Lose Weight Quick With This Simple Tip
Imagine being able to kick-start your metabolism, feel more energy, and enjoy a variety of health benefits without having to count calories or adhere to strict meal plans.
Say hello to just some of the benefits of fasting.
What makes fasting seem so unusual is that, with all the diet advice out there, the most straightforward and most useful plan might be to simply not eat for a longer stretch of the day than previously thought ideal. Of course, as we discussed earlier, fasting isn’t the same as starving yourself.
But fasting isn’t a diet, either.
The literal definition of fasting is to abstain from food and drink for a specific period—but in this context, we prefer looking at fasting as simply a change in eating patterns.
In place of three meals a day or a handful of frequent smaller meals, you are going to select a specific window of time to eat, whether it’s a few set hours a day or particular days of the week. During that time, you can eat food without counting calories and even occasionally indulge in some of your favorite treats.
However, we hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but if you continue to eat processed foods and potato chips regularly, it’s unlikely you’ll reap the full benefits of fasting. If that’s you, we encourage you to examine your diet and expand your taste to include whole, fresh foods before trying a fast.
If you practice fasting and also consume a mostly whole-food diet that is rich in fruits, veggies, lean proteins, healthy fats, and raw dairy, you will see tangible changes. Then, those occasional splurges on chocolate, cheese, or dinner out won’t have as big of an impact as they might if you were on a calorie-restrictive diet.
The beauty of fasting is that there isn’t one “correct” way to do it. Multiple types are popular, and they are popular because they work. Remember this: There isn’t a single food or supplement that heals you. Turmeric alone doesn’t heal you. Ginger doesn’t heal you. Fish oil and probiotics don’t heal you. Spinach and kale don’t either.
Your body heals itself.
Fasting works by taking digestion off the body’s to-do list, allowing it to focus on healing and regeneration. When you do that, your body starts to produce something called stem cells. Stem cells create new and healthy tissue in your body, helping you heal.
So, if you’re looking to overcome digestive issues, seeking to address neurological problems, fighting cancer, trying to lose weight, or many other healthy, worthwhile pursuits, fasting is one of the absolute best things you can do for your body.
Over the next few pages, we are going to highlight the top twelve benefits of fasting. There are more benefits than the ones we discuss here, but these seem to be the most universally sought-after goals and the ones that bring about the most significant transformation, vitality, and healing.
To date, there have already been hundreds of human clinical trials and animal studies that conclusively point to the fact that intermittent fasting can lead to improvements in every major area of health. The practice can also positively influence the battle against conditions such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders.
In our book, Essential Fasting, we discuss 12 different benefits of fasting, but here we’ll focus on one of the most popular benefits: weight loss.
Lose Weight Quickly
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 72 percent of Americans age twenty and older are overweight, a percentage that includes the 40 percent of Americans who are obese.[1]
That means that right now more than 230 million people in this country weigh more than they should. And almost half of those people weigh significantly more than they should.
That’s a lot of people.
In light of this, is it any wonder why the weight-loss industry hit a new peak in 2018, growing 4 percent to reach $72 billion?[2]
Our fellow Americans are desperate to lose weight, and they are willing to give a lot of money to anyone who promises they have the answers. And bonus points if the solution means that they don’t have to change anything about their current lifestyle!
Again, we don’t like being the bearers of bad news, but weight- loss magic bullets don’t exist. However, if we were to pick one tool that is as about as close to a weight-loss magic bullet as it gets, it would be intermittent fasting.
Dramatic weight loss is possible, and it doesn’t have to take nearly as long as we used to think. The idea that the only way to lose weight is to lose one to two pounds a week is contradicted by the results we’ve seen thousands of people experience through intermittent fasting.
There have been studies that support fasting as a tool for efficient weight loss. One 2015 study found that alternate-day fasting trimmed body weight by up to 7 percent. Whole-day fasting led to similar results, but with up to a 9 percent reduction in body weight.3
Another study that examined a 16:8 TRE (Time Restricted Eating) style of intermittent fasting showed that it successfully reduced fat mass while retaining both strength and muscle mass.[4] This fact is one of the reasons why we recommend the 16:8 fast so often.
Another study out of the University of Southern California placed 71 adults on a five-day partial fast (eating between 750 and 1,100 calories a day) once every three months. Those test subjects lost an average of six pounds, reduced inflammation, shrunk their waistlines, and lost total body fat without sacrificing muscle mass.[5]
Fasting helps you lose weight more efficiently by forcing your body to use up fat stores as fuel. When you eat a standard diet, your body uses glucose (sugar) as its primary source of energy and stores whatever is left over as glycogen in your muscles and liver. When you don’t give your body a steady stream of glucose all day long, it begins breaking down the glycogen to use as fuel.
After the glycogen has been depleted, your body seeks out alter- native sources of energy, such as fat cells, which are then broken down to help power your body.
This idea is what drives the popularity of the keto diet, in which you abstain from carbohydrate intake almost entirely to “force” your body to use up stored fat for energy.
If you want to lose weight and lose belly fat, fasting (even irregularly) could be the key. Many people prefer intermittent fasting to traditional diets because it eliminates the need to meticulously measure foods and track the calories and grams consumed.
A study conducted by the University of California San Diego that analyzed 2,200 overweight women found that TRE also has positive effects on immunity and blood sugar control, which are both tied to weight gain.[6] As you also probably know, poor blood sugar control is a risk factor for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, among other things.
When someone is overly sensitive to insulin, the “fat-storage hormone” that signals cells to take in calories from food, the pancreas produces more, and this promotes the growth of cells, even mutated cancer cells.
After comparing women not eating or drinking anything for at least twelve hours with those who fasted for less than twelve hours, researchers found that women who fasted longer had better blood sugar control than those who didn’t fast as long. This result was independent of other eating behaviors, such as how many calories the women were eating.
We would like to note that when you go into a fast with weight loss as the primary goal, you may end up disappointed. While many people lose weight quickly, others experience more gradual results and may even encounter a few weight-loss plateaus here and there.
That is why we invite you to put your focus on the other benefits you will gain from a fast and less on the number on your scale.
Fasting improves energy and sleep quality. Fasting promotes healing from within. So keep that bigger picture in mind.
References
“Obesity and Overweight,” U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm.
John LaRosa, “Top 9 Things to Know About the Weight Loss Industry,” Marketresearch.com, March 6, 2019, https://blog.marketresearch.com/u.s.weight-loss-industry-grows-to-72-billion.
Grant M. Tinsley and Paul M. La Bounty, “Effects of intermittent fasting on body composition and clinical health markers in humans,” Nutrition Reviews 73, no. 10 (October 2015): 661–674.
Moro et al., “Effects of eight weeks of time-restricted feeding (16/8) on basal metabolism, maximal strength, body composition, inflammation, and cardiovascular risk factors in resistance-trained males,” 290.
Emily Gersema, “Scientifically designed fasting diet lowers risks for major diseases,” USC News, February 16, 2017, https://news.usc.edu/116479/scientifically-designed-fasting-diet-lowers-risks-for-major-diseases/.
Satchin Panda, The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight (New York: Rodale Books, 2020).
