First of all, intermittent fasting (or IF) is a lifestyle choice. It's not a fad diet, and it's nothing that was just invented by me or anyone in the last....ohhhh....thousand years? Fasting has been a natural way to heal since back to the 10,000 BC dates. Animals fast when they are sick, babies fast when they are sick....the body just doesn't want food when it knows it has other work to do in repairing and healing itself. So knowing that fasting is only a natural part of being healthy, I have made it my lifestyle choice to do....whether once a week...or in some daily manner. Below are some other reasons I choose to make IF my lifestyle.
* No more worrying about food all day - I did the 6 meals a day, cooking all weekend, packaging up meals to carry with me....and then I asked myself, is this any way to live? That and it wasn't realistic that this was something I would do or enjoy for the rest of my life, there had to be a better way to be healthy.
* I can enjoy food out with friends when I choose - So I go out and have some wings and beer on the weekends, for the most part I am never eating sugar, eat plenty of veggies and meat and only drink water. The occasional night out does not ruin my "figure" by any means.
* It's cheaper - Even though I still eat alot, I eat less overall. That and most people are usually not cooking at home so they go buy their meals. I still eat 3x a day, it's not about starving myself. But I also require less calories when I IF, so less lbs of meat to buy. All in all, saves me money!
* No bars or shakes needed - Again, saves me money. All the people out there pushing you to eat 6x a day are probably people who either sell prepackaged meals, bars or shakes (ever notice that?). Don't get me wrong, eating 6x a day can work in weight loss because the daily total cal intake is still low! There's no metabolic advantage to eating 6x vs 3x a day. Eat whole foods 3x a day and make them healthy and you will lose weight too! Plus all those bars are loaded with sugar, so how does that help insulin resistance?
* More mental clarity and concentration - This is what I notice all day long! Amazing that now just one small Americano in the AM(2 shots expresso in hot water, less caffeine than coffee) will do me fine all day. There's a reason that people who eat a huge breakfast or lunch are falling asleep hours later, because digestion takes a ton of energy.
* Performance levels are still high (if not higher) - I wouldn't have kept doing IF if I saw that the things I loved to do were negatively affected. Hence I can still play sports and lift weights, and feel great doing it.
* I want to stay healthy and live longer - Studies all over the place (you can read as many as you like on the resources page . Thanks also goes over to Chris over at Conditioning Research for helping to provide more links to studies) point to how fasting has been shown to improve insulin resistance, decrease risks for heart disease, help to prevent many other diseases, and just make the body more resistant to negative stimulus (the protective effect of fasting). Also CR studies have shown to increase lifespan, while IF is not about chronic low calories it does have the nice side benefit of being about to eat less than usual and still maintain muscle and performance (so it is CR when compared to your avg daily intake normally required).
* I can gain muscle and lose fat on less calories - Again going back to the longevity of CR in some way, the less you eat the longer you will live. Now I still want to keep my muscle or gain some more from time to time. So I have personally found that I can do this on IF, while needing way less calories than in the past. Nothing is sickening as shoving in 5000cal a day and feeling lethargic and tired all just to get bigger muscles. Not the way I want to live my life.
* I believe the only real cure is Prevention - I am not waiting around for science to say they have cured all diseases, as I don't think they will even find a cure to any in my lifetime. So it's my responsibility to take care of my own health, as health is a personal choice! Fasting is a natural way of the body to increase it's own health and reduce many risks of diseases (if not most all). There are no guarantees in life we will never get sick, but we can only take preventative measures.
* It just feels right - Back in my days of eating all day long I felt tired alot, had increasing joint pain (esp in my knees), found it harder to recover from ice hockey games, had more days of depression, look and felt more bloated. After a couple years of playing around with IF I now feel 1000x better, no longer have knee pain, can recover quicker from hockey, lost weight, have more clarity, enjoy life more....and am probably much healthier at 36 than I was at 30! This just feels natural to give my body time off from eating to take care of itself, as I don't believe we were built to just live our lives around eating.
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