Your Body Goes Through These 7 Things When You Fast

Nov 02, 2018 by apost team

Two types of fasting exist and are hugely popular today. Prolonged fasting and intermittent fasting remain the two types of fasting. Prolonged fasting occurs when you limit your eating to the point where only drinks are consumed. Water and juice fasting are types of prolonged fasting that some individuals choose to do.

A health professional remains the best person to consult about whether prolonged fasting is an excellent choice for you to make. You need to be healthy enough to go through a prolonged fast.

One type of protracted fast is a one-week long detox fast. This type of longer fast uses digestive support medications and may also include supplements.

Intermittent fasting has become a frequently used way for people to lose weight and regulate the number of calories they take in. Intermittent fasting helps people to be more aware of their eating behaviors and snacking, which can become mindless eating after a while.

People who use intermittent fasting only eat at certain times during the day, and eat nothing in between these times. Many people who choose to use intermittent fasting by eating every eight hours.

These people also allow for 16 hours of fasting per day. They can observe either one large 16 hour fast per day or split the fasting time up into sections throughout the day.

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Some amazing things happen to a body when it is allowed to go without eating for a while. So whether you are fasting for health, religious or weight-loss reasons here’s what happens to your body when you fast.

During the first few hours of fasting, your body breaks down glycogen and storing sugar for the body’s energy needs. Approximately 25 percent of these sugars go directly to the brain to keep it functioning while the rest of the body uses the remaining 75 percent of consumed sugars.

About five or six hours after you have last eaten, you will reach ketosis. Ketosis is the metabolic state where the ketones in your blood support your body's energy by breaking down fat. At this point, your body is in the state of fasting. Fat burning like ketosis can also be based on a low carbohydrate, high-fat diet.

During ketosis, the body releases uric acid and cholesterol into the bloodstream. These two chemicals provide the body with the ability to detox. Detoxification might cause your body to have a few reactions, such as:

• Headaches.

• Dizziness.

• Feeling tired.

• Rashes.

• Muscle pain.

• Pain in the joints.

If your digestive system needs a rest, you’ll need to fast as you would for a prolonged fast. The body is always at one phase of digesting or the other during an intermittent fast.

Once you’ve fasted for about six hours, you may start experiencing more than just hunger. You may also become emotional and feel angry, sad, or frustrated. When these emotions occur, your reaction to the emotions is to understand that these feelings are reasonable at this phase of your fast. You’ll need to find a way to distract yourself and take your mind off your hunger. Try to find a method of distraction that doesn’t require lots of physical effort, however.

The benefits of fasting for your life and health include:

• Weight loss.

• Normalizing insulin sensitivity. If your insulin sensitivity is normalized, you might prevent type 2 diabetes.

• Normalizing ghrelin levels, which keep you from feeling hungry.

• Reducing triglyceride levels. Lower triglyceride levels decrease heart attack risks.

• Possibly slowing down aging.

• Fasting may clear your skin. Perhaps normalizing your digestion.

The health possibilities of intermittent and prolonged fasting are exciting enough to consider more deeply. Consult with your healthcare provider, and if you decide to try an intermittent fast, let us know in the comments! Show this article to an intermittent faster you know to see what they think.

Our content is created to the best of our knowledge, yet it is of general nature and cannot in any way substitute an individual consultation by your doctor. Your health is important to us!