https://www.youtube.com/embed/RI5oYIUItN8
hi guys welcome to my video on intermittent
fasting and time restricted eating fasting is one of the hottest diets out there if you want
to call it a diet i'm gonna break this video into seven sections and dissect the science to separate
the facts from fiction in part one we'll define what intermittent fasting is part two we'll
discuss the types of fasting part three how to fast part four the health benefits of fasting part
five fasting for weight loss part six the fasting meal plan and finally in part seven we'll answer
the question is fasting safe for everyone so i'm excited to get this thing rolling but before we
get started remember there is no perfect diet for everyone each person is an individual with unique
genetics and we all have our different lives with that being said there are some overarching
principles that apply to big groups of people and generally speaking these are what develop
into our nutrition guidelines fasting may suit some of you but not all of you and just to be
clear as we go through these videos and i refer to the term fasting that's going to refer to both
intermittent fasting and time restricted eating unlike intermittent fasting time restricted eating
does not involve caloric restriction so with time restricted eating you can eat as much as you want
as long as you eat within that window now that we understand those definitions let's hone in on
the science of fasting in general when you eat a normal meal glucose from carbohydrates and fatty
acids from fats are the main energy sources for your cells after you've eaten glucose is used as a
direct source of energy and fatty acids are stored in your fat tissue in the form of triglycerides
when you fast meaning you're eating nothing or very little your body runs out of glucose and
needs an alternative source of energy to keep going it now breaks down your triglycerides into
their individual components which are fatty acids and glycerol and then your liver will convert the
fatty acids into ketone bodies ketone bodies or ketones for short can be used as an alternative
source of energy for many tissues including the brain when you're eating enough food from all
three macronutrient groups meaning carbohydrates proteins and fats the amount of ketones in your
blood are low when you fast this level rises within the first eight to twelve hours reaching
levels between 0.2 to 0.5 millimolars which are maintained for about 24 hours with a subsequent
increase to one to two millimolars by around 48 hours however fuel is not ketones only function
they also have major effects on your cells and organs for example intermittently having higher
levels of ketones does four things for one it improves mitochondrial function mitochondria are
often referred to as the powerhouses of our cells energy in our body is mainly from the process of
mitochondria releasing energy from atp molecules when we suffer from metabolic disturbances and
obesity our mitochondrial function is reduced but fasting may help to improve this function two
ketones help your cells become more resistant to stress during these times of food restriction
the cells adopt a stress resistance mode essentially you're making your cells tougher so
they can withstand more three ketones enhance autophagy autophagy autophagy tomato tomato
auto in latin means self and feige means eating so this means self eating this refers to when
cells purposely eat other cells in your body which sounds like a horrible thing but it's not
autophagy gives your cells the ability to clean up cellular garbage if you will that cellular garbage
that normally accumulates in our cells or when you're hurt or when you're sick basically it's
your cell's version of taking out the trash when autophagy doesn't work properly your immune system
attacks the cellular garbage and this causes a low-grade chronic inflammation which is the basis
of most chronic diseases the four things that ketones do is they help recovery when you eat or
break your fast the body is forced to switch from fasting and using ketones to glucose now this is
known as metabolic switching depending on what you eat there will be an increase in glucose and your
ketone levels will decrease in the recovery period there's an increase in the formation of proteins
and in this phase we see cell growth including mitochondrial growth as well as cell plasticity
which is the ability of your cells to adapt to changes in their environment the metabolic
switching between fuel sources links fasting to a number of long-term health benefits the key
though is not to stay in ketosis indefinitely like what you do with the keto diet but to regularly
swap between ketones and glucose additional health benefits come into play because fasting goes hand
in hand with our circadian rhythm your circadian rhythm is your body's natural clock that links
biological processes to day and night you could think of almost every cell in your body as having
a tiny biological clock that syncs up with the master clock located in your hypothalamus in
the center of your brain your master clock sends signals to the body clocks throughout the day to
regulate your daily activities the master clock is very sensitive to light and having appropriate
exposure to light during waking hours helps to keep you alert as night falls the brain clock
initiates the production of melatonin helping to lull you to sleep although your sleep wake cycle
is the most prominent circadian rhythm these body clocks play a role in virtually every system in
your body research is ongoing but evidence has connected them to metabolism and weight gain or
weight loss through the regulation of blood sugar and cholesterol it's also part of the reason why
for most people as they become more and more tired their food cravings become more and more intense
circadian rhythm also plays a role in influencing mental health immunity and dna repair and thus
cancer risk this is why keeping your body aligned with its natural circadian rhythm is ideal and
fasting plays a part in this because when done correctly it encourages eating during the daytime
hours and fasting during the nighttime hours there was a great study that was done in
2020 that provides us with more evidence for sinking our circadian patterns with our eating
habits they found that when eating during daylight hours subjects had one lower post meal blood sugar
and insulin levels two lower fat production and three better blood pressure control interestingly
this was independent of the macronutrient content of the diet in short it didn't matter what these
meals are made of this study highlights that when it comes to fasting favoring one macronutrient
over another is of less significance so even though the common practice of no carbs after
7 pm might have some value it's better to not demonize carbs and instead get into the habit of
not eating late at night many people eat almost half of their calories at night and we know that
nighttime eating has long been associated with higher risk for obesity diabetes and even
cardiovascular disease this may be why breakfast skippers who compensate by eating late at night
are metabolically worse off even though they may not be eating more calories or gaining weight the
type of fasting that you use and how well it sinks to your circadian rhythm may contribute towards
your success the bottom line is that people should fast or drastically reduce their calories
enough so that your body switches to ketones for energy for a predetermined amount of time but you
shouldn't stay in ketosis indefinitely the key to the health benefits associated with fasting is
that metabolic switching between ketones and glucose as an energy source giving you the best
of both worlds in addition to that ideally you want to eat during a certain window during the
day first up is time restricted eating so this involves two of the most popular versions there's
the 16 to 8 version where it's 16 hours of fasting mixed with eight hours of eating and then there's
also the 12 and 12 so 12 hours of fasting 12 hours of eating this one is also known as the circadian
rhythm version of that basically you're going to follow a meal plan within a designated time frame
and then when you're not in that time frame when you're in the fasting window you're going to make
sure that you don't eat or drink anything except for water except for coffee if it doesn't have any
milk or cream or sugar in it and same goes for tea sinking your eating during the daylight hours
is ideal in order to get the best results a study conducted by the university of alabama
found that when a small group of pre-diabetic men ate all their meals between 7 a.m and 3 p.m
they had significantly better insulin sensitivity and reduced blood pressure in comparison to their
peers who ate their meals over a 12-hour period like from 7 a.m to 7 p.m neither group gained or
lost weight but the early time restricted feeding group showed improved metabolic health and to
sweeten the deal this group also felt more full this shows us that meal timing does play a role
in metabolic health independent of weight loss so if you're choosing between the 16 to 8 or the 12
to 12 or even something in between like 14 to 10 the key is to time it so that that
window avoids eating late at night the second type of fasting is called periodic
fasting which is a little different on non-fasting days there are technically no restrictions and
you're encouraged to eat until you feel full on your fasting days you either eat nothing or
restrict your caloric intake anywhere from zero to forty percent of your usual intake this fasting
will take place on one to two non-consecutive days per week so for example on a monday and a
wednesday this method technically requires calorie counting if you do end up eating small amounts
on fasting days or you could roughly estimate it by only eating one small meal and last up we have
alternate day fasting here you alternate between days of eating normally with days of eating
just one small meal an example could be where you fast on monday wednesday and friday but then
eat without restriction on the other days this modified alternate day fasting or madf encourages
fasting days for three to five times per week so as you can see there's a number of ways
that you can fast so that it suits your needs okay although the various forms of fasting sound
pretty simple i mean how hard is it to just stop eating right but the truth is there's a trick to
fasting properly and it's not by going cold turkey remember if you are serious about fasting and
you want to make it part of your new lifestyle it should be viewed not simply as a fad diet
researchers have suggested that you taper down your eating hours over a period of four months
let's first take a look at the more simple of the two methods time restricted eating remember
that with time restricted eating you're going to slowly decrease your window of eating and increase
your window of fasting the aim is to eat to hunger during your eating window and eat nothing and
only drink non-caloric drinks like water and black unsweetened tea and coffee during your
fasting period it's best to taper things down one month at a time you don't want to rush things
here instead give your body time to adjust think of it as a marathon not a sprint let's go
through some practical steps to help you set out your individual plan the first thing you need
to decide is what time you want to break your fast remember that eating earlier and ending earlier
seems to be better but this also needs to fit into your schedule so adapt it in a way that's best
suited for you for example one way to do it is in your first month you can fast for 10 hours per day
from monday through friday where you start eating at 9am and then you end your eating window by 7
pm then on saturday and sunday you eat normally then in month two you would decrease the eating
window to eight hours so keep your same monday through friday schedule but this time you start
your fast at 10 am and then you end it at 6 pm if you're up for an additional challenge you can
change up your fast day schedule to include the weekend this works well if you find it hard to
control what you eat on the weekends but this is not for everyone in this scenario you would have
an 8 hour eating window on monday wednesday friday saturday and sunday and then you eat normally on
tuesday and thursday then in month number three you can either do monday to friday schedule
or the alternative schedule i just explained but now you want to decrease your eating window to
only six hours so for example eating from 11am to 5pm in your fourth month in onward you'll carry on
eating from 11am to 5pm but you're going to try to do this every day this would be your ultimate
goal if these times don't make sense for your individual needs feel free to change them up
for example as your end goal you may want to start eating at 9 a.m and end at 3 p.m the timing
is up to you and what makes sense for your life if you'd rather do intermittent fasting you
would still taper down one month at a time but instead of tapering down the hours you would
taper down the calories with this method you're going to either need a calorie controlled plan
done by someone like a registered dietitian or you'll need a calorie counting app if calorie
counting is not for you you're probably just better off doing time restricted eating now i'm
going to show you the five to two ratio diet the goal here is that five days of the week you eat
normally and two days of the week you drastically cut down calories for this way of eating you don't
have any time restrictions on any of those days so you can eat your meals whenever you want but
my advice would be to eat during daylight hours for the best health benefits the typical way
of getting here is that in your first month you're going to eat normally for six days a
week and then on a predetermined day for example monday you'll eat no more than 1 000 calories
in month 2 you're going to increase this to a 1 000 calorie day twice a week in other words
you're gonna eat normally for five days and then calorie restrict on two of those days for example
monday and wednesday you're now at your goal for fasting days and now we need to slowly bring down
the calories then on month three you reduce your calories on monday and wednesday from 1000 to 750
calories per day and then in month four you reduce it even further to 500 calories per day by the end
of month four you're eating normally for five days and then you're eating no more than 500 calories
for two non-consecutive days it doesn't have to be monday wednesday any two non-consecutive days will
work for example tuesday and thursday or wednesday and friday etc you can use this exact method to
reduce your calories for alternate day fasting the only difference would be that you include a
third low calorie day into the mix i'd recommend you include this third day in month three all
you need to do now is to pick which type of fasting suits you best and then get started
now to answer some frequently asked questions first you might be wondering if fasting
will make you super hungry for too long of course no one wants that some intermittent
fasting studies do show that leptin which is a hunger hormone increases with fasting but these
same study participants did not indicate that they subjectively felt hungrier so even though
their hunger hormone was higher they felt okay generally speaking the first month
or so is the hardest but after that people who do intermittent fasting don't have any
issues with feeling excessively hungry at the end of the day how frequently you eat is a personal
decision that is influenced by a lot of factors everyone's different if you find that you are able
to tolerate intervals of not eating or eating very little then a fasting regimen may be the right
option for you next up because we all want results like yesterday how long will it take for fasting
to work remember that when you fast your ketone levels rise within the first eight to twelve hours
reaching levels between 0.2 to 0.5 millimolars nutritional ketosis is experienced at levels over
0.5 millimolar so once you've fasted or eaten very little for at least 12 hours you're going to
start reaping the benefits of metabolic switching once you adopt the fasting diet give it a chance
to work it can take some time before you get used to the side effects of fasting and having symptoms
like hunger irritability and loss of concentration what the research tells us is that these types
of symptoms only last for two to four weeks and that if you know what to expect then
sticking to the plan is much easier it's vital to understand that your organ systems respond
to fasting by overcoming the challenge and then restoring balance and that repeated exposure will
lead to a lasting adaptive response so even if you try and fail trying is better than not ever
starting and finally is this something that you can stick to most likely yes in a 2019 study that
compared three popular diets intermittent fasting mediterranean diet and the paleo diet they found
that the dropout rates for intermittent fasting and the mediterranean diet were much lower
compared with the paleo the authors concluded that the more restricted the diet the more likely
it was that people would drop out for many people included in this study intermittent fasting
was easy to incorporate into their everyday lives and lots of them managed to follow it for
a longer period of time so let's take a look at what the research is showing when it comes to the
three biggest health benefits of fasting health benefit number one weight loss while maintaining
muscle mass if you eat enough protein this 12 week long trial found that normal and overweight
participants who underwent alternate day fasting lost mainly fat and preserve their muscle mass
that's exactly what we want right another study conducted on healthy young men found that those
who fasted for 16 hours per day on that 16 to 8 regimen lost fat but at the same time managed
to maintain their muscle mass this highlights the importance of exercise while fasting on most
diets when you lose weight it's estimated that 25 of the weight loss is muscle mass which is not
what you want since more muscle mass means a higher metabolism and a greater chance that you'll
get rid of the fat more often than not fasting leads to reduced energy intake and subsequently
reduced protein intake we need to be careful when this happens because fasting can be a fantastic
way to lose weight and maintain muscle mass but only if you include strength exercises and eat
enough protein this is one of the reasons why the elderly who are at risk of sarcopenia of aging
meaning age-related muscle loss they have to be careful fasting without proper medical supervision
and support health benefit number two is that fasting can improve insulin sensitivity a number
of studies conducted on different populations over varying periods of time has shown that fasting
has the potential to improve insulin sensitivity the more sensitive the cells are to insulin the
less insulin the body needs to produce to help you digest and absorb your food especially when it
comes to carbohydrates having lower insulin levels is a sign of good metabolic health and reduces the
risk for diabetes and lower levels of insulin may also help with weight loss as they are related
those who routinely incorporate fasting in their lives seem to also have fewer cases of diabetes
for example in okinawa japan we see that fasting in addition to choosing low energy but nutrient
dense foods can result in a population with low rates of obesity and diabetes as well as extreme
longevity examples of these foods include okinawan sweet potatoes legumes and other vegetables to
back these observational studies up even further members of the calorie restriction society who
follow the cron diet the calorie restriction with optimal nutrition they have low rates of diabetes
and lower levels of hormones that are associated with diabetes they had low levels of growth
hormone and insulin like growth factor one as well as lower markers of inflammation and oxidative
stress when you add it all up it looks more and more that there's a credible case to be made that
fasting plays a large part in preventing diabetes health benefit number three possible improvements
in brain health some studies in humans show that fasting enhances mental cognition especially
when it comes to memory for example a clinical trial studied a group of older adults who were
about 60 years old and found that a short-term regimen of caloric restriction specifically
a 30 restriction improved their verbal memory these results are possibly due to higher synaptic
plasticity in the brain because of improved insulin sensitivity and reduced inflammatory
activity basically the synapses between neurons in the brain are strengthened leading to positive
outcomes in better brain health weight loss in and of itself can also lead to better brain
health fasting may also have an effect on the prevention and progression of a variety of
neurological diseases this is where the research really starts to get interesting neurodegenerative
disorders are diseases of the brain that lead to cognitive decline that gets worse as time moves on
we're talking about diseases here like alzheimer's other types of dementia and parkinson's disease
one hypothesis is that some of these disorders are caused by an excessive intake of energy
particularly in midlife so in these cases fasting as a preventative method starts to make
sense because part of the regimen is to reduce the amount of energy that you consume while these
studies are still in their infancy there are some promising results some of the preliminary benefits
include seizure control and epilepsy prevention of and improved cognitive function in alzheimer's
disease as well as some improvements in mood and anxiety while all this sounds great these studies
are not definitive so still lots to learn here another possible health benefit of fasting is its
potential to prevent or slow down the progression of certain types of cancers cancer is a very
complex group of diseases and while nutrition definitely cannot cure cancer a number of studies
and animals have shown that various forms of fasting can decrease the likelihood of some
cancers developing for example in some studies fasting decreased the formation of spontaneous
tumors in rodents which is part of the normal aging process of rodents fasting may also be able
to suppress the growth of some types of tumors and increase the rodent's sensitivity to cancer
treatment like radiation and chemotherapy it's thought that fasting interferes with the way that
the cancer cell grows and makes it weaker which is good because then the cancer drugs can destroy
more easily there have been a few case studies that have shown promise with fasting in humans
with specific types of cancers like glioblastoma which is a quite aggressive cancer that usually
occurs in the brain or spinal cord some case studies suggested that fasting can suppress
tumor growth and help people live a little longer so fasting research is ongoing in a variety of
disease states and is looking promising a number of clinical trials are underway to assess how
fasting affects multiple diseases like asthma multiple sclerosis arthritis and other forms
of cancer including breast ovarian prostate endometrial and colorectal okay on to part five
fasting for weight loss did you know that it's been predicted that by the year 2030 more than
half of the u.s population will be classified as obese and this doesn't even account for the number
of people who are classified as overweight if you think fasting could be a good fit for you that's
great because it has tremendous potential to help you lose fat a review article that was conducted
in 2020 looked at 27 trials where participants took part in some form of fasting they found
that fasting resulted in weight loss between 0.8 to 13 percent from baseline body weight and
waist circumference also decreased this systemic review of 40 studies found that participants who
did intermittent fasting typically lost 7 to 11 pounds over a period of 10 weeks however a brand
new meta-analysis done in 2021 showed that not all fasting methods are equal when it comes to weight
loss it highlights the 5 to 2 intermittent fasting diet and the modified alternate day fasting to
madf as being the ones that are most closely associated with successful weight loss remember
that both the five to two and madf encourage that you eat between zero to forty percent of your
usual intake on the fasting days with five to two you'll fast on two non-consecutive days and
with the madf you'll fast every other day for at least three to five days out of the week it
wasn't surprising that in general it was found that combining exercise with fasting drastically
improved the weight loss with one study showing that weight loss doubled when exercise was added
spoiler alert at the moment the research is showing us that weight loss when fasting versus
normal calorie restriction is roughly the same as with any other diet research backed or not if
you are in a calorie deficit you'll probably lose weight in most cases the dropout rate between
calorie restriction and fasting also seems to be the same but when you're on a low calorie diet
for a long period of time physiological changes can occur that cause your body to adapt to the
calorie restriction essentially your body gets used to being on a low calorie diet and the
pounds come off at a slower rate intermittent fasting addresses this problem by cycling between
low caloric intake for a period of time followed by normal eating it tries to switch things up and
keep the body guessing while we think that this may help on a physiological level we still need
more studies where it does seem to help though is from a compliance point of view most weight loss
diets backfire because people give up it becomes boring and too hard but with fasting there's a
bit more flexibility and food freedom fasting by itself is not necessarily a superior weight
loss diet just a different way of doing things fasting as with almost every other diet is the
most successful at the beginning usually the first six months after that most people end up hitting a
plateau and this is common when losing weight and the best thing to do is to stick to your plan and
focus on fueling your body with healthy food and of course exercise if you're worried that fasting
may have adverse effects the same review article showed that no adverse effects were reported in
all 27 trials now there were some fasting related effects like altered mood but as i mentioned
before if you're aware of the expected effects then you can mentally prepare and better handle
them especially when you know that the research tells us that these side effects are self-limiting
and will probably go away between two weeks and one month although fasting and traditional calorie
restrictions seem to have similar results with regards to weight loss in the short term less
than two years what will be interesting is the combination of fasting techniques with a healthy
dietary pattern one of the problems we have with the research that's been conducted on fasting
so far is that many of the studies don't help people choose what foods to eat how much to eat or
encourage healthy lifestyle changes like exercise or improve sleeping habits i think that once the
research catches up and incorporates these we may start to see some pretty great weight loss results
so what should you be eating when undertaking any of these fasting regimens many of the fasting
studies conducted in recent years have not controlled for the types of foods that people eat
they only focused on when people ate or didn't eat while the fed in the fastened states may provide
your body with metabolic advantages and may also result in weight loss what you eat is as important
as when you eat pairing fasting with a healthy diet like the mediterranean diet may be the key to
cracking the obesity code on a long term basis the american dietary guidelines for 2020 to 2025 have
been developed by experts and policy makers across the country essentially they are a set of dietary
recommendations that are updated every five years when we summarize the high quality evidence
available to us in these guidelines as well as in consensus statements and high quality studies
we can see that a healthy diet or healthy dietary patterns are made up of the following components
eat plenty of whole fruits and vegetables of all types especially aiming for more vegetables than
fruit eat high fiber starches and choose mainly whole grains eat protein-containing foods daily
from a variety of sources so vegetarian vegan animal products that are lean meats that's
what's great choose minimally processed fats and oils from plant sources some of us are visual
learners so using a tool like the harvard healthy eating plate can help you understand what these
recommendations look like on a meal per meal basis using a plate model is an example of a food-based
approach this is a good way of looking at nutrition because that's what we eat food now this
is in contrast to past dietary recommendations that focused on single nutrients many of you
may have heard of counting your macros or macronutrients the macronutrients include protein
fat and carbohydrates the nutrients that have commonly been demonized include fat especially
in the 90s and more recently carbohydrates carbs but remember we don't eat these nutrients in
isolation and the meals we eat are a combination of all three macronutrients so it doesn't make
sense to focus on one or the other a significant portion of research shows that there is no ideal
macronutrient distribution and that we should rather focus on choosing high quality minimally
processed or unprocessed foods and minimizing low quality foods or ultra processed foods upfs
this includes foods with added sugar in the back of your mind i want you to think about the
kinds of foods that you regularly eat what does that food look like can you more or less see or
imagine what the unprocessed or natural version of that food looked like when it was harvested
at the farm these kinds of foods the ones where you can visualize the natural food are known as
unprocessed or minimally processed foods sometimes they've been altered to make preparing the food
a little easier or to make eating that food a little safer two good examples of this are rolled
oats and pasteurized milk when oats are harvested they look very similar to wheat and are known
as oat berries cooking oats from this state takes a very long time so what manufacturers
have done is streamed and rolled the oats to make them quicker to cook this is a form of
processing but rolled oats are considered to be minimally processed when you look at the
list of ingredients in your box of rolled oats the only ingredients should be oats the more the
oats are rolled steamed and cut up the quicker it will cook and this is the difference between
rolled oats and old-fashioned notes and quick cooking notes pasteurized milk is pretty much
exactly the same as when it's milked from the cow but it has been heated to a high temperature or
pasteurized to make it safer for us to consume pasteurization kills the harmful bacteria that
might otherwise make us ill once again if you look at the label of your milk the only ingredient
should be milk when we cook we often use things like sugar salt and oil these products are called
culinary ingredients and most are also considered to be minimally processed they've been created
using a variety of methods like pressing refining extracting or mining and are used to prepare
and season our whole and minimally processed foods some oils are the exception to this
rule as they have been highly refined like canola and sunflower oil manufacturers can also
combine minimally processed foods with sugar salt or oil to either increase their shelf life
enable self-storage or make it easier to prepare think of foods that have been canned or bottled
with or without salt added or sugar added bread cheeses and vegetables like sauerkraut that have
been produced using non-alcoholic fermentation if we avoided these processing methods we would
either eliminate a variety of foods from our diet because they would just be too tedious to prepare
or we would literally be spending our lives in the kitchen the foods that we need to steer clear
of are the ultra processed foods and ones with added sugar these types of foods are hardly even
food anymore they're more like food-like products often these food ingredients are combined in
ways that don't occur naturally to produce a highly palatable and even addictive food-like
product foods like corn wheat soy cane and beet or even ground up animal carcasses are broken down
into single ingredients like sugar starches fiber oil fats and protein some of these substances are
chemically modified through a variety of processes like hydrolysis or hydrogenation and cosmetic
additives are added to make the final product very tasty to eat these ingredients are then
assembled into their food-like form through processes like extrusion molding and pre-frying
these so-called foods are then packaged using sophisticated methods to keep these ingredients
fresh and then sold to the consumer some good examples include soft drinks sugar sweetened and
artificially sweetened hot dogs and cold cuts fast food packaged cookies cakes and salty snacks these
are the foods you should be limiting in your diet sadly more than half the food consumed in high
income countries like america is ultra processed with middle and low income countries quickly
following soup upfs ultra processed foods they contribute to glucose intolerance insulin
resistance and type 2 diabetes in two big ways one they have an unbalanced nutritional profile
ingredients used to create upfs have been stripped of all their natural nutrients especially vitamins
and minerals even when these nutrients are added back they don't seem to have the same beneficial
effects on the body this is probably because when we eat food real food all the nutrients work
together to improve our health these nutrient poor upfs will usually displace the more nutritious
food items decreasing the overall quality of your diet having a diet low in micronutrients
can increase your risk for deficiencies and for chronic diseases they're also usually a
concentrated source of carbohydrates and sugars and are also often low in protein and fiber this
means that all these sugars are absorbed quickly each time your blood sugar rises what does your
pancreas do it secretes more insulin the more sugar that you consume the more insulin is needed
eventually insulin resistance and subsequently weight gain sets in the second thing they do is
that they promote over consumption so eating upfs it leads to weight gain in one study the same
group of people were given a whole food diet for two weeks where they could eat as much as
they wanted and this was followed by two weeks of a diet containing upfs so when they ate the
upfs the participants ate more per day compared to when they're eating the whole foods the real
food this highlights the addictive nature of these foods and their inability to keep you feeling full
an invaluable skill to learn is how to spot upfs we don't need to overanalyze everything we eat
because we know that fresh fruits and vegetables including potatoes and the like are obviously not
ultra processed the same goes for pasteurized milk and chilled meat cuts it becomes quite obvious
which foods are ultra processed when we look at the ingredients listed on prepackaged goods if
you notice an ingredient in the list which is never or very rarely used in the kitchen or is
considered to be a cosmetic additive then the food item in question is probably ultra processed
so what should we be eating and what should we be avoiding so in general you're going to want to
eat unprocessed or minimally processed foods and avoid the ultra processed foods so who should
not do fasting because this diet is not suitable for everyone there are primarily four groups
of people who should not fast and first up is actively growing children or arguably any
children that are younger than the age of 18.
Why for starters there's no research on fasting
diets in children and so from that point of view we can't tell if it would be helpful or harmful
for their long-term health from a physiological standpoint growing children need a significant
amount of energy to grow and they need a host of other nutrients for proper development and to
prevent deficiencies if your child is overweight a diet is not normally the answer quite often
kids pick up bad eating habits from their parents or caregivers and this is the starting point for
change children thrive off regularity and having regularly planned meals that contain a balance of
foods it's more about cutting out the bad foods like the ultra processed foods and things with the
added sugar especially sugary drinks which is one of the main sources of sugar in the american diet
this includes sodas and juices also maintaining family meal times is also important number two
the next group that shouldn't fast is pregnant or breastfeeding women remember that when you fast
you switch between using ketones when fasting and glucose when eating animal experiments and
clinical studies have shown that exposure to high ketone environment during pregnancy may
be related to poor maternal and infant outcomes glucose is an important energy source for the
growing fetus and a shortage of it can affect the growth and development of a number of the fetuses
organs including the brain this is also the reason why women who are pregnant are not encouraged to
lose weight even if you are overweight in your pregnancy the current recommendation is to rather
maintain your weight or minimize pregnancy weight gain not to actively lose the weight in this time
frame number three fasting is also not recommended for anyone who has a pattern of disordered
eating you may or may not have been diagnosed with an eating disorder but if you find that you
become overly concerned or obsessed with what you eat especially when you're on a diet then fasting
will probably trigger you and cause you to fixate on food even more the behaviors will keep you
stuck in the binge diet cycle where you go from being incredibly restricted to binging if you find
that you do this while on any diet it's important to get help from a psychologist or registered
dietitian breaking away from the diet binge cycle can be tough but with the right help it's
definitely doable last but not least number four those who are older than the age of 70.
As we
get older we eat less and start to lose muscle mass this is known as sarcopenia of aging when you
fast you'll probably inadvertently take in fewer calories and also less protein this may cause
unintended weight loss and further muscle loss some of the research even points to the fact that
having a little extra weight may be beneficial for this elderly population a meta-analysis done in
2014 actually found that a slightly higher bmi was protective for all-cause mortality for older
adults now for the younger population the sweet spot for health is between 19 and 25 but for older
adults the sweet spot was somewhere around 27 so technically overweight they found that when older
people had a bmi of less than 23 or more than 37 their risk for mortality increased exponentially
what if you're someone with a medical condition and you want to do fasting for medical reasons
now it can be done but under strict supervision of your doctor and with regular monitoring
people with certain medical conditions don't have to avoid fasting but should be careful and
consult a physician prior to doing so including those who are taking any chronic medications so in
these cases the medication may need to be adjusted especially if that medication needs to be
taken in conjunction with certain foods the type of fasting regimen that you choose will
depend on your personal preferences and lifestyle but the more we research the more obvious that
it is that eating during the daylight hours the earlier the better seems to be ideal this means
aligning our eating with our circadian rhythm to maximize the health benefits of fasting if you
decide to start either of these fasting regimens the research shows that going slow in establishing
a habit is better the research is ongoing but one of the biggest benefits of fasting is weight loss
this is what draws many people to the diet in the first place when you restrict your eating window
or eat less on certain days you will take in fewer calories and usually when this happens weight loss
is not that far behind fasting is an attractive option for many people because it focuses mainly
on the timing rather than what you should eat with that said the type of food that you put
in your mouth does matter so this means eating real food and avoiding upfs especially those with
the added sugar besides weight loss fasting also seems to be pretty healthy for most people and may
help to prevent or control a variety of chronic diseases by means of a process called metabolic
switching which leads to improved metabolic health including less inflammation in the body so
that's all thank you for watching this guide on intermittent fasting in 2022 i hope you got a
lot out of it and i'll see you in the next video
