3 Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Improved gut health and increased metabolism

Ultimately, fasting allows our body to rest from digesting and uses this energy to help our system replenish and reset. Asking our body to be ever alert is equally as unfair as suggesting you go for a walk instead of going to bed at night! 50% of our energy is used for breaking down our food, so when you take that away, we’ve got a lot of extra energy to use for other things.

We have trillions and trillions of good bacteria working away, their actions ranging from nutrient absorption to waste removal and mood stability, with many other key roles too. Naturally, they get overwhelmed with the ongoing digesting of food and don’t get to finish their cycles properly. This could cause imbalances between different forms, excess fermentation and intermittent bowel movements. We often scapegoat our bacteria for our symptoms of IBS or bloating, without realising that it's most likely our habits that trigger these results.

It’s time to give that probiotic bacteria some time to do their jobs and flush out those toxins! And probiotic bacteria diversity does not just relate to gut health, but also immunity, energy levels, skin, liver function and cognitive function.

Intermittent fasting can also enhance our metabolic functionality as the body will start to burn stored fat instead of glucose for energy, and your blood sugar levels begin to stabilise. Not only this but it can also impact hormone levels - it can lower insulin, increase growth hormone levels, and increase the release of the fat burning hormone norepinephrine. Because of these changes in hormones, short-term fasting may increase your metabolic rate (ref PubMed).

Increased energy and productivity

As mentioned before, the resting of our digestive system allows for that extra boost of energy we never knew we had!

Allowing an elongated break between dinner and going to bed means our digestive system is not working away when we go to sleep. Our internal systems are most active when we sleep, because they don’t need to support the many things we do when we’re awake. This will then lead to a far more satisfactory and restful sleep cycle which will allow us to wake up re-energised and refreshed, and raring to go.

This further increases our metabolic efficiency as our energy is coming from a true place rather than a reliance on quick fixes and stimulants.

Re-educating yourself on your bodily intelligence

Through fasting, we give our body the opportunity to become sensitive again to our energy uptake mechanism, such as the joy we feel when being surprised with a bunch of beautiful flowers versus the plant in our sitting room that we gaze upon day by day.

Fasting allows one to re-educate ourselves on the differentiation between true and habitual hunger. So many of us are partial to snacking or eating at regular intervals out of habit, to the point that our bodily signals become accustomed to such routine and start to tell us we are hungry even if we are not. By disrupting this routine slightly, we can see whether we actually are in need of the fuel, or not. This doesn’t mean to say that we are denying ourselves of food when we need it, but in fact the opposite!

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