What IF?
What
if you could eat all your favorite foods in moderation? What if you could train
your body to burn its own fat for fuel? What if you could burn fat while you
were sleeping? What if?
Have
you ever heard of IF??? Intermittent fasting is a practice that allows your
body to burn its own fat. Instead of constantly supplying food for
energy, you allow your body a break from food and, in turn, your body burns its
stored fat for fuel and your digestive system gets some much needed “time off”.
Generally, this takes a minimum of 8 hours to utilize your food energy
and switch over to stored fat for fuel.
There
are many benefits from IF that include increased brain function, improved GI
health, and a huge surge of natural human growth hormone (HGH). Oh, and
one more really great thing....LESS FAT on your body.
Of
course, there are many variations of IF. The more extreme IF includes
fasting for up to 36 hours occasionally. Another variation is every other day.
One method is once a week. All offer health benefits as long as
your food choices are healthy, and you don't binge eat before and/or after a
fasting period.
I
know, I don't think it sounds easy, either!! I am a hungry girl who wants to
eat, enjoys eating, and quite frankly, cannot imagine going 36 hours without
eating! However, I do think we could all benefit from a modified version
of IF. We are so used to fueling our body all day long with snacks,
protein bars, etc in addition to our regular meals. We will never know what it
feels like to be starving. And our digestive system will continue to get
overworked.
Here
is what I propose...let's give IF a try! We can start by fasting through
the night. Be done with dinner and commit to only water or herbal tea
after 7pm. By the time breakfast rolls around you will have 12 hours of
fasting under your belt! Try incorporating this into your lifestyle
permanently. Your body needs rest and that includes your digestive
system.
When/if
you want to take it to the next level, the next step would be to postpone
"BREAK-FAST" until after your workout, to increase the fasting period
up to 16 hours.
For
those of you who crash every 2-3 hours and think you NEED to keep your blood
sugar up with small meals throughout the day to rev up your metabolism, I
encourage you to reevaluate your diet to see where you can make better choices.
Replace all processed foods with healthy fats like avocados, coconut oil,
olive oil, eggs, butter and nuts....in moderation!!
IF
is a great way to eliminate sugar cravings. When your body does not rely
on food for energy every few hours your sugar cravings will subside. Your
body will benefit in so many ways. The key is to rewire your thought
process....think of fasting as taking a break from eating not a period of
deprivation.
What IF it was that easy?
