Beginners Guide on Intermittent Fasting

MJYu
4 min readMar 25, 2021

4 Helpful Tips on how to make Intermittent Fasting work!

It is not your regular diet routine that requires you to eat less or eat clean.

There are some guides for people who are beginning to like the idea of fasting as a way to shed some weight. Intermittent fasting’s popularity has sored high over the past few years and people are starting to go to this route. By definition, Intermittent Fasting is an eating plan that allows an individual to eat for a certain duration and fast on the remaining hours. The idea is that you can choose an eating period and fast. Some individuals fast perhaps because of religious practices and mostly, due to health issues. They are usually required by the physician before undergoing a medical test like an ultrasound, for instance, to fast at least 12 hours for a radiologist to have a clear picture of the body. However, in the case of health-conscious people, they tend to do some abstaining from food as they aim to lose some pounds.

But, how does it work? Intermittent fasting works by prolonging the period of your last meal and to your next meal. An individual has options that work best for their body. There are different types of fasting and the most popular are 14:10, 16:8 and 20:4. This suggests that you can only eat for 10 hours and fast for the next 14 hours. Here are some tips for you to make this fasting work.

Eating foods that help burn calories will help you shed pounds even without a workout.

Eat the Right Food

Let’s say you ended your meal at 7 PM and you are aiming for the 16:8 fasting, and then the next meal is noon the next day. When it is the eating period, you must consume food that will make you feel full, also called satiation. You have to eat foods that are high in protein, low carbohydrates and more vegetables. Foods such as wholegrain bread, eggs, chicken breasts, turkey, whey protein powder, nuts, brown rice and green leafy vegetables.

Always drink lots of water, After all, it is free.

Drink lots of water

Another important step in intermittent fasting is to drink lots of water. This helps you keep hydrated throughout the day, and at the same time, it tricks your mind to forget hunger. Furthermore, drinking lots of water keeps you energized for the entire day as dehydration can make you go weak. Upon waking up, prepare a glass of warm water with freshly squeezed lemon juice as it cleanses your body.

Coffee can help you suppress your hunger.

Coffee and Black Tea

During your fasting period, it is difficult at times to control hunger as your body is just beginning to adjust. In between meals, there is an exception when fasting. You can drink black coffee without sugar and creamer in the morning. Black tea or green tea are helpful options and they all increase satiation to your body.

Autophagy

This medical term is not in everyone’s vocabulary, but by definition in Wikipedia, Autophagy is a body cell regeneration. That is the easiest way to describe it. But when does it happen? Let’s say you are fasting for 16 hours. For the first 3 hours, the body sugar levels increase as you just consumed your last meal, the next 3 hours, your blood sugar level decreases. From the seventh hour until the 10th, sugar levels stabilize. From the 11th to 13th, ketosis begins, where the body is burning fat. The real magic begins on the 14th and to the 16th hour where Autophagy starts as this time, the body is healing damaged cells.

So, now that we have uncovered the correct guide for beginners in intermittent fasting like you, following the guide may not completely lose you some weight that you desire, but ultimately, it will be decided on how motivated and disciplined you are.

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