Good morning. We are back. Potentially the last of our diet series. We may have another one come up, but today is intermittent fasting. Say that three times fast, intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting. This is something we’re probably the most knowledgeable about. Yeah, we’ve done these quite extensively.
So what in layman’s terms is intermittent fasting? I’ll just break it down. You’re intermittently fasting. That was very deep. Right? So you’re basically using a period of time to not eat and the benefits there are fantastic and you do it consistently. Not just for a week.
There are about five different types of intermittent fasting. You have the time established. You have the five to eat, stop, eat, alternate day, and Warrior Diet. I think in my research, the two most popular are the 5/2 and the 16/8. Oh, that’s the time restricted. You can do it whenever you want. So we’re using terms here. Five/two means five days you eat pretty much whatever you want. But for two days, you consume 500 calories a day for a female, and 600 calories a day for a male. Now, I’m not sure why that differentiation or the science behind that. I guess it mimics fasting because you’re not in a true fast you’re still consuming some but over a 48-hour period. There are tremendous benefits to the five/two. I would just say you’re giving your digestive system a break, which is fantastic all by itself. Yeah, give your body a chance to fight something else rather than the food that you’ve put in. Make those 500 or 600 calories, clean calories and you’re really wise. If you want to eat 600 calories of Fritos two days in a row well, sorry, right didn’t mean to discount freedoms.
So the 16/8 is the most popular and what that means is to eat in an eight-hour window during the course of the day and then fast for 16 hours. I’m a big fan of that one. I do this every day by not eating breakfast. I stop eating at like seven or eight o’clock at night and then I don’t eat breakfast. So contrary to popular belief, the old three square meals a day is bubkis. It is bubkis Some people say that a 14/10 is better. I think that’s debatable. I’m a big fan of the 16/8 but the important thing is that when you’re quote fasting, that means zero calories for the most part. I didn’t have breakfast, but I had a coffee mocha latte with extra whipped cream doesn’t cut it. It’s water, zero-calorie sodas. That’s not optimal, but viable. But yeah, if you eat lunch generally at noon, then by 8 pm, you’re back on zero calories and you do that every day.
What about alternate-day fasting? Alternate day, I’ve never really done that for an extended time. That’s like a day on day off. The most popular I’ve read about is a day off and two days on. And literally, two days palatable. You eat whatever you want. But whatever day you maybe have dinner on a Monday night then you don’t eat again until dinner on Tuesday night. But then you go and do the irregular two days. Yeah, I’ll do the 72-hour fast once a quarter, but then periodically, I just won’t eat for a solid day. I used to try to do that once a month. I think I’ve slacked a little bit on that. Yeah, I do it periodically. It’s not consistent enough to call it a fasting day. It is just taking a day to let my body chill out, you know, not have to work on processing the garbage I’m putting in. Again, we talked about this, over 70% of the immune system is in your gut, and just giving that a chance to fight off other diseases, rather than the food you put in your body. I can’t speak to the clinical but for myself, I drink a lot more water when I decide to do this. Oh, yeah, because it probably helps with satiate. Yeah, helps you to not be hungry. Which probably is just a double whammy benefit, cleaning your body out.
The last one is the Warrior Diet. This is on you. I’m not familiar with the Warrior Diet. It’s one big meal a day, and then small, like really small something or other during the course of the day. So let’s say my big meal is going to be dinner. And then I’m going to have like fruits or vegetables, clean is the key word here. Vegetables dipped in ranch. You betcha. Yeah, but clean fruit or vegetable, probably. Hopefully, you only do that once. Maybe not twice. You’re not doing fruits and vegetables for breakfast and lunch. A small fruit or vegetable snack plus your large meal at dinnertime. And there is a form of calorie restriction as well. Right? You’re going to drop pounds just by being on that diet.
We won’t get in the weeds here but we talked about all the different benefits of fasting from gene therapy mutation to the growth of human HGH. Stem cells? Well, there are tons and all of these are ways to accomplish that. You don’t have to do a 72-hour fast. No, go back and look at some of the other podcasts on fasting. I think we’re out of time. Thanks for tuning in. Send us your ideas, thoughts, comments, and concerns to Snackcast@yes.fit. Keep moving. We’re out.