FASTING..what exactly do you mean?

How “Scheduled Eating” Can Promote General Health and Longevity

What Exactly is a Fast?   

“A fast is considered to start about 10 to 12 

hours after a meal, when you have used up all 

the available glucose in your blood and start 

converting glycogen stored in liver and muscle

 cells into glucose to use for energy. If the fast

continues, there is a gradual move toward

breaking down stored body fat, (and the liver

 produces 'ketone bodies,' short molecules that 

are byproducts of the breakdown of fatty acids.)

These can be used by the brain as fuel.”

                            Mark Mattson at the National Institute on Aging Washington Post

Growing evidence indicates that both fasting and exercise trigger genes and growth factors that recycle and rejuvenate your brain and muscle tissues.

Give Intermittent Fasting a Try

Consider skipping breakfast eat lunch and dinner and make sure you stop eating three hours before you go to sleep, so you’re eating within an 8-hour time frame every day. In the 6-8 hours that you do eat, you want to have healthy protein, minimize your carbs like pasta and bread and potatoes and exchange them for HEALTHY fats like butter, eggs, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil and nuts. The type of fats the media and “experts" tell you to avoid.

This will help shift you to fat burning mode from carb burning mode. Remember it takes a few weeks, and you have to do it gradually, but once you succeed to switch to fat burning mode, you will be easily able to fast for 18 hours and not feel hungry. Your cravings for sugar will magically disappear and it will be much easier to achieve your ideal weight.

The other “magical” benefit that occurs is that you will radically improve the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Why is this a good thing? Because supporting healthy gut bacteria, which actually outnumber your cells 10 to one—is one of the most important things you can do to improve your immune system so you won’t get sick, or get coughs, colds and flus. You will sleep better, have more energy, have increased mental clarity and concentrate better. Essentially every aspect of your health will improve.

Aside from removing your cravings for sugar and snack foods, melting the pounds of excess fat away, and making it far easier to maintain a healthy body weight, modern science has also confirmed there are many other good reasons to fast intermittently, such as:

• Normalizing your insulin and leptin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health as insulin resistance (which is what you get when your insulin sensitivity plummets) is a primary contributing factor to nearly all chronic disease, from diabetes to heart disease and even cancer
• Normalizing ghrelin levels, also known as "the hunger hormone"
• Promoting human growth hormone (HGH) production, which plays an important part in health, fitness and slowing the aging process
• Lowering triglyceride levels
• Reducing inflammation and lessening free radical damage