Fasting is often one of the most commonly followed practices by many people. While some people fast for a day and only go on a liquid diet, some fast intermittently, one meal a day, overnight fast fasting and more.
Fasting is known to have multiple benefits for health and one of most common types of fasting is the hourly fasting.
In this article, we’re going to talk about the benefits of hourly fasting and more!
Benefits of Fasting| Hour-wise Benefits
- Hours
- A drop in blood sugar levels.
- There will no longer be insulin produced in the body.
12 Hours
- All food previously consumed, would have been burned and the digestive system goes to sleep.
- The body begins its healing processes.
- The HGH (human growth hormone) begins to increase.
- Glucagon is released to balance blood sugar levels in the body.
14 Hours
- Body converts using stored fat as energy.
- The HGH starts to increase dramatically.
16 Hours
- The body is ramping up the fat burning process.
18 Hours
- The HGH starts to increase drastically.
24 Hours
- Autophagy begins. This is when the cell breaks down and begins to destroy old and abnormal proteins (including damaged proteins), and any other substances in its cytoplasm (the fluid inside the cell).
- The autophagy drains all glycogen stored.
- Ketones get released into the blood stream.
36 Hours
- The autophagy rate gets increased by 300%
48 Hours
- The autophagy rate gets increased by 30% more.
- The immune system resets and the regeneration start.
- There is an increased reduction in inflammatory response.
72 Hours
- The autophagy levels gets maxed out.
Different Types of Fasting and How to Do Them
There are different types of fasting cycles you can choose from. Here are some of the common types and how to do them.
Partial Fasting – This fasting refers to abstaining for only certain types of drinks and foods, for a stipulated period of time (days, weeks, months etc).
Water Fasting – This type of fast involves just drinking only water for a period of 24 hours or even up to 72 hours, without the intake of any other beverage or food.
Overnight Fasting – This fasting involves fasting for 12 hours on an everyday basis. This type of fast is known and considered to be one of the easiest and is often called “overnight” fasting, because you could complete majority of these “fasting” hours, while you’re asleep.
Eat-Stop-Eat (ESE) Fasting – This type of fasting is a 24-hour fast, wherein you can consume very minimal calories on your fast days (just water, sugar-free and low-calorie fruit juices and fruits with almost-zero calories). You can do this once or twice a week.
16/8 – This means 16 hours of fasting time (where only water is permitted), while during the remaining 8 hours, you can consume your foods and beverages as usual.
OMAD (One Meal A Day) – This means that you can only eat one nutrient-dense and high-calorie meal in a day, while the rest of the day, you only consume water or zero calories.
5:2 – This means you fast (meaning you intake minimal calories) two out of the seven days in a week. On the fasting days, you can only in take 500 to 600 calories.
Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) – This means you eat all your meals as usual on alternate days and on your “fast” days you need to reduce your calorie intake to only 30% of a usual day.
- Caution: Before you begin any fast, make sure to talk to a medical professional, especially if you are on prescription medications, pregnant or lactating. Fasting may not be for everyone and medical advice is always recommended.