Intermittent Fasting
Martin Kajtazi
UWRT 150 – Writing Seminar, Rochester Institute of Technology Croatia

Abstract
Lately, people have been talking more and more about trying to live a healthier life. Majority of people are trying to be more productive in their business carriers and life in general. That’s where the Intermittent Fasting comes in, or the eating method which restricts the eating window to 8 hours per day. Many scientists and well recognized nutritionists have researched this method and came up with great results. They discovered that fasting promotes not just the fat loss, as other “diets”, but also improves physical performance and psychological processes such as memory and focus, all while providing better protection to the brain. Fasting lifestyle has been proved successful and implemented in many top athletes’ lives throughout the world. Other than biological benefits, fasting showed how well it could be incorporated with time management of someone who is trying to be more productive and efficient in every day life.

Intermittent Fasting “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” – statement claimed by the majority of doctors today, but I’m afraid, not everyone understands the meaning of the word “Breakfast”. The word literally represents the meal by which you break your current fast, or a not eating period. It doesn’t say anywhere when it should happen. People are, not knowingly, fasting every day, usually when they are asleep – since they go through a period of several hours without eating. People are focusing so much towards the future while searching for new and superior ways of improving their lifestyles, not realizing that they might have neglected, and missed a really important one in the past, known as the Intermittent Fasting. So let’s travel to the past, thousands of years back. What do we see? We see a world unfamiliar to us. As Roger Collier explained; our ancestors didn’t have fast food restaurants in close perimeter of their caves. Their food depended on the success of their hunting, which would usually last the whole day, and if they got lucky, they would bring something to their cave - which were their homes, around the evening (2013). That means that they would sometimes have to endure several hours of not eating. They would even sometimes fast for several days. One of the more important functions of our bodies is to survive. In order to do so, our bodies are capable of reaching great lengths. They change and adapt to their surroundings and environments. Yes, we are different from people who lived thousands of years ago; we have a fast food restaurant on every corner. But just because we have the opportunity to stuff ourselves with food every hour or so, is that really a good idea? Sadly, it appears that majority of people have neglected important aspects of their lives, such as physical performance, psychological and emotional stability, or spiritual well-being, and let’s not forget; simply having more time. Intermittent Fasting could be the solution to improving those aspects and changing their lifestyles to better.
According to Jason Fung, that kind of fight-to-survive life left an impact in our genetic blueprint with possible vital information regarding our wellbeing. The question that could come to mind is – why do so many people try so hard to live in the future, without even understanding the past, and even more important, themselves. Fung extensively researched this topic, and what he discovered is amazing. He revealed that among other benefits, fasting also has a great, positive impact on human brain (2015). After conducting several researches, nutritionists and scientists like Amber Simmons have discovered that people who had been practicing fasting have showed promising results involving focus and memory challenge tests. Not only does fasting improve brain functions, but it protects the brain at the same time. Ketone bodies are known to protect brain cells, and by fasting, we usually put our bodies through ketosis, which produces ketones, thus improving our brain cells protection. Simmons explained that fasting also stimulates neuronal autophagy, known as the “self-eating” process, which is a cell self – cleaning procedure which brain executes to repair itself. Shortly explained, without the process of neuronal autophagy, our brains wouldn’t progress or function the way they’re meant to (2012). Apart from improving mental focus, and memory, fasting has shown to help with treating different mental diseases. It has been proved that fasting stimulates production of serotonin and boosts their levels in our brains. That’s why, fasting methods have started to be more and more implemented in the cases of migraine and similar treatments. In her research; Kristin Kirkpatrick explained how fasting could help with aging, not meaning that it can stop it, of course, but nevertheless fights the symptoms of aging. Fasting also helps with the risk of stroke, and reduces its affected damage. There was an interesting experiment in which rats were put through fasted state and as a result - lived longer. Naturally, it’s too soon to state anything about humans, but the results are promising (2015). Simmons also explained that fasting benefits don’t happen over night, meaning that human body needs to go through a few weeks, depended on each individual, of shorter eating windows, or fasting, to fully adapt to Intermittent Fasting, and to completely start experiencing its benefits. How does the whole thing work, anyways? Our primary source of energy are carbohydrates. On one side there are simple carbohydrates, sugars, and additionally we have the complex carbohydrates, which, unlike sugars, are digested more steadily. On the other side, there are fats, whose caloric energy value equals to 9 calories per fat, which is more than double – compared to carbohydrates. Therefore, it is quite simple to understand why would a body, which is in fasted ketosis state, using fats as energy, react and perform better, rather than on simple sugars which are highly unstable energy source. Fats are also digested a lot slower than carbs, meaning they provide us with the energy throughout the day, without having to go through the infamous “sugar crashes”, which happen just an hour or two after digesting sugars, leaving us even more tired then we were before eating sugars (2012). Fasting is not only practiced because of the physical or psychological benefits, but also the spiritual ones. A lot of people from all over the world fast in order to practice their religion. Majority of people, when hearing about fasting; connects it to different fat loss diets, but there’s a lot whore more to that. Don Hooser explained the spiritual side of fasting in his article. He explained how people are usually ego-centric, so to fight that, individuals choose to fast in order to show how they do not think only about their needs. Also, fasting could be a cure to some bad habits, such as binging on sweets and sugary food. Religious people which practice fasting believe that their conversation to God, or in other words, their prayers, are somehow stronger and more effective while in fasted state; which could explain the earlier mentioned – better mental focus. Hooser also explained how people who fast regularly seem to be a lot more emotionally stable. Correlated to that, those people tend to be more sympathetic to other people, since they are taught not to think too much about their own needs, rather than use that newly gained free time to help others. Probably, the most important spiritual benefit of fasting is self-control. We live in a very greedy world where people have big problems with self-control. By fasting, and limiting eating windows; people are prone to learn themselves to healthier self-control and stronger will power (2006). Aside from all the scientific and spiritual explanations about complicated psychological and physical processes which occur while fasting, what is exactly Intermittent Fasting? Is it just another outrageous diet? Absolutely not. Intermittent Fasting merely represents the set of time rules, more precisely, when to eat and when not to. It is really simple as that. There are several proven methods which showed themselves successful to many individuals throughout the world. Fasting consists of two periods; eating period, and the fasting one. Kate Morin explained that to experience all the benefits of fasting, individual is recommended to fast more than 16 hours per day, or in other words, to limit their eating windows to less than 8 hours per day (2014). Some individuals may even shorten that window period to less then 8 hours, all the way to 4 or 5 hours, which will be explained in a bit. There are few methods of fasting which have been acknowledged by many experts. Morin thoroughly researched this topic and came up with following methods of practicing Intermittent Fasting. Lean Gains is probably the most popular IF method which consists of 8-hour eating window, followed by 16-hour fasting period. To follow this method, men are recommended to fast up to 16 hours, while women are advised to fast up to 14 hours. During the fasted state, no calories should be consumed with some exceptions like black coffee which, by the way, is known to suppress appetite, which works well in combination with fasting. Also, zero calorie soda and sugar free gums are allowed. Another method is Eat Stop Eat method which includes full day of fasting - 24 hours of not eating, that is. Once again, no calories are allowed except zero calorie beverages. The thing about Eat Stop Eat is that some individuals may have harder time adapting to it, and may experience symptoms such as headaches or fatigue at the beginning, but those symptoms will weaken as the time passes by. And also, it takes a certain degree of self-control to successfully implement this method since people with no self-control could go on all binge out after fasting for a whole day, which would be contra productive. Perhaps the most implemented IF method in athletes’ world has to be The Warrior method. This method incorporates 19 to 20 hour fasting period, followed by 4 to 5 hour eating window. Athletes, and performance driven individuals usually include 1 or 2 huge meals which would cover all of their needed calories for the day. This method showed itself practical and useful to a lot of athletes and sports persons throughout the world. Since we all know how busy their days are; they don’t always have a time for a healthy meal, which is a must in their line of jobs. Fasting methods do not only provide biological and chemical benefits, but may greatly increase productivity throughout the day and/or week (2014). Related to sports persons’ lifestyles, Morin researched how could fasting affect different hormones in human bodies. After few studies, she came to a conclusion that putting a body through fasted state, regularly and daily, boosts the production of human growth hormone, or HGH, by almost 2000 percent, which is remarkable. From the fitness perspective, that almost crosses the natural limit of human bodies. That helps fitness and sport oriented people a lot, especially young people who are still in development, meaning they already have boosted hormones in their bodies. Next to all the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual benefits fasting provides; it is very important to mention that it provides one very important aspect of our lives – time. Money can buy a lot of things, but there’s one thing money can’t nor will ever be able to buy, and that’s time. People wish for a lot of things, but after all, the majority of people would agree that they only wish they had more time. More time to spend with their families and friends. More time to invest in themselves. More time to be creative and productive. People wish days could be longer than 24 hours, and with Intermittent Fasting lifestyle, in a sense, it can. Yes, fasted state does improve focus and memory, and yes, fasting does fight symptoms of aging, just as it fights against lots of mental diseases and illnesses such as diabetes, or the ones related to blood pressure. Once again, yes, fasting proved to assist in the protection of brain. There is also the ketosis process; which happens when body goes through a fasted period, thus making it one of the best ways of losing unwanted weight since it gives the body a lot more time to burn all the fat stored in the body. Putting all those benefits aside, fasting gives us more time. Fasting lifestyle gives us the opportunity to prolong our days and weeks by even a little, making our wishes to have more time to our families and ourselves, just a bit more possible. People spend hours every day on cooking and preparing food and meals, and if they would just eat one or two big meals per day; it would save them a lot of time in a long run. There’s nothing wrong with the conventional way of living and eating, but we as humans, are designed to strive for more. We are intended to attempt to reach the new heights. Not paying attention to all the extreme diets these days is one thing, but ignoring the evidences and the benefits of fasting, is completely another. If you really think that filling yourself with junk food from fast food restaurants, which are literally in your backyard, all day long, will help you reach your maximum potential of productivity and health, think again.

Reference List
Collier, R. (2013). Intermittent fasting. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 185(9), E363-E364. doi:10.1503/cmaj.109-4451
Fung, J. (2015). Fasting - The history. Retrieved from https://intensivedietarymanagement.com Hooser, D. (2006). Fasting: A Spiritual Power Tool! United Church of God. Retrieved from http://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/fasting-a-spiritual-power-tool
Kirkpatrick, K. (2015). Intermittent Fasting has benefits beyond weight loss. Retrieved from http://health.clevelandclinic.org
Morin, K. (2014). 5 Intermittent Fasting methods. Retrieved from http://dailyburn.com Simmons, A. (2012). Intermittent fasting scientific evidence. EAS Academy. Retrieved from http://easacademy.org/