Ramadan provides a great opportunity to start intermittent fasting. While fasting for Ramadan you are basically doing what you have to do in intermittent fasting but just a little more extreme. If you can go through 30 days of Ramadan with ease then intermittent fasting would be a cake walk. Intermittent fasting benefits triumph over the drawback simply because of the way it is structured. Fasting is healthy, it is good for the mind and the body.
You can agree when we start fasting for Ramadan, in the beginning, it is hard. As we keep fasting it becomes easier. Fasting not only gives you heightened focus but it also reduces bloating and feeling heavy and bad. Use Ramadan as an opportunity and start intermittent fasting after it. You are already in the groove of fasting why not take it and use it to change your life.
Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle, not a diet scheme. I stand by intermittent fasting because I have seen it work wonders for a lot of people I know and myself even. In this article, I will tell you the benefits of intermittent fasting and how it all works. So, without further ado let me tell you how you can turn your life around and get the body of your dreams.
Read Also: Get the Ramadan diet chart to lose weight this Ramadan.
Intermittent Fasting Benefits
Source: Chicago health magazine
As much as you may think that fasting could not bring you many benefits, it actually does. There are a lot of benefits to intermittent fasting. Here are the number of ways of intermittent fasting upgrades your performance.
It Helps In Weight Loss
Weight loss and Intermittent fasting go hand in hand. When you fast you deplete your glycogen stores which is directly linked to fat storing and energy. Glycogen or glucose is your body main energy source and when it is depleted it goes to the next best energy source which is fat. It starts taking energy from fat cells in a process called ketosis.
Intermittent fasting increases metabolism. This is why you can see a rapid or a continuous fat loss during Ramadan and during fasting.
It helps to reduce insulin resistance
Type 2 diabetes is one of the most common diseases out there nowadays. There are 415 million people living with diabetes in the entire world. Diabetes is linked with having high blood sugar levels which increase insulin resistance. Meaning the body will be able to produce insulin more efficiently than before, which increases the blood sugar levels and causes diabetes.
Intermittent fasting is great for people with a family history of diabetes and doesn’t have it yet. It can also prove useful for diabetic patients as well. As it decreases glucose storage and allows your blood to not spike with slight sugar intake.
It keeps you mentally sharp
As you get older your brain starts to age as well. There is less blood flow to the brain and the brain volume declines. Intermittent fasting reduces this aging process and keeps your mind healthy. It Increases brain health and reduces the change of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons.
It also helps with improving memory. As you get older memory starts fading. You tend to forget things you had to do and chores you wanted to run. Intermittent fasting benefits learning as well as memory. Making it easier for you to remember and consume information.
A study conducted by the University of Montpellier found out that fasting improved depression, vigilance, and mood in the subjects tested.
It Helps You Sleep Better
When you sleep with a full stomach it becomes harder to sleep. You might have noticed how it becomes harder to sleep after you have a heavy sehri. Well similarly when we sleep after having a heavy dinner it becomes harder to doze off and it is also unhealthy. The same study mentioned above found out that the quality of sleep improved of a person that had been fasting and slept with less than a full stomach.
It reduces cholesterol levels
A study in 2010 of overweight women found that intermittent fasting reduced a lot of chronic disease’s risk markers. Which included blood pressure, reduced insulin resistance, and cholesterol.
Now that I have you convinced by telling you intermittent fasting’s benefits. Let me move on to tell you how you can start doing it right after Eid.
What Is Intermittent Fasting And How It Works?
Source: blitz your body
Intermittent fasting is pretty simple and doesn’t need to complicated as we tend to do with many things. It is just fasting for a period of time and eating for another period of time. There is a lot of ways you can fast. People even tend to fast for 24 or 48 hours but that is an advanced level fast and a tough pill to swallow in the start.
For beginners, a 16/8 protocol is recommended where you fast for 16 hours and feast for 8. It works in a simple way if you start eating at 12:00 PM then you will stop eating at 8:00 PM and fast for the rest of the time until 12:00 PM again. If you go to the office and have to wake up at 8:00 AM then you can structure it around your schedule. Remember it is completely okay to skip your breakfast, but if you want to make something healthy, check these breakfast recipes out. It helps with body composition and also with cell rejuvenation.
I recommend that you start eating at 2:00 PM and stop eating at 10:00 PM that way you get a proper window to eat and also fast for a good period of your awake time.
Now let’s discuss what you can do during a fast?
What Can You Consume During A Fast
Source: wikipedia
You can consume water as it has 0 calories and doesn’t trigger an insulin response. Same with black coffee. If you add a sweetener or a creamer to it then the fast has been broken because of the insulin response. Green tea and black tea are fine but nothing that would result in spiking your insulin.
As I said before intermittent fasting is easier than Ramadan fasting and it gives you an opportunity to start shaping your life. Intermittent fasting has a lot of benefits and figuring out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) and developing a diet through that you can easily lose fast and have the body of your dreams. Remember sleep 8 hours, work out for 45 minutes 4-5 times a week, eat healthily and with intermittent fasting, you will be closer to people setting you as a body goal.
