Intermittent Fasting for Better Health and Weight Loss

One of the intentions of last weeks Nourishing Foods Cleanse was to balance blood sugar. In order to have balanced blood sugar you have to be a good fat burner. Burning fat is not just about weight, it is necessary for good health. When you burn fat as your primary source of fuel you have long sustained energy instead of the short bursts you get from sugars or carbohydrates. This week of cleansing has helped us all become good fat burners so we have balanced blood sugar. Shan S, United Kingdom says…

“I am thrilled that my my blood sugar levels have not once dropped to the frightening low of limp physical and mental exhaustion. So thank you…your nutritional advice has been a genuine answer to a real prayer. After a long period of fitful nights, I had my first full night of sleep last night.”

Balanced blood sugar means better willpower and decision making not to mention a happier, healthier body!

Also when you burn fat you rid the body of toxic chemicals. Unfortunately many toxins enter your body each day. Your body surrounds these toxins with fat to protect you from damage. If you have trouble losing weight it may be because of the toxins stored in your fat cells that your body is unable to burn off. The problem is many of us have lost the ability to burn fat effectively and are chronically storing fat and gaining weight.

Once fat is restored as an active fuel supply you will have:

• Better Energy
• More Stable Moods
• Greater Mental Clarity
• Better Sleep
• Less Cravings

How do you restore your body’s natural fat burning ability for balanced blood sugar?

One of the best ways is intermittent fasting. I know the idea of fasting for any length of time is a bit scary for all of us. Before you freak out, let me explain what I mean. This is a gentle approach.

The version of intermittent fasting I recommend and personally use is to simply restrict your daily eating to a specific window of time, such as an 8-12 hour window. This may take some time to get use to, but once your body has shifted over from burning sugar to burning fat as it primary source of fuel, it is really easy to do.

We are biologically designed to endure long periods of time without food. 

Studies have shown going for 12-16 hours without food provides many benefits including the following:

• Stabilize your insulin sensitivity:When sugar is your source of energy you often wind up with insulin resistance. Constant sugar in your blood stream causes insulin to be pumped out regularly to clean up the insulin. When you always have sugar in your bloodstream, the body produces insulin, but the cells in the body become resistant to insulin and are unable to use it effectively,  When people have insulin resistance, glucose builds up in the blood instead of being absorbed by the cells, This leads to problems like, belly fat, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.By taking time each day without any food your body starts burning fat for fuel.
• Normalize leptin levels: Leptin is the “satiety hormone”. Leptin is a hormone, made by fat cells, that decreases your appetite. Not enough leptin causes you to be hungry .
• Normalize ghrelin levels: Ghrelin is known as the “hunger hormone”. Ghrelin is a hormone that increases appetite, and also plays a role in body weight. Too much ghrelin makes you feel hungry.
• Increase production of HGH (human growth hormone): Research has shown fasting for 12-16 hours can raise HGH as much as 1300% in women and 2000% in men. HGH plays an important role in our health and vitality and slows the aging process. It also is a fat-burning hormone.
• Lowers triglyceride levels.
• Reduces oxidative stress: Intermittent fasting decreases the accumulation of free radicals and therefore prevents oxidative damage associated with aging and disease.

Intermittent fasting helps reset your body to use fat as its primary fuel. The research confirms that when your body becomes adapted to burning FAT instead of sugar as its primary fuel, your “hunger hormones” come back into balance.

What if you have a sweet tooth? Many people say they crave sweets in the evening. What I recommend is make sure your dinner is large enough to satisfy you. Have your dinner be nutrient dense with good protein, healthy fat and fiber. You ideally want your plate to be 70% vegetables and 30% clean protein, healthy fat and low glycemic carbohydrates. If you find yourself with cravings a few hours after dinner have something with fat in it. Macadamia nuts, coconut butter, almond butter are good choices. Have just a little bit to carry you through, then the next day eat a larger dinner.

Satchidanada Panda, an associate professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego believes the time you eat your food influences your body’s internal clock and affects your circadian rhythms. Your circadian rhythm affects the function of many genes in the body that are known to involve metabolism.Click to read about the study.

There are other steps you can take to become a good fat burner but this is where I recommend you start. It is one of the easiest intermittent fasting schedules to implement.

It may take a few weeks to shift to burning fat instead of sugar. Once you do you will be amazed how your cravings for sweets and carbs subside. 

This is because you’re now actually able to burn your stored fat and don’t have to rely on fast burning sugar for fuel.

Start counting at the hour you have your morning beverage.  Add healthy fat into your morning beverage to feed your brain and get your metabolism going.  Try Bulletproof Coffee or the White Chocolate Matcha Latte.