Keto Diet & Intermittent Fasting Integrations

Intermittent Fasting For Beginners

In simple terms, intermittent fasting has to do with observing an eating schedule which requires you to alternate between feeding and fasting. You create time for eating and only eat within the window you created, then fast for the rest of the time. So, we can regard intermittent fasting as a pattern of eating and it's possible for you to incorporate certain kinds of intermittent fasting into your daily life and others can last for longer time frames of 3 to 5 days.

You should understand that every style of intermittent fasting comes with its benefits for disease prevention, metabolism, psychological well-being, and cellular repair. This section will focus on intermittent fasting, how to embark on it and some of its benefits.

Intermittent Fasting (IF)

Although intermittent fasting became very popular recently, it's not entirely new. It's been used even in the 1900s to treat diabetes, epilepsy, and obesity. So, it's been a normal aspect of humans which has helped us to tap into the ancient knowledge already in existence within our biology. Presently, celebrities and scientists have increased the popularity of this pattern of eating.

Intermittent fasting offers several benefits and it's simple and straightforward. Interestingly, you may be unconsciously doing intermittent fasting whenever you skip your dinner or breakfast. In the hunter-gather days, while in search of food, our ancestors were also in a fasting state.

Also, all kinds of religion prescribed fasting; Yom Kippur in Judaism, Ramadan in Islam, and "Vaasa" in Hinduism. During the fasting period, people were not allowed to eat, drink or engage in sexual activities.

Types of Intermittent Fasting

1:16/8 Fasting (16 hours off, 8 Hours on)

In this kind of fasting, you have 16 hours off and 8 hours on. It's also regarded simply as skipping a meal or the daily window fasting. This is perhaps the most common and easiest type of intermittent fasting where you fast for 16 hours and eat for a period of eight hours.

You can choose to skip breakfast and eat later in the day or eat your dinner early and refrain from eating until breakfast the next day. There are individuals who reduce they're eating windows to below eight hours while some fast for 20 hours or more which is called "The Warrior Diet."

2.Water Fasting

This is often regarded as the most difficult type of fasting and you need the supervision of a doctor or support from an expert before choosing this kind of fasting. Some people see water fasting as the true fast. During the period of fasting, you don’t eat or drink any beverages – just water.

This means absolutely no calories, so you're missing out on vital minerals and vitamins. This is why it's not often recommended that you embark on water fasting unless you consult your doctor.

The purpose of water fast is the fat reduction and detoxing. For individuals on a completely non-fat-adapted state, ketosis takes place during the second or third-day mark of the fast and your body makes use of the stored fats as its energy source. During a water fast, overweight persons with excess body fat may actually feel energized and on the other hand, leaner individuals may feel lethargic since their bodies are attempting to conserve energy at all costs.

You should bear in mind that water fasting can be extremely uncomfortable because of the complete lack of food, in addition to the risks of electrolyte imbalance. However, if you decide to embark on a water fast, then you need to start slow with manageable fasting patterns such as 16/8 before you go full blast with water fast.

There are alternatives to water fast and they are broth fasting and juice fasting. In juice fasting, you can have access to the vitamins and minerals which you can't enjoy in water fasting. But some people also juice vegetables for a purpose. The reason is that when using only fruit juice or as a flavor enhancer for green juice, the natural sugars found in fruits make it similar to sugar water which is not suitable for you if you desire to achieve ketosis.

The other alternative is broth fasting and this includes sipping on bone broth potentially mixed with fats. This helps to provide your body with small amounts of electrolytes, nutrients, and protein.

3. Fat Fasting

This is also regarded as "fast mimicking" and it actually mimics a fast (with several effects of water fast), however, during the fast, you only eat healthy fats which gave rise to the name fast fasting. Since your body is unable to distinguish dietary fat from metabolizing dietary fat, it remains in the fasted state.

With this, you can enjoy the benefit of fasting while enabling you to gain some macro and micronutrients needed by your body to get into ketosis as well as all the benefits for your brain and body. Some of the benefits of fat mimicking include:

*The activation of autophagy

*The improvement as well as rejuvenation of the immune system

*Decreased fat tissue through ketosis

*Purging of precancerous and cancerous cells

*Increased gene expression which promotes longevity

The reduction of C-reactive protein as well as a decrease in oxidative stress

Improvement in fasting glucose, regenerative markers, and healthy stem cell levels

An increase of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and this supports survival and growth of new brain neurons and leads to better mental performance

4.Alternate Day (24 hours fasting) and 5/2

This type of intermittent fasting is also regarded as Eat-Stop-Eat and the UpDayDownDay diet. It has to do with you fasting on alternate days of the week and eating unrestricted the other days. So, in this case, you can make Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday eating days while Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are days set aside to fast.

This means that your last meal for Friday would be your dinner so, you won't eat anything until Saturday dinner or breakfast the next day. For 5/2 fasting, you can select two days of the week where you decide to lower your consumption of calories to just a quarter of the usual amount you consume each day. For instance, if you eat 2,500 calories, you can decide to eat just 500 for two days each week.

Which type should you choose?

One of the most common questions that people have when deciding to embark on intermittent fasting is; which type to choose. The best answer to this question depends on the individual fat-adapted state as well as your goals. You must have noticed that the keto diet helps with fasting since it ensures a smooth transition of your body to enable it efficiently to utilize stored fats for energy rather than always crying out for food.

The easiest, both for keto and fasting beginners is the 16/8 fasting, especially those who aren't yet fat-adapted. All you have to do is simply skip dinner or breakfast. Goals also need to be considered when you're now a veteran with keto or fasting. One of your goals could be to get back into ketosis after you've had a bad cheat day.

You can get back on track with ketone production by having an alternate-day fast (24hrs) or going for a fat fast. Perhaps one of the commonest goals is to break through a weight-loss plateau and you can get past that plateau by implementing any of the fasting types earlier mentioned (except water fasting) though this depends on other factors.

Understanding The Science of Intermittent Fasting

The way we view and eat food each day has been transformed by the modern era of agriculture as well as factory-laden foods such as processed foods. This has also resulted in a long list of health issues that we experience in our society today.

Despite the fact that Intermittent fasting is an ancient practice, we're just discovering several health benefits of the science behind it. The moment you fast, you're allowing your body to engage in natural cleansing, repair and then regenerating itself to enable it to perform optimally. There are basically three health-enhancing mechanisms that are linked with fasting and they are:

The gut microbiome

Various lifestyle behaviors

Circadian biology

More about this topic you can find it in my book:” The Ketogenic Diet & Intermittent Fasting”, which is now online available for

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Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting (IF)

Helps with weight loss and Belly Fat

With( IF) you can increase your body's ability to breakdown body fat and even facilitate its use of energy with lower insulin levels, increased amounts of norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and higher growth hormones. This explains why short-term fasting can increase the metabolic rate of your body by 3.6-14 percent and this helps you to burn more calories.

Lowers Insulin Resistance

One of the health issues that has become very common in recent decades is type II diabetes. One of the main features of type II diabetes is high blood sugar levels in the context of insulin resistance. Anything that’s capable of reducing insulin resistance can also lower blood sugar levels which will, in turn, shield you against type II diabetes.

Fortunately, intermittent fasting has proven to offer lots of benefits for insulin resistance which results in an outstanding reduction in blood sugar levels. Available data from human studies on intermittent fasting reveals that fasting sugar has been reduced.

If you are interested to gain more knowledge about Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting, you are more than welcome to visit my Amazon Author’s page and get a copy of my book.

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