Practical guide to intermittent fasting

Fasting is beneficial for both men and women, but women can especially benefit from this practice. A woman's body is designed to store fat for reproduction, but it can also be very efficient at utilizing fat.

During sports practice, both men and women can obtain great benefits if exercise is done in conjunction with intermittent fasting, but each sex has a different nuance.

Women, on the other hand, can be efficient in using fat as fuel for athletic performance, while being able to oxidize less protein and sugar, meaning that muscles are not consumed as would be the case with men. In this sense, men have to be more conscious of their protein consumption between fasts, ketogenic cycles and normal eating days.

Let's learn about the benefits of intermittent fasting:

• It can help reverse type 2 diabetes ( 1 )
• Strengthens your immune system by increasing the number of your white blood cells
• It significantly reduces inflammation as you will see later in the types of fasting you can practice.
• Stimulates autophagy (recycling of old or inefficient proteins)
• It increases the human growth hormone (HGH) facilitating the stimulation of the metabolism, especially in cases where it is stagnant. Consequently, it promotes weight loss, but also tissue repair.
• It helps regenerate neurons , improving cognitive activity. In this sense, it enhances memory and focus time. It can help people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, even cancer, but also:
• Not only does the body produce ketones when you cycle keto, but also when you fast. Ketones can cross what is known as the blood-brain barrier and control inflammation in the brain.
• Concentration improves. Fasting increases brain capacity because when insulin is not produced, counter-regulatory hormones such as noradrenaline are activated, which increases physical energy. When noradrenaline increases, the metabolic rate is maintained because the body is flooded with energy, the reason being that it is a survival mechanism.
• Improves productive performance . In an article in La Vanguardia, Spain, the creator of the Smart Sapiens platform, Pablo Castañeda, explains that "Fasting accentuates the hormonal and metabolic environment of wakefulness, increasing the levels of hormones such as dopamine and norepinephrine that drive us to action, improving the function of our mitochondria (the energy centers of cells) and synchronizing our circadian rhythms to make better use of working hours."

• The rejuvenating touch. According to astudy by USC (University of Southern California) it was indicated that prolonged fasting (2-3 days) can reconfigure and regenerate the immune system in its entirety. So it is not a bad idea when you feel the first symptoms of flu, to stop eating. In fact, many people lose their appetite when they catch a cold or flu and this would help a better recovery and strengthen the immune system.

As we age, telomeres shrink and cell vitality is lost. Accelerated telomere shortening has been associated with cardiovascular diseases, nervous system diseases (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's), cancer, diabetes and infertility, among others. It turns out that fasting increases telomerase activity, allowing telomeres to grow. Yet another reason to fast!

Intermittent fasting works differently for men and women.

When the body is fasting, it is in an ideal state to lose accumulated body fat. This happens because the body is in a state of “stress” and consequently releases adrenaline, which in turn induces the production of hormone-sensitive lipase or triacylglycerol lipase, an enzyme that causes lipolysis (lipid mobilization).

According to the American Journal of Applied Physiology, women can burn more fat from adrenaline than men. In this sense, women have higher levels of intramyocellular lipids, which play an important role in the energy metabolism of muscle cells and maintain a dynamic balance between supply and use.

What it takes to start fasting

There are several types of fasting, and if you are new to this practice, you should know that it may work better for you if you follow a ketogenic protocol when breaking the fast, which I explain in depth in this link . In this other link , you can find the ketogenic challenge that I propose.

Many people have the habit of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a snack between meals. The idea is that we spread out the snacks to complement one of those main meals, or rather, not eat between meals, so we will have 3 meals a day and you can do them following the first type of fasting:

12/12 .

It involves fasting or abstaining from food for 12 hours, while during the following 12 hours you have the opportunity to replenish yourself. These hours of fasting allow your body, above all, to rest from processing food and instead dedicate itself to taking the nutrients it has received to the places where they are needed, collecting toxins and other metabolic waste, as well as restoring intestinal flora, among other important actions that it cannot perform if it is constantly digesting food.

NOTE: After several days of this practice, listen to your body because as the days go by, your body will feel less hungry, so eat to the extent that you feel satisfied. You can save what is left for the next meal or start preparing slightly smaller portions. This also depends on your level of physical activity because if you are someone who trains or is an athlete, you have to consume what you need to rebuild muscle, recover and have enough energy, so, in this case, when it is time to eat, eat well.

16/8 or even 18/6.

The next step is to try to move to a higher level of fasting, that is, if you were fasting for 12 hours, try to move to 14 or better yet 16. If your last meal was at 7 pm and you were breaking your fast at 7 am the next day, you can postpone your breakfast to 11 am or even 12 pm and combine breakfast with lunch.

This schedule allows you to eat within an 8-hour window, while abstaining from food for 16 hours. Here you get the same benefits as on 12/12, but in addition, your body starts to produce a little ketones, produces less insulin, and enjoys quality time for the body to recover.

Now you will be fasting for 16 or even 18 hours and with a replenishment window of 8 or even 6 hours. The benefits start to show, you will lose fat little by little and the best thing is that it feels natural and you will not feel like you are starving at all. Many people feel comfortable with the 18/6 fast where they have their first meal at 12 noon and their last meal at 6 pm, or their first meal at 1 pm and the last at 5 pm.

It is highly advisable and preferable to fast for at least 16/8 than 12/12. A very recent study was conducted on healthy men who train with weights (both groups, the one that fasted for 12 hours and the one that fasted for 16 hours). The result showed that the group that fasted for 16 hours had a spontaneous decrease of 6.1% in energy consumption (their appetite was lost).

Also, a 3.36% reduction in body weight and 18.8% loss of visceral fat occurred. The 12-hour group gained muscle mass by 3.37% but did not lose fat.

Both groups increased muscle strength. However, muscle size measured in the arms and legs increased in the 12-hour fasting group by 11.87% and 6.95%, respectively. In the 16/8 group, muscle size was slightly reduced by 4.31% and 2.9%.

Now let's look at the cardio-metabolic benefits:

The group that fasted for 16 hours had a significant reduction in the hormone leptin (24.9% and this may be the reason for the decrease in muscle size), decreased blood glucose (9.26%), insulin (28.26%) and triglycerides (20.98%); increased adiponectin (21.3%), involved in insulin signaling; increased good cholesterol (15.39%) and reduced bad cholesterol.

In addition, chronic inflammation indicators were significantly reduced compared to baseline levels of interleukins IL-1Beta, IL-6, TNF-alpha, as they decreased by 22.97%, 25.22% and 13.88% in the 16/8 fasting group while they remained the same in the 12/12 fasting group. This experiment was conducted on men.

24-hour fast.

There is a more advanced level that has become fashionable lately. It involves fasting for 23 hours and eating a single large meal for one hour. This is what they call OMAD (one meal a day) and where the autophagy mechanism goes into overdrive. People who need to lose weight, who have many inflammatory indicators or whose metabolism is stagnant are good candidates for this type of fasting.

These fasts are good to do from time to time because they allow you to enter a deeper state of ketosis. That is, all the benefits mentioned above, but in a more forceful way. This is where all those rejuvenating and DNA-maintaining effects occur.

The body will be in a state of consciously induced stress and for women it means that we produce cortisol and estrogen levels are altered, so it is possible that the first times that women do intermittent fasting or ketogenic cycles they do not lose weight, but on the contrary, add a kilo or two, but calm down, it is while the body recognizes what is happening and soon the results will begin to be seen.

To really benefit from fasting, your leptin levels need to be low. When you eat, leptin levels increase and it is telling your brain that there is enough fuel and it can stimulate your metabolism. When leptin levels are low, leptin can tell your brain that there is no fuel and your metabolism will slow down for preservation. The point is that you need low leptin for lipolysis (movement of fats in the body) to occur.

What to eat

What to eat during fasting

Matcha tea or another tea like Earl Grey, perhaps sweetened with Stevia. People who want to drink coffee and don't find it very stimulating, can do so.

Apple cider vinegar dissolved in water with a little salt, ginger juice, ½ teaspoon of turmeric and black pepper or cayenne.

Electrolytes as long as they do not contain any type of sweetener, especially if you exercise in the morning.

Aromatic cinnamon that helps maintain balanced blood glucose levels.

Stay hydrated with water

What to keep in mind when the time to break the fast approaches

When we fast, cortisol levels rise, which is not bad because it helps us lose fat. What is not good is having high levels of cortisol and adding food to that, because that is what makes us store fat.

At the end of the fast, cortisol levels are elevated. It is a time of high sensitivity, so you have to be careful when breaking the fast because we are going to introduce food into the body and depending on what we eat, there is a great risk that it will accumulate as fat quickly. The idea is to try to lower cortisol levels before breaking the fast.

One suggestion is to drink cinnamon tea or some tea and add cinnamon to it. Recently, a component of cinnamon essential oil, a methyl-hydroxy-chalcone polymer, has attracted the attention of researchers for activating the enzyme responsible for insulin binding to its lipocyte receptors, making these cells more responsive to insulin. ( article )

How to break the fast

Some recommendations:

Main meals try to make them low in carbs and higher in protein content. Two things happen here: your carbs are a big salad with leafy greens, tomatoes, avocado, olives, etc. Protein if plant-based should constitute 0.9-1.5 grams per kilogram of weight (women), 1-2 grams per kilogram of weight (men); and corresponding to your activity level. Fat is possibly one or two tablespoons of olive oil added to the salad. Remember that 1 gram of fat = 9Kcalories, while 1 gram of protein or carbs = 4Kcalories, so it is better to rely on the fat present in your meals than to add extra.

The second meal of the day will depend on the time, how many hours have to pass before going to sleep and what the meal contains:

As a complement to intermittent fasting, heat therapy helps increase human growth hormone (HGH) levels.

While practicing intermittent fasting or any other dietary intervention, it is crucial to ensure that hormones are balanced, especially for women.

Get motivated to start 2022 being your best self!