You may have heard of intermittent fasting before but have not been totally sure about what it is or how it can benefit you. There are so many reasons to switch up your eating habits to incorporate intermittent fasting, and it doesn’t have to be super challenging either. The most popular method, where you stop eating after seven in the evening and only eat after eleven in the morning, gives your body an appropriate eight-hour window to eat the meals you want and not have to starve all day long.
Read on to see if intermittent fasting may be right for your lifestyle and to find out all the potential benefits you can get from practicing it.
Scientists have uncovered some real benefits to fasting that can make it better than following any insane diet you come across in the news today. Choosing to partake in intermittent fasting as opposed to typical calorie restriction for weight loss is said to be better for maintaining muscle mass. A study conducted by the University of Illinois found that between participants who restricted versus those who fasted, both groups effectively lost weight, but those who fasted retained more muscle mass than the restrictive group.
For those who struggle with inflammatory diseases or high inflammatory markers, intermittent fasting could help you, too. The body normally creates inflammation to fight off different injuries, but the chronic kind of inflammation in the body actually causes diseases like diabetes or heart disease. Multiple studies back up the claim that intermittent fasting creates an anti-inflammatory effect in overweight individuals and can therefore reduce your risk for developing diseases associated with chronic inflammation.
Since medicine has not yet come up with a magical serum to help people live longer, intermittent fasting could be a method that actually does work. Studies conducted on rodents found that those who did not have unrestricted access to food lived 83% longer than those who did. Maintaining a fasting routine such as the 16:8 hour one above is a lot easier over a length of time versus trying to steer clear of food cravings. This translates to intermittent fasting being something you could potentially keep up for years and improves the rate of success for living longer and healthier.