Clean Inside the Cup: The Perfect Breakfast (Intermittent Fasting)

The Perfect Breakfast

Intermittent Fasting

by Dr. Tracy Vest

What if the best meal for "breakfast" is no meal at all?

Did you know that breakfast literally translate into break-fast? Meaning it is when you break from a period of fasting and allow yourself to consume food.

Of course, food is vital for energy, growth, and life! But did you know there are many health benefits to allowing your body to remain in a state of fasting?

Benefits

One of the benefits that immediately comes to mind, is it helps to control the over consumption of calories. Over consuming calories can lead to obesity or carrying excess weight. Obesity is known to be precursor for many chronic diseases including heart disease and diabetes. It can also increase the degeneration of joints leading to worsening arthritic symptoms. Obesity is defined as a BMI>or=30kg/m². Check your BMI here.

Other benefits are listed below as I review the phases of fasting.

Phases of Fasting

Here is a great breakdown to the phases your body will go through with each hour of fasting.

In general:

Phase 1: 0 – 4 Hours

The first four hours after eating is considered the “anabolic phase.” Anabolic refers to the process where your body builds tissue. In the phase you will convert the nutrients you eat into mainly muscle.

Phase 2: 4 – 16 Hours

Fasting hours 4 to 16 hours moves you into the “catabolic phase.” In this phase you will begin Ketosis and Autophagy. Basically, your body has depleted the energy reserves from the food you've eaten. It begins to breakdown larger fat molecules stored for energy into smaller molecules in order to fuel your cells.

This is the process of ketosis. Autophagy is a little different. It refers to the process of actual cellular repair and renewal. This is the state we want to reach for deep healing of the cell.

Phase 3: 16 – 24 Hours

This phase will take you deeper into ketosis because now you are primarily burning fat, and your body will continue in the process of autophagic or inner healing.

Phase 4: 24 – 72 Hours

Phase 4 is the peak phase for ketosis and autophagy where your body is being fueled by fat stores in the body. If you are looking to burn the excess fat, this is the phase to reach. It is also the phase that is noted to have reduced brain fog or improve mental clarity. Along with this comes something called BDNF. This is short for brain-derived neurotrophic factor. BDNF is a pretty amazing protein that helps grow and maintain these new brain neurons.

Phase 5: 72+ Hours

At 72+ hours or 3+ days of fasting, this has significantly passed the point of intermittent fast and has entered prolonged fasting. Of course, in this prolonged state of fasting there are the benefits of ketosis, autophagy, and BDNF. In addition, in this phase, you may start to see stem cell production. This can further protect your cells against toxins and improve your immune response.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Fasting can be beneficial at any phase; however, you must proceed with caution when entering into a fast for an extended amount of time. If you have comorbidities that would affect your body's ability to control blood sugar, fasting may send you into a state of hypoglycemia or low blood sugar which can be very dangerous to your health. It is recommended to seek medical advice prior to beginning any extended fast if you are known to have other comorbidities.

Experts have not pinpointed exactly how long a person can live without food, but some have been reported to go many weeks without eating. However, you must remember, fasting is only beneficial to the point of using your fat reserves. Fasting longer than this becomes starvation. And starvation is when your body is desperate for energy, and it begins to break down muscle leading to atrophy.

Conclusion

So, the key take-away here is that intermittent fasting is a safe way to incorporate the benefits of fasting in short intervals of time. Fasting "breakfast" is a good way to start putting this principle into practice in your daily or weekly routine. And now it's time to challenge yourself, how long can you go before breaking your fast?

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Prolon (Meal fasting system?)

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