Intermittent fasting is a rapidly growing trend in health and wellness. There are a lot of positive health effects and a lot of evidence suggests that periods of fasting can even lead to longer life. In this article, we explore the positive health effects of intermittent fasting, the risks it may entail, and how to go about it if you’re curious to try it out for yourself.
Intermittent fasting simply means dividing the way you eat into times when you fast and times when you eat. Some of the most common, well-established methods are:
This method means that you skip breakfast (or dinner) and limit the time when you eat to eight hours, for example between 12 noon and 8 pm. In between you fast for 16 hours.
With this method, you fast for 24 hours once a week by, for example, skipping dinner one day and fasting until noon the next day.
If you’ve never tried fasting before, the 16/8 method is usually the easiest to start with. But the most important thing is always that you see how it feels and try your way to find a method that suits you.
Fasting gives our organs a well-deserved break and rest, allowing them to recover. It has several positive effects for both the body and brain, and there are indications that it can even lead to a longer life. We have listed some of the positive health effects that intermittent fasting can bring:
In general, you should avoid intermittent fasting if you are underweight or have had an eating disorder. To be on the safe side, it’s also always a good idea to consult with a doctor or nutritionist before starting a fast, so you’re sure you’re doing it in a way that suits you and your body.
There is research to suggest that intermittent fasting is not as beneficial for women as it is for men. In women, intermittent fasting has been shown to make it more difficult for the body to regulate blood sugar levels and lead to a stoppage of menstruation. As a woman, it’s good to be extra careful in that case, and pay attention to the body’s signals during intermittent fasting. Women who are trying to conceive, are pregnant, or are breastfeeding should avoid fasting altogether.
Health researchers are increasingly interested in the diets and lifestyles of our ancestors. For millions of years, humans lived on a diet that corresponds to what we call 80/10/10 today – a diet that mainly consists of flowers and leaves (80%), supplemented with fatty fruits/vegetable fats such as olives, avocados and coconuts (10%), and protein-rich peas, beans, lentils, nuts, almonds and seeds (10%).
This lifestyle still survives in some remote cultures such as Abkhazia in Georgia, Vilcabamba in Ecuador and the Hunza district in northern Pakistan. They rarely eat processed food, and those who consume dairy products do so in the form of unpasteurised milk products with the bacterial culture remaining. The people in these cultures rarely get sick, and a surprisingly large percentage of the population lives to be over 100 years old.
If you engage in intermittent fasting, it’s important to provide the body with a lot of nutrition when you do eat. So, eating a plant-based, nutritious diet with lots of vegetables, fruit, healthy fats and fibre is a good complement to intermittent fasting and at the same time contributes toward good stomach health.
References:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15640462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622429/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095528630400261Xhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17291990/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17374948/
https://academic.oup.com/geronj/article/38/1/36/570019?login=true
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