Intermittent Fasting for Beginners: Lose Weight, Detox Your System, Increase Your Energy, Reset Your Metabolism and Rejuvenate Your Whole Body, Including Healthy and Delicious Recipes

By Adam Weil

Do you want to go for a plant-based diet but do not know where to begin? Do you want to live a life full of energy yet enjoy mouthwatering and easy-to-prepare meals? Ready to transform your body and improve your health?

 

If this sounds like you, keep reading!

 

What does a plant-based diet actually mean? As the name suggests, it deals with food that has plants as its source. By plants, we are not restricted to only fruits and vegetables but include legumes, whole grains, nuts (in its infinite variety), seeds (a popular eating fad), oils, and beans. However, a plant-based diet does not completely exclude meat and dairy products. Opting for a plant-based diet means you go in for more portions of food based on plants rather than animals. If you go through this book you will not face any shortage of dietary options for a plant-based diet.

 

There are many reasons for going for a plant-based diet. The primary reason is health. Research has suggested that red meat may be linked to colorectal cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other deadly diseases. Going for a plant-based diet not only boosts our health but also saves the environment.

 

This guide will give you all the necessary information to embark on a plant-based diet. There are recipes galore that will make each day's diet plan interesting and give you infinite variety in your food items.

 

Within these pages, you will discover:

 

• A Comprehensive Guide to Both Plant and Even Animal Products;

 

• Health Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet;

 

• How to Make a Gradual Switch to a Plant-Based Diet.

 

• Quick and Easy Recipes for Everyday Meals;

 

AND MUCH MORE!

 

Eating a diet rich with whole-food, plant-based ingredients is one of the best decisions you can make to support your overall health—and now it's easier than ever!

 

If you're ready to take control and learn what a plant-based diet can do to better your life, look no further.

 

Don't waste another minute, scroll up and hit "BUY NOW" to get started today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishing Forte
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215098141

Book preview

Introduction

Origin of Intermittent Fasting

When you think about it, fasting is not new. People have been fasting since ancient times, throughout civilization and even before formal societies where hunters and gatherers went for periods of time without eating. The human body has evolved to function well without food for a period of time daily.

---

Fasting has also been associated at times with religion and specific traditions for a variety of faiths from Christianity to Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.

---

In 2012, a BBC documentary Eat Fast, Live Longer with Michael Mosley, a doctor and journalist, explored how fasting could help people live longer and have healthier lives. His movie sparked a lot of interest in fasting worldwide and was soon followed by his book The Fast Diet, where he explained how intermittent fasting could help you control weight and be more healthy. He explained how eating during defined periods of time and fasting regularly could improve your body’s health. Another book The 5:2 Diet by Kate Harrison followed soon after that shared the author’s personal success with following an intermittent fasting lifestyle.

---

By 2016, intermittent fasting had become popular worldwide. Dr. Jason Fung, a well known American doctor, soon after released a book The Obesity Code where he ex- plained how obesity is typically the result of lifestyle and could be stopped and prevent- ed by following a program of intermittent fasting. His book helped catapult the concept of intermittent fasting into the public’s consciousness and soon celebrities, Instagram influencers, health and fitness instructors worldwide were trying out intermittent fasting and sharing their positive results.

---

In fact, intermittent fasting has been used successfully by many public figures including Jennifer Aniston of Friends to control weight naturally and to eat healthier. Today, intermittent fasting (IF) is widely accepted as a method of both becoming healthier and losing weight.

---

Intermittent fasting essentially involves eating during a controlled period of time and then fasting or not having any food or caloric-rich beverages during the rest of the time during a 24-hour day typically. By far, the most popular and sustainable intermittent fasts are all under 24 hours and consist of daily 16-hour fasts or choosing to fast for a full day one or two times a week.

---

By consistently lowering your caloric intake over time, your lifespan and even aging can change dramatically, according to several scientific studies reported in the last two decades.

Key Elements of Intermittent Fasting:

A defined fasting period and a defined eating period.

Does not tell you what to eat but focuses more on when you eat.

Most common methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours straight, 2 times a week.

Intermittent fasting works by reducing your overall calorie intake during the fasting period. This results in weight loss as long as you do not overeat during the eating periods.

---

According to famous neuroscientist Mark Mattson at John Hopkins University, intermittent fasting is a natural progression of the hunter gatherer lifestyle of our ancestors whose bodies adapted to live without food for several hours and even a few days.

---

Today human beings are far more sedentary and have developed numerous bad habits such as eating food late at night, or while watching shows. People eat significantly larger amounts of food today as portion size has grown significantly larger. Also people workout and exercise significantly less, resulting in less weight loss.

---

The body can take up to four weeks to get used to the new schedule of intermittent fasting and in the meantime, a person can feel upset, irritable and on edge. Over time, the person feels better and has more energy. It helps to check in with a doctor and also a possible friend who may do the plan with you. Of all the different types of intermittent fasting, the 16:8 or Lean Gains approach tends to be the most effective long term as people can more easily adapt this schedule in their daily life, eating within a window of eight hours and then fasting for 16 hours — some of which include sleeping time.

How Intermittent Fasting Works

Like it sounds, intermittent fasting (IF) involves a cycle of eating at a defined interval of time and then fasting for the remainder of the time, during the day. While this method of weight control does not give you specific guidelines of what to eat or not to eat, Intermittent fasting (IF) works best in tandem with other healthy lifestyle diets such as the Paleo diet, Keto diet or a combination of both, drinking enough water and getting enough sleep.

---

Different intermittent fasting methods consist of daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week.

---

Intermittent fasting can lead to significant weight loss and also help you maintain that weight. To understand this fully, you need to understand in simple terms the differences that occur in the human body between the two states of being fed and fasting.

Fed State

Your body is in the fed state when your body is digesting and absorbing food and it begins from the time you start eating to roughly three to five hours after you stopped eating. Your body cannot burn fat easily when you are in this fed state because it is busy digesting the food. Insulin levels are also high.

Post-Absorptive State

After your body is done eating and processing food, your body goes into a post-ab- sorptive state where it is no longer processing food. This lasts roughly 8 to 12 hours after your last meal, at which point you enter the fasted state. Your body can burn fat much faster when you are in the fasted state as your insulin levels are lower.

Fasted State

Since it takes quite a while for the human body to enter the fasted state — roughly 12 hours after your last meal, most people do not experience the fat-burning benefits of the fasted state. When you enter this phase though, you body starts to burn through your body fat, using up the glucose stored in your liver first. The liver contains roughly 700 calories of glucose.

Metabolic Switching: Burning Fat

Your body thus starts to burn fat that was previously inaccessible during the fed state. It can take as long as 10 to 12 hours to burn up the liver's energy stores. At this point, the body then turns to body fat for energy. This process is called metabolic switching.

---

Most people who eat a three-meal or more meals per day never are able to experience these fat-burning benefits as their bodies never turn to their liver for energy.

---

However, once your body enters this state, it is primed and ready to burn fat regardless of what you eat. This is why people who start intermittent fasting are able to lose weight without even changing their diet, how often they eat during the feeding period or when and how much they exercise. This weight loss is of course, accelerated when you eat healthy, minimize carbs and processed foods and exercise regularly.

Changes that Occur to Cells and Hormones

On both a cellular and hormonal level, intermittent fasting affects your body. Fasting regularly in a consistent, healthy way such as the 16/8 diet combined with eating nutritiously has been found to trigger the body’s repair process and alter genes that promote anti-aging and longevity.

---

When you fast, your body changes on both a cellular and molecular level, adjusting hormones to help you gain access to stored energy in the form of body fat. Your cells help this process by accelerating access to hormones. Your cells also begin to repair themselves and alter genes for health and longevity.

---

Some important changes that occur during fasting include:

---

• Human Growth Hormone (HGH):

---

Your body produces more HGH as much as five times the amount, leading to fat loss and muscle gain.

---

• Insulin:

---

Your body shifts, leading to lower insulin levels, which also make stored body fat more easy to access.

---

• Cellular Repair:

---

When you fast, your cells start cellular repair processes in a process called autophagy. In this process, cells remove old protein build up and clean up internally.

---

• Gene Expression:

---

Genes change, encouraging health and longevity, while offering protection against disease.

---

These combined differences in hormone levels, cell functionality and gene expression from adopting an intermittent fasting lifestyle, together lead to significant health bene- fits.

Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting has known benefits for both human beings