Easy fasting for weight loss Tips

Getting a Better Idea of What Fasting Really Is

The concept of fasting is quite simple. Fasting means you don’t eat for a
while. Although it may sound a bit contrarian, it is, without a doubt, a very
safe and very sound health practice. In fact, it’s good for your mind, body,
and soul.
You may have heard that not eating is a bad idea, because it will slow your
metabolism and cause you to gain weight. Well, you’ve heard wrong. Fasting
is not only good for you, but also perhaps the healthiest thing you can ever
do for yourself.
Fasting works because it’s a hardship. It’s short-term deprivation, to be exact.
And, to that end, any diet that touts itself as superior because it isn’t deprivation-
based is not superior at all, but far inferior, to be sure. Any diet that says
you can “eat whatever you want so long as you . . . ” or “eat as much as you
want so long as you . . . ” is immediately a pile of fatuous nonsense and is to
be straightaway ignored.

Identifying the positive effects of fasting

Fasting can help you feel and look better. In addition, here are a few of the
positive effects fasting can have on your body.

✓ Burns fat: When fasting, the body naturally taps into stored body fat
for energy, a process that is severely inhibited when eating frequently
throughout the day. Studies have shown that fasting dramatically
increases lipolysis, which is the fancy term for fat burning.
✓ Boosts energy: Fasting is slightly stimulatory, because it increases your
natural adrenal response. In plain English, it means that while you’re
fasting, you can expect your productivity to increase and concentration
to improve.
✓ Fights disease: Fasting naturally boosts immunity and allows your body
to naturally detoxify itself. While fasting, your body purges unhealthy,
damaged, and polluted cells — as well as spurs the growth of new
healthy cells.
✓ Delays aging: Eating has an aging effect on the body, which happens
primarily through insulin, which is your body’s primary nutrient transport
and blood-sugar regulating hormone. When you eat, your pancreas
secretes insulin. And the problem with eating too much or too frequently
is that insulin speeds up biological aging process. Fasting delays aging
by suppressing insulin levels.
✓ Enhances exercise: Fasting and exercise potentiate each other, meaning
they increase each other’s positive effects. Exercising in a fasted state
can help you to burn more fat, increase vitality, and build muscle more
efficiently.

The benefits of fasting are huge, whereas there really isn’t a reason why
you shouldn’t fast on a regular basis. In fact, fasting is also the world’s most
ancient healing mechanism. All animals, except human beings, fast instinctively
when sick or wounded.

Examining how it works

The human body can be either in a fasted state or a fed state; it can’t be
in between. Therefore, if the fed state is yang, then the fasting state is yin.
Fasting provides balance — by adding in more yin to counterweigh all that
yang. Fasting basically works in three ways:

✓ It optimizes your hormonal makeup. When in a fasted state, hormones
that are particularly beneficial are permitted free reign, including glucagon,
which is the yin to insulin’s yang. Glucagon, like insulin, is secreted
by the pancreas in order to regulate blood sugar. But rather than shutting
nutrients into cells, glucagon pulls nutrients out of cells, including fatty
acids, which has earned glucagon the reputation of being something

of a fat-burning hormone. However, glucagon can only prevail in a fasted
state.
✓ It surges natural growth hormone. Insulin, the hormone secreted
during the fed state, heavily suppresses natural growth hormone.
Meaning, the more frequently you eat, the less natural growth hormone
your body produces. Natural growth hormone is the closest thing
humans have to a fountain of youth. It burns fat, builds muscle, and
works to keep the body biologically young and resilient.
✓ It permits the body to cleanse itself. When in a fasted state, the body
disperses its natural house cleaners, which consist primarily of microphages
(think of these as cells that attack and destroy harmful invaders)
and white blood cells that pull toxins out of cells, engulf them, and dispose
of them. When constantly fed, this natural detoxification process
is hampered. Frequently feeding functions as a one-way escape valve,
permitting toxins into the body, but not letting them back out. Not until
you enter a fasted state can you flip that valve and allow toxins to pour

Understanding the best way to go about it

You may be surprised to hear that you can go about fasting in several different
ways. Some of them include longer fasting periods (up to 24 hours at a
time), whereas others include short fasting periods (12 to 16 hours). Some
methods include strict fasts (nothing but water) and others include controlled
fasts (limited caloric intake).

✓ Intermittent fasting: Intermittent fasting is when you fast for 24 to 36
hours (typically once or twice a week). This method is a simple way to
introduce fasting into your life because you only need to take a break
from eating for a day. This works exceptionally well to reduce overall
calorie intake without having to worry about making many other
changes on your nonfasting days. 

✓ 5:2 Diet: The 5:2 Diet, also known as the Fast Diet, is the gentlest introduction
to fasting, because it simply requires that for two days out of the
week you only eat two meals (500-calorie meals if you’re a woman and
600-calorie meals if you’re a man). This method is perhaps the best way
for most people to get acclimated with fasting, before perusing some

of the more intensive efforts. 

✓ Micro-fasting: Micro-fasting is a daily fasting regimen. Think of it as the
no breakfast diet. This idea flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but
for good reasons . Micro-fasting has you fasting for 16 hours each day, compressing 

the time you eat into an eight-hour window. Micro-fasting is both easy to implement and
enormously beneficial. Head to Chapter 6 for how to incorporate microfasting
into your diet.
✓ The Warrior Diet: The Warrior Diet, made popular by the book of the
same title, is similar to micro-fasting in the sense that it condenses the
time you’re allowed to eat into a small window (about four hours), but
different in a few other regards. The fasting period is less strict, and
more of a controlled fast, where you’re encouraged to consume certain
live/raw foods throughout the earlier parts of the day followed by
a fairly intense overeating phase later in the day. The Warrior Diet is
unconventional, effective, and satisfying.