I had the same questions when I started Intermittent Fasting a couple of years ago. I came from the mindset of needing small meals every 2–3 hours to jumpstart my metabolism.
Turns out, you metabolism is based on total calories rather than meal frequency.
If you chronically eat less than what you need you’ll lose weight and your metabolism will “slow down”. If you eat more than you need your metabolism will “speed up”.
When your metabolism “slows down” it actually becomes more efficient. It extracts more of what your body needs from the food and wastes less. In cases of famine this is verrryyyy helpful.
On the other side of that coin, when food is in a surplus your metabolism becomes less efficient and you waste more.
But let’s get back into fasting…
A popular way now-a-days to fast is Intermittent Fasting. Intermittent Fasting (IF) simply is having a timed window of eating and fasting. Have you ever slept through the whole night without eating? That is more or less IF on a micro scale.
Arguably the most popular method of IF, the Lean Gains Method, is fasting for a minimum of 16 hours and using the rest of the day to eat. The fasting is typically done overnight so a bulk of the fast is while you’re sleeping.
On the face of it, IF seems like hell. Not eating for 16 hours? Absolutely bananas.
I’ll admit it’s a paradigm shift, especially if you think like I do, but the immediate benefits far outweigh the short term mental hurdle.
BENEFITS OF IF
To fast for 16 hours there needs to be substantial benefits, IF has them in spades. I went ahead and organized them by awesomeness.
- Increase In HGH- Studies have shown that fasting can increase HGH by 5 fold! Needless to say, great for gainz.
- Increase In Testosterone– A decrease in leptin, which causes an uptick in testosterone. Also good for gainz and being a man.
- Fat Loss- An increase in growth hormone and testosterone followed by a decrease in insulin results in a “fat burning mode”. This allows for the body to readily use body fat for energy rather than carbs especially during fasting periods.
- Increase In Insulin Sensitivity- Increase sensitivity causes less insulin to be released when consuming carbohydrates. Insulin helps shuttle sugars in your blood to the cells, which if not used for energy, is converted to fat. For simplicity, less insulin equals less fat storage. If you have Type 2 Diabetes take note.
- Convenience- Worrying about two meals is a lot less stressful than 6-7 small meals. Plus, if you are going out to eat it’s a lot easier to find something to eat since you are allowed a higher calorie allotment per meal.
- Cellular Repair- During a fast the cells in your body go through a “waste cleanup”. Damage to the cells is fixed. Damage to the cells can cause different diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
In the last few years there’s been a ton of research on all the health benefits but in terms of fat loss, for me, it’s one of the best methods out there. Even by just going with a 12 hour fasting and feeding window you limit the amount of calories you take in for that day. Over time, that equals weight loss.
Thanks for Reading 🙏
0 Comments