05 Sep Intermittent Fasting: My new passion and reason for my fat loss
First & foremost, I’m not a professional trainer/nutritionist or anything like that. I’m just a guy who was frustrated with his weight gains (most of it as fat) until I came across this way of eating which works for me and it’ll hopefully work for you to since it is backed by science.
Here’s a bit of science to tell you how it works (since I’ve read and researched a lot about it not only theoretically but physically on my own body) .
How you get fat
Your body needs energy to push you through the whole day, where does it get this energy from? Food (of course). The moment you eat food, the body breaks it down into Glucose (now you know why you drink glucose drinks when you’re feeling weak! ), once the food is converted into glucose, this glucose is sent to the muscles, and all the other organs such as the liver and the kidney to function properly. Wonder how the glucose is fed to the muscles and the organs? Insulin (known as blood sugar generally).
Once the food is converted into glucose, your insulin levels rise, opening the gates of the body cells (3 of them mainly – Muscle cells, cells of the organs & FAT cells), once your muscles and your organs have the glucose they need , the remaining glucose is sent to your fat cells where it is stored for usage when your body doesn’t have any glucose left.
You eat again and again and again and all that extra glucose gets stored into your fat cells making it full. So what happens when the fat cells are full and you’re still feeding yourself with those ice-creams and other sugary stuff? FAT SPILLOVER ( think of it as a bucket which is full but you still have the tap open) . This extra glucose is stored as fat over the period of time and you become fat.
How to do Intermittent fasting
Let us take my case for an example, I have my last meal at 9.30 to 10.00 PM and i normally wake up at 6.00 AM, this means my body has already been in a fasted state for 8 hours. After waking up, I freshen up and go straight to the weighing scale (this is not as important but i take an average of the 7 days and that’s my weight lost in that particular week), after weighing myself, i drink around 2 glasses of plain water, leave for office and at around 10.30 am i have my first cup of coffee / sometimes green tea (No sugar, No Milk, you can add stevia if you have a sweet tooth), I keep on drinking water and drink another cup of coffee at around 1.00 pm . Coffee is a great appetite suppressant and it helps me extend my fast till 2 PM (16 hours from my last meal). I have my lunch at 2 PM and it’s so big that i don’t even feel hungry till i get home,I reach home, have a meal and then head to the gym and after coming back i have one more meal and that’s it ! I’m done for the day.
In a nutshell, I fasted for 16 hours (Fasted State) and ate all my required calories within the next 8 hours (Fed State)
How Intermittent Fasting Works (Science again, Sorry :P)
Since you’ve not fed your body in the 16 hours and your body has already used all the glucose it had, it still needs glucose to keep you up and running right ? So who does it turn to ? Yes , it turns to the body fat and burns it to keep you running. Makes no sense ?
Think about our ancestors who used to survive only by eating once or twice in a day or two, they didn’t die (Of course they didn’t, if they did, I wouldn’t be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading it. haha)
You must be thinking, why can’t I starve myself for more? let’s say 24 hours or 2 days, well, you can, but then your body goes into Catabolic Mode (Burn Muscles for energy) which is not good.
Also, your Cortisol levels (Cortisol is one of the main hormones for burning fat) are at it’s peak in the morning and the insulin levels are the lowest. Extending the time of High Cortisol levels will increase your body’s tendency to burn fat aggressively.
Cheers!
Abhishek ?
We try to keep this information up to date but if you notice that something needs updating then please contact us on update@wwhidoha.com