What is intermittent fasting?

Fasting can often be a little intimidating to people, especially if you’ve never tried it before. But it doesn’t have to be daunting. Once you get the hang of it and learn a thing or two about it, you’ll be less worried and your body becomes accustomed to going extended periods without food. It actually starts to actually feel good!

So what exactly is intermittent fasting (IF)? It’s pretty simple — it refers to the idea of rearranging your eating schedule to allow your body to go anywhere from 12 to 16 hours without food throughout the 24 hour day.

A typical person usually consumes 3 meals per day — breakfast around 8-9am, lunch around 12-1pm, and dinner between 5-6pm. But when intermittent fasting, you eliminate regimented meal times and extend your “fasting window” between meals. Typically, a person who fasts will break their overnight fast around midday and then have a late dinner around 7-8pm. Alternatively, there is also the option of having an early breakfast and a late lunch, then fasting until the next morning.

Whether you eat earlier or later, the fasting window is generally about 14-16 hours — roughly three times longer than those who don’t fast. So what does this mean for health and performance? Does when you eat really matter just as much as what you eat? Let’s find out!

Nutrita and Intermittent fasting

Whatever diet or health goal you select with Nutrita, we aim to normalize your appetite and body composition. This means that, eventually, you’ll default to approximately 2 meals a day.

2 meals a day isn’t a magic number, it simply reflects an average of someone who eats when hungry and stops when full – unprompted by the clock or social pressures. Again, we’re talking about an average here, not a carved-in-stone rule.

Say you’ve been out hiking in the cold for many hours and feel like a third meal (or even a snack) – go for it! Are you pregnant? Well then obviously you don’t need to stick to a strict 2 meal a day eating schedule, go ahead and have more food.

Nutrita doesn’t pretend to anticipate your appetite better than your biology, a claim made by too many in the world of nutrition. All we do is provide the conditions for your biology to normalize its dysregulated appetite by helping you make better and better food choices.

The science behind it

Intermittent fasting isn’t a new thing. From an evolutionary standpoint, many people think we evolved the ability to fast or fast intermittently because we were bad hunter gatherers failing to find enough food – that’s not true. Quite the opposite actually!

We evolved to fast because the kind of food our unique hunting and gathering abilities allowed us to access was very high in calories and nutrients, like fatty ungulates – think mammoths or pigs. This meant our meals could keep us fully and nourished for longer.

More recently, as intermittent fasting has become increasingly popular, the number of studies revealing benefits have also increased.

How exactly does intermittent fasting work? We’re going to clear that up for you.

Your body operates a in a different way when you’re “feasting” than when you’re “fasting”. After you eat, your body takes some time to process what’s been ingested. Because there is a readily available energy source from your meal, your body will use that for fuel.

But when you’re in a fasted state, your body must use its energy stores. Where might they be?

You will first use up your liver glycogen (stored glucose) before you ramp up fat use from your stored body fat. When following a ketogenic diet specifically, liver glycogen stores are lower than when on a standard diet. This means that the only plentiful energy reserves remaining are from your body fat.

This ‘forced’ reliance on body fat is characteristic of intermittent fasting and keto.

Additionally, when we’re not taking in calories a specific period of time — that is, our fasting period — we force our bodies to not only turn to non-carb fuel sources, but also to ‘clean out’ the body — i.e. get rid of old, damaged or worn-out cells and structures. We can recycle some of these parts and make room for new, more youthful ones — a process called autophagy for the small parts and autolytic cannibalism for the bigger ones (like whole cells).

Intermittent fasting has also been touted for the long list of benefits it offers. From fat loss and increased mental clarity, to autophagy and improved insulin sensitivity, it’s no wonder intermittent fasting is taking the health world by storm.

But if you’re wondering just what exactly intermittent fasting can do for you and how it does it, keep reading — we’ll cover more benefits.

But like many other health care regimens, intermittent fasting doesn’t have to drastically change your life. It can be easily adapted to fit seamlessly into your lifestyle.