I became an obese teenager when I came to America and ate the American diet. I have used a whole foods diet and interval fasting for 40 years to have a healthy weight. More details about this will be in my upcoming book Mind Body Secrets: A Medical Doctor’s Spiritual and Scientific Guide to Wellness. This will become available from July 12, 2023.
Intermittent Fasting 101
Fasting, incredibly renewing for the body, actually slows your biological-aging clock. While fasting, the body rids itself of toxicities and discards or reuses old and inflamed cells. Fasting decreases inflammation and oxidative stress, promotes weight loss from fat rather than from muscles, and gives the body a chance to improve the health of its DNA. The ultimate goal is to improve health by decreasing inflammation, lowering insulin, getting rid of toxicities or old cells through shifting the amount and source of energy production. Doing this requires preparation and having an intentional mindset with specific goals for the practice: spiritual, lifestyle change, longevity practice, weight loss and diabetes reversal, cancer treatment.
If your are dealing with being over weight, obesity, pre diabetes or diabetes, cancer learning about interval fasting is something you should know about.
Interval or intermittent fasting
- Interval fasting involves not eating for extended periods of the day and between meals. The easiest way to start is not to eat from dinner (example no food after 7 PM) until next day’s breakfast.
- That means going from 12 to 16-18 hours a day without food or snacks and enjoy meals in the remaining hours.
- Interval fasting causes glucose and insulin levels to decline within 2 to 3 months, even if they have been high for years.
- During the periods when one is not eating, low insulin and glucose allow the liver to deplete its storage of glucose and use fat cells to make energy.
- Using the fat in your body as an energy source can transform your body into a thinner and younger version of itself.
Full day to 5 days of fasting (More intense form of intermittent fasting)
- Single day fasts once a week
- If you are under high stress periods
- To get rid of senescent cells
- To slow down how we age
Multiple-day fasts a few times year
- Ideal for those who are overweight with or without pre diabetes, with or without cancer
- To get rid of senescent cells
- To slow down how we age
Multiple-day fasts every month
- Ideal if you are obese with a BMI greater than 30-35 and want to lose weight and/or want to reverse a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes
- Fasting periods are followed by whole food program during non-fasting days
- Option 1: Fasting two days a week, for example, Tuesdays and Fridays or Wednesdays and Saturdays. Individuals who fast two days a week experience greater weight loss.
- Option 2: Fasting 5 days in a row once a month. (*if used for at least 6 months it is shown to reverse diabetes.
During fasting days limit calorie intake to no more than 500 to 600 calories per day, which is reached by drinking broth, water, coffee and tea ( no condiments ). During fast you can also choose commercially available fast-mimicking programs (they provide the food that helps keeps you in the fasted state by prevent insulin rises). I have used the program created by Valter Longo, L-Nutra, for years.