How It Affects Your Cells and Hormones
Your body experiences a number of cellular and molecular changes while you fast.
For instance, your body modifies hormone levels to increase the availability of stored body fat.
Additionally, your cells start crucial repair procedures and modify gene expression.
Here are several alterations that take place in your body during a fast:
- Human Growth Hormone (HGH): Growth hormone levels soar, sometimes by a factor of five. This provides advantages for, among other things, muscle building and fat removal.
- Insulin: Insulin levels decline sharply when insulin sensitivity increases. Lower insulin levels increase the use of body fat reserves.
- Cellular repair: Your cells start cellular repair processes when you fast. This includes autophagy, in which cells break down and eliminate accumulated old and defective proteins.
- Gene expression: Genes that are involved in aging and disease prevention have altered functions.
The advantages of intermittent fasting for health come from changes in hormone levels, cell structure, and gene expression.
When you fast, human growth hormone levels go up and insulin levels go down. Your body’s cells also change the expression of genes and initiate important cellular repair processes.
A Very Powerful Weight Loss Tool
The main motivation for trying intermittent fasting is weight loss.
Intermittent fasting might result in an automatic decrease in calorie consumption by forcing you to consume fewer meals.
Intermittent fasting also modifies hormone levels to aid in weight reduction.
It boosts the production of the hormone that burns fat, norepinephrine, as well as growth hormone and insulin levels (noradrenaline).
Short-term fasting may raise your metabolic rate by 3.6-14% as a result of these hormonal changes.
Intermittent fasting helps you consume less and burn more calories, which alters both sides of the calorie equation and results in weight loss.
According to studies, intermittent fasting can be a highly effective weight loss strategy.
When compared to the majority of weight reduction research, a 2014 review study revealed that this eating pattern can result in 3-8% weight loss over 3–24 weeks, which is a considerable amount.
The same study found that patients also lost 4-7% of their waist circumference, which represents a considerable reduction in the dangerous belly fat that collects around your organs and leads to illness.
Another study found that compared to the more common practice of continuous calorie restriction, intermittent fasting results in less muscle loss.
But remember that the primary factor in its effectiveness is that intermittent fasting causes you to consume less calories overall. You could not lose any weight at all if you binge and consume a lot of food throughout your mealtimes.
Intermittent fasting may slightly boost metabolism while helping you eat fewer calories. It’s a very effective way to lose weight and belly fat.
