Forget annoying calorie counting and just look at your watch: Eight hours eating and 16 hours fasting. Intermittent fasting is not only supposed to help you lose weight, but also to be really healthy - but is that true?
That's what we all dream of: Eating as much as we want, especially what we want, and losing weight in the process. Intermittent fasting should now make our dream come true.
The principle is very simple. You can't eat for 16 hours and eat whatever you feel like for a whole eight hours.
That sounds almost too good and simple to be true. Doesn't it?
You'll learn in this post,
- what the new trend of 16-hour fasting is all about,
- what advantages fasting brings you,
- what happens in your body when you fast and
- how the change in diet affects sports.
Table of contents
16 hours fasting - what is this new trend?
The idea of intermittent fasting is not all that new. Even in the Stone Age, people had to eat this way. The circumstances of life forced them to fast.
Because so that they had something to eat, they first had to hunt. And was not always crowned with success. When a wild boar was shot, it was plastered. No one knew when the next one would come.
So our body is prepared for fasting and actually used to it.
It can withstand prolonged periods of starvation because our organs and tissues store energy. We can call on these reserves when necessary.
Nowadays, these periods of hunger no longer occur in everyday life. The opposite is the case.
Through regular meals and snacks in between, the body is constantly in storage mode. Intermittent fasting teaches it to fall back on the stored reserves.
However, it may take a few weeks for your body to get used to this new rhythm. After the change you will notice many positive effects: Fat is broken down better and your pounds fall off. Your organism is relieved and the metabolism can recover properly.
What are the benefits of 16 hours fasting?
Eating nothing for 16 hours is primarily an effective way to lose weight, but it not only stimulates fat burning.
Intermittent fasting brings many other benefits to your health and fitness.
Intermittent Fasting Plan - Instructions for Intermittent Fasting
1. muscle building through fasting
Actually, it is said that we should eat several meals a day to build muscle. So how do 16 hours of fasting and muscle building fit together?
If you fast for 16 hours over a long period of time, you can build muscle. Your body then produces more growth hormones. They support muscle building and fat loss.
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The growth hormone somatropin has a great influence on muscle growth, bone formation and fat loss. It is released during sleep or during exercise.
By fasting for 16 hours, your insulin resistance decreases and the glucose level in your blood decreases. A low blood sugar level brings a high output of growth hormones.
Insulin is always secreted when you eat. It ensures that nutrients are absorbed from the food. The sugar (glucose) enters the muscles and is stored as a later source of energy.
If we eat often and also a lot, our body becomes resistant to insulin over time.
If you don't eat for 16 hours, less insulin is released, making our bodies more sensitive to the hormone again.
The body focuses intensively on regeneration during fasting. And this in turn favors the building of muscles.
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2. increase concentration
The two most important components of the nervous system are the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The enteric nervous system is a kind of "brain of the digestive tract".
Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems act as two counterparts on your organs.
The sympathetic nervous system is active in the morning and prepares you for physical and mental performance. It puts your body on alert.
After you have eaten your first meal, the parasympathetic nervous system becomes active. The body shuts down its productivity. The parasympathetic nervous system brings you into a kind of resting state. It causes your blood pressure to drop and digestive activity to increase. So by fasting for 16 hours, you can use your increased productivity for longer.
3. protection from diseases
You may have noticed the following: When you are sick, you usually have no appetite. The body wants to protect and heal you. Cells can recover faster without ongoing digestive processes.
This process is called autophagy. In the process, the body breaks down diseased or unneeded cell components and recycles them for other things.
Autophagy becomes particularly active when the supply of nutrients is insufficient. Such a state also arises during fasting or a lot of sport. In times of shortage, the cell draws on its own reserves and breaks them down.
So when you fast for 16 hours a day, your body turns on its repair mode. Your immune system becomes stronger and your body is protected from diseases.
Especially in the cold season, a strong immune system is very important to avoid getting sick. Studies have already found protective effects against dementia, heart attacks and cancer (according to Berlin naturopath Andreas Michalsen).
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4. help with high blood pressure
According to American studies, fasting for 16 hours has a positive effect on blood pressure levels. In particular, too high blood pressure levels off again in most cases.
As already mentioned with insulin, fasting also improves blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Fasting has an invigorating and stress-reducing effect. As a result, less adrenaline is released. This hormone is known to increase your blood pressure.
During fasting, calorie restriction reduces increased blood volume and blood sugar (fasting) and also reduces your blood lipids. Many other positive aspects, such as weight loss, reduced alcohol consumption and healthy eating, have a lowering effect on blood pressure during fasting. Your body is detoxified and purified.
What happens in the body when you fast for 16 hours?
We have now explained to you that fasting for 16 hours has many positive effects on your health and your body. But what happens in your body when you fast for so long?
Fasting for 16 hours interferes with your metabolism. Eating regularly can overfeed our hormonal system - literally.
Naturopath Andreas Michalsen cites the hormone insulin as an example. If we eat continuously, the body takes energy from carbohydrates, which are converted into sugar.
Purification and detoxification
This releases insulin, which ensures that glucose reaches our cells. If we have too much of it in our blood on a permanent basis, we become increasingly insensitive. This can lead to insulin resistance, a precursor of diabetes.
But already after 14 to 16 hours without food, the body turns on the internal cleansing.
It has the chance to gain energy not from carbohydrates but from existing reserves. If all carbohydrate reserves are used up, the body falls back on fat reserves.
As already briefly described, longer periods of fasting stimulate autophagy. This process only runs at full speed when nothing more is eaten and digested. Insulin actually inhibits autophagy. It works like a kind of garbage disposal in our cells.
If you fast for 16 hours, your body will eventually seek the energy it needs from its own damaged proteins and/or cellular components.
The body breaks them down and virtually digests them itself. If the proteins and cell components are not used for energy production, cells recycle the still usable components to generate new building blocks.
Without autophagy, this garbage is deposited in the cells, eventually preventing the cells from functioning properly. In this process, bacteria and viruses are fought and the aging process is slowed down.
Degenerated cells, deposits, malignant bacteria and viruses no longer have a chance to accumulate because they are broken down very quickly.
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Thus, active autophagy is also a protection against cancer, heart disease and dementia. On the one hand, it is an emergency system for times of hunger and, on the other hand, an important process for the purification and renewal of our cells.
You may also know this process by the name purification.
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Can I do sports during fasting?
Fasting for 16 hours and training do not go together at first glance. But it can actually be combined very well with your training plan.
So a very clear YES. You can and should do sports in any case, even or especially when you are fasting.
Meanwhile, many (professional) athletes have explained about the positive effects of fasting on their performance and training.
The blogger and marathon runner Micha Brauer has reported that through interval fasting he was able to reduce his body fat percentage and notice a significant increase in his ability to concentrate.
Strength athlete, nutritionist and blogger Martin Bergman is very successful athletically through the 16-hour fasting method.
Since the energy you need during exercise is taken from your fat cells, there is increased fat burning during exercise. Fasting, as already mentioned, also increases the release of growth hormones.
Even a fitness trainer confirms that working out on an empty stomach is one of the best fat burning strategies ever. So you can do a much more effective workout by fasting.
But it is also warned in this connection about the falling blood sugar level as well as the resulting dizziness.
Our conclusion
Eating little when there is a lot is difficult for us. Having to do without makes many diets unbearable and quickly condemns them to failure.
Intermittent fasting can be the solution. It optimizes your metabolism, strengthens your immune system and protects you from diseases - and you lose extra pounds.
Your hormone balance is regulated and the body can free itself from overfeeding. Fasting for 16 hours is easy to implement, flexible in everyday life and has many health benefits. It leads us back to the very original diet of mankind - back to the roots.
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