Fitting intermittent fasting into a busy life

One of the largest factors in choosing a diet or nutrition plan that will work for you is it’s potential impact on your lifestyle.  If you don’t have the time to devote to it, and it requires quite a bit of it to see results, then it’s not likely one that you can use, sending you searching for another answer that will.  The perk with fasting methods, in relation to fitting into a busy lifestyle, is that it fits in when you want it to.  You get to choose which hours you’re not eating, and when you want to take a meal.  If the best time for you is to stop eating at bedtime, and to not eat again until late afternoon when you take a light lunch, that still fits within the description of a fasting diet.  It doesn’t matter if you’re working nights, split shifts, traveling for work, or working more than 12 hours a day, there is always a window of time that you can fit in for your fasting requirements that works best for you.

Dr. Richard Johnson, chief of the Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, from the University of Colorado is a leader in the prevention and reversal of obesity.  He writes that skipping breakfast is the most commonly used way of employing an intermittent fasting diet, and is also backed by some serious scientific data giving good reasons to miss it.  Breakfast typically consists of fruits, or cereals which are high in carbohydrates.  Because your body converts carbs to sugars to process as fuel, the sugars burn away very quickly, leaving your fuel tank dry and needing a refill rather soon thereafter.  Eating first thing in the morning also is bad in relation to your circadian cortisol peak, which impacts your insulin secretion.  It leads to a rapid release of insulin, and a matching massive drop in blood sugar levels, more so than eating any other time of the day.  When your blood sugar drops dramatically, your body tells you to eat again to replenish it’s stores.  When you’re piling on carb rich and fruit heavy breakfasts, it only compounds the problem.

This is because fructose, the sugar that comes from fruits mainly, activates the enzyme fructokinase, which causes your cells to accumulate fat and become resistant to letting it go.  Carbs break down into sugars, which promote insulin and leptin resistance, just like other sugars, which can make losing weight a massive struggle.  Dr. Johnson even theorizes that leptin resistance is the evil behind why our body begins to convert carbs into fructose, even when there is no fructose in the carbs to begin with.  Eating breakfast, unless high in fats, which last longer for fuel burning purposes, is just not recommended.  Even if you’re not fasting, breakfast serves no real purpose other than keeping you from binging at lunchtime.

The issue isn’t how to fit an intermittent fasting program into your lifestyle, because you can pick when it works for you best.  The real issue is learning what you should be changing about your eating habits to help the fasting method work best for you.  Overweight people are advised to begin by reducing the overall sugar and grain consumption, that includes wheat or wholegrain breads.  Sugars should be cut by a half to a third of your normal intake, and keeping fructose in particular, below 25 grams a day.  15 grams a day is even better if you know you’re leptin resistant already, which would show in things like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or the inability to shed weight no matter what you do.  If you’re eating better WHEN you eat, then you’re allowing intermittent fasting to work for you ten times better than if you simply ate normally, but gave an 8 hour window betweeen eating times.  By fasting before you exercise, you allow for the secretion of HGH, a well known fat burning hormone that has anti-aging health and fitness benefits that are long term and lasting.

The best way to jump into intermittent fasting to work it into your life is to begin by skipping breakfast.  Because you have just gone all night without food, and your body’s processes begin as you wake, it is easier to allow for a few extra hours and eat at lunchtime instead.  There is the added benefit of not submitting yourself to a high carb or fruit rich breakfast that will spike your insulin levels and drop your blood sugar before lunch.  That’s no way to get work done if you’re a busy person, because it makes your thought processes feel sluggish, and your motivation factor drops through the floor.  To keep yourself busy before you leave for work, and to break the habit of eating breakfast, you can do any form of resistance or aerobic exercise before you shower, helping to not only fill in the time before you leave your house, but to boost your metabolism as well.

Intermittent fasting is actually one of the easiest methods to employ, regardless how busy your life is, or how little time you can devote.  It doesn’t require you to log anything, buy special packaged foods, or commit to a ridiculous program that seems to take control over every aspect of how you live.  You are in the driver’s seat, and you control this one.