Intermittent fasting (IF) is often touted as the magic-bullet fix for all sorts of things.
Want to lose weight? Try intermittent fasting. Worried about pre-diabetes? Try intermittent fasting. Desperate to stop snacking on junk in the evening? Try intermittent fasting.
It sure sounds like it’d fix up some of the issues you’re struggling with.
It appeals because it’s not a diet (and crikey knows you’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime).
It feels like it’d help you cut some calories without all the tedium and effort of calorie counting, as well as curb some janky eating habits, like late night cookie jar raids and all-evening grazing.
And you don’t mind the thought of fasting—actually it sounds quite pleasant, this idea of giving your belly a break for short periods of time.
How does intermittent fasting work?
You’re probably curious about what that “break from eating” actually does. Let’s break it down.
Picture the scene.
You just finished your lunch. 메이저사이트
As you get on with your afternoon, your body gets busy digesting and absorbing food.
It calls on insulin to help—because insulin is a hormone that shuttles nutrients where they need to go, like into your muscle and fat cells—and over the next 3-5 hours, your body turns your lunch into useful body stuff, like energy and fat and muscle and brain power.
What’s not happening here is fat burning.
After that, your body enters the post-absorptive state—your internal version of flopping on the couch in front of the fire for a post-prandial nap—where it’ll stay for 8-12 hours after you ate.
After this stage, insulin levels drop and you enter a fasted state. Now your body has the conditions it needs to burn fat.
Right now, you probably never go 12 hours without eating.
Understandably so: Food is everywhere. We are conditioned to eat at the merest prickle of hunger. And food is sometimes the only thing that brings a speck of joy into an otherwise dreary day.
By following an intermittent fasting plan, we can trigger this rare but natural fat-burning phase in a SIMPLE, straightforward way.