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http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2013/12/20/intermittent-fa...
Intermittent Fasting Beats Traditional Diets and Even Chronic Calorie Restriction for Weight Loss and Other Health Benefits
By Dr. Mercola December 20, 2013 | 58,671 views Intermittent fasting or scheduled eating is one of the most powerful interventions I know of to shed excess weight and reduce your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. These health benefits are more or less beneficial side effects of shifting your body from burning sugar to burning fat as its primary fuel. Im really pleased to see this approach now receiving more mainstream media attention, as its such a potent health-promoting tool. Most recently, The Wall Street Journal1 did a write-up on intermittent calorie restriction, specifically mentioning the 5:2 diet, promoted by Dr. Michael Mosley2 in his book The Fast Diet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting. The 5:2 strategy involves eating regularly five days a week, and fasting for two. On fasting days, Dr. Mosley recommends cutting your food down to of your normal daily calories, or about 600 calories for men and about 500 for women, along with plenty of water and tea. As reported by featured article: Some research shows that this more radical-sounding approach may be a struggle at first but ends up being easier to stick with compared with the typical route of cutting calories each day. Some animal studies suggest it also offers other health benefits, including cognitive improvements. There are many different variations of intermittent fasting, however. If you are like 85 percent of the population and have insulin resistance, my personal recommendation is to fast every day by simply scheduling my eating into a narrower window of time each day. I find this method to be easier than fasting for a full 24 hours or more, twice a week. Once you are at your ideal body weight, dont have diabetes, high blood pressure, or abnormal cholesterol levels, you can eat more at other times. However, it is probably best to regularly resume some type of scheduled eating regimen on a regular basis.
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Intermittent fasting or scheduled eating is a powerful strategy for shedding excess weight and reducing your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer Three major mechanisms by which fasting benefits your body include increased insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial energy efficiency; reduced oxidative stress; and increased capacity to resist stress, disease, and aging A recent human study confirmed that intermittent fasting was actually more effective for weight loss and improving insulin resistance than daily calorie restriction Intermittent fasting can also dramatically boost human growth hormone production, reduce inflammation, and lessen free radical damageall of which have beneficial effects on your health To get started, consider skipping breakfast, and avoid eating at least three hours before you go to sleep. This should effectively restrict your eating to an 8-hour window or less each day
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both cancer prevention and treatment, as cancer cells cannot utilize fat for fuelthey need sugar to thrive. In short, fasting increases insulin sensitivity along with mitochondrial energy efficiency, thereby retarding aging and disease, which are typically associated with loss of insulin sensitivity and declined mitochondrial energy. Two additional mechanisms by which fasting benefits your body include: 1. Reducing oxidative stress Fasting decreases the accumulation of oxidative radicals in the cell, and thereby prevents oxidative damage to cellular proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids associated with aging and disease. 2. Increasing capacity to resist stress, disease and aging Fasting induces a cellular stress response (similar to that induced by exercise) in which cells up-regulate the expression of genes that increase the capacity to cope with stress and resist disease and aging.
Normalizing your insulin and leptin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health Normalizing ghrelin levels, also known as "the hunger hormone" Lowering triglyceride levels
Reducing inflammation and lessening free radical damage Preserving memory functioning and learning
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