Wellness Journey 10: Intermittent Fasting

Before we learn about intermittent fasting, let's recall the role of Insulin.

When food is ingested, it travels to the digestive track where it gets broken into its complete nutrients to get absorbed by the body. One main nutrient is Glucose/Sugar that gets absorbed by the stomach and intestine to get into the bloodstream.

Once in the bloodstream, it travels to all the body cells and causes blood sugar to rise. This sends a message to the pancreas to release Insulin so that sugar can be absorbed (as energy or gets stored in muscles as glycogen or in the fat cells as fatty acids).

To use this glucose as fuel, the glucose molecules must enter into the cells. Insulin helps in this process. Insulin gets inside the cell via. receptors and then help establish the glucose channel for the glucose to enter into the cell as shown in the video.

This also explains the fact, that if our insulin receptors are weak, glucose cannot enter the cell and remains in the blood causing high blood sugar or type-2 diabetes.

The presence of insulin instructs the body to create fat by consuming blood sugar. This also means that if we can reduce insulin/insulin spike, it can help with weight loss.

Intermittent fasting is time-restricted fasting. There are many forms if it - for example 16:8 intermittent fasting involves consuming foods during an 8-hour window and avoiding food, or fasting, for the remaining 16 hours each day.

While intermittent fasting is very effective in weight loss, i am always against doing anything that is not natural like crash dieting that we cannot maintain lifelong. It can definitely be used to get an early start on the weightless journey and then later switch to the conventional method of eating healthy.

- Saurabh