: With this method, you skip breakfast each day and eat all your meals during an 8-hour feeding window, such as from 12 noon to 8 pm.
2. Eat-Stop-Eat: With this method, you go on one or two 24-hour fasts each week. For example, you fast from dinnertime one day until dinnertime the next day.
3. The 5:2 Method: With this method, you eat only 500-600 calories on two days of the week, but eat normally the other five days.

Top 5 Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting

It changes gene, cell, and hormone function.

Several things happen to your body when you fast. Your body changes your hormone levels and initiates cellular repair processes to make stored body fat readily accessible. Some of those changes include:

1. Your insulin levels drop and make it easier for your body to burn fat.
2. The levels of growth hormone in your blood may increase, enabling muscle gain and fat burning.
3. Your body induces its cellular repair processes, such as removing waste materials and toxins from its cells.

It helps you lose weight and belly fat.

Intermittent fasting makes you eat fewer meals each day. Unless you are overcompensating for those missed meals by consuming more food, you take in fewer calories.

Also, intermittent fasting lowers insulin levels and increases growth hormone levels, causing the body to break down stored fat to use for energy.

In other words, intermittent fasting reduces your calorie intake and boosts your metabolic rate, making it easier for you to lose weight and burn belly fat.

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It can lower your risk of type 2 diabetes by reducing insulin resistance.

Type 2 diabetes has been linked with increased insulin resistance. Anything that can reduce insulin resistance should be able to protect you against type 2 diabetes and lower blood sugar levels.

Due to its ability to reduce insulin resistance and blood sugar levels, intermittent fasting may reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

However, a study shows that long-term intermittent fasting may affect glucose tolerance in women but not men.

It reduces the risks of heart diseases.

Heart diseases are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Some of the risk factors for heart diseases include high blood pressure, increased blood sugar, blood triglycerides, LDL cholesterol levels, and inflammatory markers. Intermittent fasting helps to reduce all of these risk factors and improves heart health.

It reduces inflammation and oxidative stress in the body.

Oxidative stress leads to the formation of unstable molecules in the body called free radicals. These free radicals react with other important molecules in the body like DNA and protein, damaging them in the process. Free radicals also play a role in aging, cell damage, and chronic diseases. Inflammation also causes a lot of common diseases. Intermittent fasting may enhance your body’s ability to resist oxidative stress and reduce the damage caused by inflammation.