How Fasting Benefits Health and Healthy Living

Fasting is usually associated with religious routine. Billions of people around the world are engaging in fasting as a faithful religious practice. They abstain from food and drink for varying time intervals, such as some from dawn to dusk while others practice it for preferred time-period. Whatsoever, fasting for spiritual beliefs has some health benefits too. Do you know How Fasting Benefits Health?

There has been a significant research on fasting and its health benefits to our bodies. Intermittent fast time-period can range from 14 hours to 18 hours. Fasting must be approached in a serious manner by counteracting your body’s need for nutrition and limiting any heavy physical activity.

Benefits of Fasting

1. ‘Fasting’ helps to decrease body’s insulin level and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. It is effective in promoting Human Growth Hormone secretion. This is vital for burning fat. Fasting also promotes muscle building, and transforms the body into a fat burning machine.
2. Fasting turns out to be an excellent way to weight loss. Studies have supported the fact that fasting is a good calorie burner and fat burner. This is because, during fasting, people consume around 25% of their total daily calories, yielding to an average of 5.5 pound weight loss within an eight week time-period.
3. Fasting is good for athletes as it has significant effects on body mass. Since fasting allows shedding excess fat, it optimizes muscle growth. For professional athletes, fasting is advised during training periods, while eating protein foods is encouraged on game days.
4. Fasting normalizes insulin sensitivity in the body. When the body gets more than enough carbs and sugar, it leads to insulin resistance. This can cause chronic diseases. Fasting keeps the body sensitive to insulin and prevents diseases such as diabetes and other heart complications.
5. Fasting normalizes ghrelin levels in the body. Ghrelin are actually hunger hormone, which is responsible for food cravings. Ghrelin levels help the body to manage the hunger cravings accurately by telling when to eat and when to stop.
6. Fasting can help in lowering triglyceride levels. Consuming too much cholesterol foods will lead to increased triglyceride levels in the body. This might end up with heart diseases.
7. Fasting slows down the aging process. With good boost of Human Growth Hormone, you can slow down the aging process.

Knowing all the health benefits of fasting, it might be appealing to start with. But be cautious. Do not stress your body with too much fasting. Moreover, people with certain health complications must not indulge in fasting without the right guidance of a physician. Pregnant and breastfeeding women should also avoid fasting, as it might have some adverse effects on the baby.

Points to keep in mind while fasting

Though there is no concrete time-period for fasting, be sure to hear your body’s call for need.

• If you feel truly hungry, eat. There is no rule to fasting, though.
• Do not add stress to your fasting to following any pre-mentioned regime.
• Limit your physical activities during fasting period. Do not do any overtraining or stressful work during fasting.
• If you feel like drinking a hot cup of coffee or snack on nuts, go for it and skip breakfast anytime. Keep your life simple and good.