6 reasons that fasting should be part of your eating lifestyle

We don’t generally think of gourmet eating when we think about fasting. In fact, we think the opposite. Fasting is the lack of food and drink, exactly the opposite. But, fasting is also part of our eating habits and needs to be addressed. Fasting is one of the easiest things you can add to your eating regimen to add to your health. It might seem difficult to do, but a simple 24 hour fast is only from dinner time to not eating until the dinner time the next day. You might be hungry the first couple of times you do it, but trust us, after the third time, you probably won’t even notice it. Fasting is healthier than eating 3 meals a day every day, hands down. Here are some of the benefits.

Food enjoyment

Okay, this isn’t a health benefit really, but we have found that we enjoy food a lot more if we have fasted. Even though we are not starving ourselves, the body is grateful for the food and we can have a more mindful experience of enjoying a meal.

Blood sugar

Blood sugar and insulin are affected by fasting. It shows that you can possibly help type 2 diabetics, and even protect yourself from getting it in the first place. There are different kinds of fasting and they will impact your blood sugar levels differently, but for the chance of not having type 2 diabetics or dealing with insulin resistance, it is well worth it.

Cancer prevention

There have been many studies, though mostly animal, that fasting can treat cancer as successfully as chemotherapy and also aid in chemotherapy drugs. There is a large anecdotal base of cancer patients out there that are trying fasting and reporting great success for helping with their condition. There are also people out there that say that intermittent fasting will reduce the number of cancer cells floating around in the blood (we all have them) and decrease the chance of them getting a foothold. many suggest a 3 day fast for this.

Overall health

You might remember years ago there was a big thing called the Mediterranean diet (which is still a big thing) as it showed that you could lower blood pressure, cholesterol and a bunch of other things, but it never seemed to work here as well as it did in the Mediterranean. The main reason for that was in the Mediterranean, fasting is a part of the culture, so without that part of the diet, it didn’t work as well. Fasting can help blood pressure, help lower cholesterol, help your heart, and help lower triglycerides. Fasting helps a lot of other great things as well that we have not listed here.

Brain

It has been found that fasting also helps your brain health. Anecdotally, the days we personally fast it always seems we are much sharper and more aware. Fasting can also reduce inflammation. There have been studies in animals that show that fasting can regenerate new nerve cells. Recently there have also been studies that might show a positive effect on controlling Alzheimer’s disease.

Weight

Intermittent fasting helps in losing pounds and maintaining a healthy weight. There have been studies that show that intermittent fasting can be more efficient for losing weight than calorie restriction. It also increases growth hormone and helps maintain muscle, which is very important while losing weight.

Fasting is really one of the most underrated things for increasing your health. It does not take that much discipline (after the first couple of times) and is much easier to maintain that a strict diet. If you are not trying to lose weight, it is still something you should do. It will make you stronger, faster, and smarter, and make food taste better, so how awesome is that?