5 Incredible Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Your health is your foundation because without it you’re nothing.

It’s as simple as that.

Among the many incredible health benefits of intermittent fasting, it has been proven scientifically to completely transform your health, if you do it correctly and stick to it for a long enough period of time.

This means a period of time where you’re fasting for an extra 4+ hours per day, every day than you would do if you were eating the traditional ‘three square meals’ per day.

Here are 5 major reasons as to why this will benefit your health.

1. Fights Inflammation

For quite some time now, the practise of Intermittent Fasting has shown to be anti-inflammatory in animal studies, but this doesn’t always carry over from rats to humans.

So researchers decided to run some tests on a group of 50 individuals who were already practising Ramadan, to see whether the anti-inflammatory benefits applied to humans as well as animals.

By the way, Ramadan is, of course, a variation of Intermittent Fasting where the participants fast from sunrise to sunset. Potentially quite an intense variation for a lot of the people involved, so you can imagine the effects on the body will be strong.

So what exactly were the results of this study?

• Proinflammatory cyclones (IL-1β, IL-6) were significantly lower
• Body weight and body fat % were significantly lower
• Systolic and diastolic blood pressures both fell

So for various reasons, Intermittent Fasting lowers inflammation levels. You have the body fat reduction angle, the reduced levels of blood pressure, and the infection-fighting benefits within your cells.

2. Increases Growth Hormone

Human Growth hormone is pretty damn powerful.

It’s a real ‘all-rounder’, with strong anti-aging benefits, muscle mass and fat loss potential. It simply makes everything easier.

So how does growth hormone tie in with Intermittent Fasting health benefits?

Well it appears that fasting naturally increases the secretion of this hormone, especially in fasts that last for multiple days. This study reported a 600% increase in growth hormone from a 48 hour fast(!), and then this one found notable increases in growth hormone from a 24 hour fast.

On a more personal note, I find this to be one of the best benefits for the man who fasts on a regular basis, especially if he’s over the age of 40.

The anti-aging benefits including your skin, your eyes and your hair, are just phenomenal. You’ll look like a completely different man within 6-12 months.

3. Reduced Cholesterol

Here’s the reality folks – cutting out your eggs yolks isn’t necessarily the answer to high cholesterol, Intermittent Fasting is.

Intermittent Fasting doesn’t just reduce the ‘bad’ cholesterol (by at least 25% according to this study), but it attacks the underlying cause of the damage to your arteries/blood vessels in the first place.

Simply adopting Intermittent Fasting as a healthy lifestyle for several weeks may be enough to radically alter your cholesterol and blood triglycerides.

Here’s a monster study that concluded that fasting reduces heart disease (which is what we’re really concerned about here), and also reduces risk of diabetes.

Another point I’d like to raise is that fat loss itself reduces your risk of all things heart related, and Intermittent Fasting is an excellent strategy for long-term sustainable fat loss, simply because it makes you want to eat less.

So simply put – it’s both the consistent calorie deficit (over many weeks) AND the time spent without any food coming into your mouth (every day) that combine together to be super effective. 

Macro and micro.

4. Controls Blood Sugar

The general consensus with the research is that fasting – both intermittent and alternate day fasting – is incredibly effective for type 2 diabetes and people at risk of diabetes, and those who want to use intermittent fasting for weight loss.

Studies like this one and this one point towards the benefits of Intermittent Fasting being an insulin resistance reduction, which is pretty much the main cause of all heart related problems.

If you want a healthy heart and cardiovascular system long-term, make sure you’re following some kind of fasting protocol on a regular basis.

Of course you need to combine this eat-stop-eat strategy with eating the right foods, and this is where combining IF with keto might be a good idea.

Eating donuts and cookies during your ‘eating window’ isn’t going to cut it when it comes to blood glucose control, and you’ll still be spiking your levels up and down.

But foods like meat, fish, leafy greens, potatoes etc.? 

Your levels will be much more stable, and so too will your health.

Finally, on our list of Intermittent Fasting benefits…

5. Can Prevent Cancer

This one links back to point #1 – reduce inflammation and you reduce just about everything negative, including cancer.

Cancer is the 2nd biggest cause of death in the USA, and across most of the world as well. The bad news is that it’s going to get worse on a macro level, with increased risk factors across the globe such as:

• Elderly age
• Obesity
• Smoking
• Junk/processed food

So the macro with cancer looks pretty damn terrible.

But you and your family don’t have to follow the same path that everyone else does.

The most importatnt action points are going to be a combination of avoiding processed foods and smoking, while simultaneously taking your Intermittent Fasting diet very seriously.

The fasting health benefits are just too great to ignore. For example, this study showed that fasting proved to be a very effective addition to chemotherapy, for slowing down breast cancer growth.

Summary

There’s a variety of Intermittent Fasting health benefits; from cholesterol, to blood pressure, to cancer reduction.

But whichever fasting strategy you choose to implement, the real magic comes when you stick to the plan long-term, and make it a lifestyle. You MUST commit.

Start small, make tiny changes in your life, and eventually you will reap the reward of a small 1% improvement each day, which adds up very quickly.