HELPS YOU LOSE WEIGHT
One of the best benefits of fasting is the fact that you lose weight. It’s only natural that when you reduce your caloric intake, the pounds will go down.
I lost 50 pounds doing intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is when you fast part of the time, and you eat part of the time. You can also do a long fast.
I chose Monday’s and Thursday’s to drink nothing but water. Those were my fast days. The other five days a week I would eat normally. They call this the 5:2 fast. But there are many other types of fasts as well that can help you lose weight.
The thing about intermittent fasting is that it’s not just a quick fix for weight loss. It is a way of life. It’s not a diet either, but rather a different way of eating.
I chose to do this for life and I don’t feel deprived. I figured rather than eating like a bird every day, I would rather cut calories part of the time. To me that just makes sense.
Intermittent fasting is a method of eating that will help you sustain weight loss long term. Other forms of diets are not as sustainable because you deprive yourself of a certain food group.
With intermittent fasting, you don’t have to deprive yourself of any food group. In fact, it is better if you allow all the food groups. Yes, you want to eat healthily. You want to choose foods that will benefit your body, but you don’t have to eliminate an entire food group .
If you eliminate an entire food group, you will eventually go back to it. Once that happens, you will regain any weight that you’ve lost and then some. That’s why diets don’t work.
That’s why this isn’t a diet.
If you take anything away, human nature is to crave it. Take for example a teenager. If you tell a teenager they can’t have a beer, nine times out of 10 they will become curious and do that very thing that you told them not to do.
Our eating habits are quite similar. If you eliminate ice cream from your diet in order to lose weight, that decision must be for life. Imagine never ever again having an ice cream cone.
Some might say they would never miss it. Others may. I know for a fact that I would want to have an ice cream cone with my grandchild on a hot summer day. So I won’t be eliminating anything like that.
Intermittent fasting gives you weight loss benefits, but you have to be smart about it. You have to do it for the long-term otherwise it won’t work.
You don’t want to lose all the weight just to gain it all back.
SIMPLIFIES YOUR LIFE
Why should you fast? Because it simplifies your life. You don’t have to worry about what your next meal will be. You don’t have to plan out your lunches for the week.
You don’t have to waste time and hours of meal prep. You become a minimalistic person when it comes to food. Often times you just need to worry about one meal.
Since losing 50 pounds, I have adopted the OMAD way of life. That is a form of intermittent fasting where you eat only one meal a day.
I only have to worry about supper. I only have to cook one meal. I don’t have to slave in the kitchen for hours.
Intermittent fasting keeps my life simple, not only in the kitchen but at work as well. When other people are eating lunch, I just go out for a walk.
I find that because I don’t have to concentrate on food during the day, I have a lot more free time. I’m getting a lot more done than when I eat all day.
Fasting also brings simplicity to your health. When you eat, your digestive system is continuously working. Your liver, your kidneys, your stomach, all work to process the food you eat every day.
With a fasting lifestyle, you give your body a break. When no food enters the digestive system, it gets a break. Rest is simple.
We all need simple.
HELPS YOU CONTROL FOOD
Before I started intermittent fasting, food controlled me. When my belly growled, I grabbed a snack. When I looked at food, it had this control over me that I couldn’t resist.
Food told me when I was hungry. Food told me that I needed more. It had a hold on me that I couldn’t break.
Food makes me fat.
When we let food take the reins we start to overeat. We believe it when it tells us we aren’t full yet. We believe it when it tells us that we need to have a second plate.
As I started intermittent fasting, I became wise. I became wise to the dirty, cheating, lying, tactics of this thing we call food.
It became less and less of a threat.
I realized that I could control food. I could control my cravings. I could control how much I had. And I could control when I needed to eat.
When I discovered this life-altering thing, I started to look at food differently. I started to control food instead of it control me.
Once you gain that knowledge it becomes easier and easier to lose weight and to maintain it. Not only that, but the self-discipline that you learn along the way gives you the best life skill you could ever learn.
If you can control food, imagine what else you can control.
MAKES YOU YOUNGER
Fasting makes you younger. Your skin changes. Your wrinkles subside. Your youthful glow finds its way back from the brink.
When I started intermittent fasting, my friends noticed a change in my face. Not only did I look thinner, but I looked younger. They told me so.
After doing intermittent fasting for over five years, I can honestly say that I feel younger than I did 20 years ago.
Fasting clearly is the fountain of youth and needs to be explored a great deal more.
FIXES DAMAGED CELLS
During the fasting process, something happens to our cells. This thing called autophagy takes place in our bodies, regenerating our cells.
Autophagy is the process whereby good cells deliberately go on the hunt for bad cells and eat them. Yes, eat them!
New healthy cells form in our bodies when we do intermittent fasting. It’s like a natural fix-it solution. Imagine all the bad damaged cells in your body being replaced by new ones.
How clever is that!
HEALS THE GUT
Because digestion is halted when you do intermittent fasting, it gives our gut a chance to heal.
Many things can go wrong when we start shovelling in all kinds of contaminated food throughout our lives. Toxins build up and damage gut flora causing disease.
I used to struggle with on and off constipation and diarrhea. Sometimes all in one day. You see, as you age and your hormones deplete, things don’t work like they used to.
One of the first things to go in men and women as you age, is bowel regularity. Sure, we can offset that by eating foods that are rich in plant estrogen like flaxseed. But why not just give our gut a break so it can heal?
Since I’ve been living the intermittent fasting lifestyle, I have noticed some changes in my gut. I no longer struggle with that on and off constipation diarrhea thing anymore.
My bowels are very regular now.
And when you fix your gut problems you fix other things because we all know that the immune system lives in the gut.
BOOSTS YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM
One of the reasons that intermittent fasting boosts your immune system is that it heals your gut issues.
If you can heal your gut, then your immune system gets an incredible boost.
Studies say that fasting anywhere from 3 to 5 days will completely restore your entire immune system. That’s like rebooting your iPhone.
When we do that, most health problems go away.
We need to shout that simple fact from the rooftops. If more people could understand the analogy of rebooting your iPhone to rebooting your immune system, they would jump on the intermittent fasting bandwagon immediately.
PREVENTS DISEASE
Because intermittent fasting allows your digestive system time to rest and heal, resulting in a reboot to your immune system, many diseases are prevented.
Harvard studies prove that intermittent fasting may prevent heart disease, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s, skin ailments, high cholesterol, and many more diseases.
It’s unbelievable how many benefits there are with the intermittent fasting lifestyle. The question shouldn’t be, “Why fast?” The question should be, “How do I get started?”
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For further information, go to the Hungry Old Lady Youtube channel by clicking on the video at the end. I hope you enjoyed this article and consider living an intermittent fasting lifestyle.
