For some religions, fasting has been part of the believers’ spiritual lifestyle and right now the lifestyle has been shifted into becoming healthy lifestyle as well. It is because according to some scientific studies, fasting may bring a lot of benefits for human health and this article will be focusing on discussing about the health benefits of long term fasting.
What Is Long Term Fasting?
Fasting is an abstaining from some kinds of foods and drinks in certain time. Month of Ramadhan is one of the important months for Muslim around the world because during that month, all Muslim will do fasting from dawn to dust as part of their religion practice. However today, you don’t need to be a Muslim or wait for Ramadhan to do fasting, especially you who have known how amazing the health benefits of fasting are. Long term fasting means activity of fasting that people do in regular basis for the sake of health benefits.
- Great for Weight Loss
During fasting, the lack of sugar will encourage your body to get energy from the stock fat cells. It means, there is no more stock fat in your body because they all will be turned into energy.
- Resets Your Body Metabolism
Digestive system has important role in your body metabolism. It is essential to give it a rest sometime, so you could reset your body metabolism. Just like computer, when you reset it, automatically it will be refreshed. Doing regular fasting could help you refreshing, not only your physical health but also mental health.
- Good to Improve the Eating Pattern
Do you even feel like boring when eating? Well, perhaps it is because your metabolism is too fed up. Why don’t you start a fasting habit and enjoy all the benefits you will get from fasting. It is different from diet because during fasting you could improve your eating pattern and at the same time could help you controlling your appetite as well.
- Excellent for Digestive Health
Stomach is the source of everything and it is also the source of all problems in your body. Healthy digestion means healthy metabolism. Fasting may help controlling all the foods that enter the intestine which is excellent for digestive health.
- May Improve Immunity System
Based on animal studies, when animals are sick they prefer to fast because they want their body focusing on the healing process or fighting the infection because when you eat, digestive function is dominating all the metabolism process.
- Beneficial for Cancer Patients
According to some studies in patients with cancer, the fasting process is able to make the cancerous cells starving. It may slow down the development, the spread of the cancer or even kill the cancerous cells. It is a natural way of how to prevent cancer as well.
- Great for Brain
There are a lot of scientific studies have proven the increasing of BDNF during fasting; it is a certain type of protein that responsible to activate and improve the brain function that will make people having a better focus and more alert.
- Good for Mental Health
It is said that BDNF is not only affecting the brain but also nerve system. It means, fasting is also good to improve mood which is good for mental health.
- Recommended for Diabetic Patients
Those who have been diagnosed with certain types of diabetes may find it difficult to control their appetite. Doing long term fasting may help them to deal with this condition and the result is better control of blood sugar level.
- Reduces the Risk of High Blood Pressure
It is not easy to deal with the symptoms of blood pressure but fasting that could reduce weight may be good to reduce the risk of high blood pressure and promote better health for cardiovascular system.
- Manages Cholesterol Level
One of the amazing thing about fasting is some studies have stated that fasting may affect the reduction of ‘bad’ cholesterol while at the same time fasting is not affecting the production of ‘good’ cholesterol at all.
- Improves Muscle Strength
During fasting, the fat cells stocked in your muscle will be used to be turned into energy. It will encourage the muscle strengths and make the muscle toned because there is no more excessive fat you should worry about.
- May Beneficial to Prevent Alzheimer and Dementia
The ability of fasting to boost the production of BDNF may be beneficial to how to prevent Alzheimer and dementia as well. Though further studies are required but some claims have been made.
- Prevents Inflammation
Inflammation is the root of some serious conditions such as cardiovascular health, diabetes and many more. During fasting, body could be more focus on the healing process including preventing the inflammation.
- Increases Productivity
Digestion is energy absorbing. When you could focus on other thing instead of digestive system your body could do a lot of thing including increasing the productivity. That is why during fasting instead of feeling dull you will feel more focus with better concentration.
How to Do Fasting Correctly
After you find out about the health benefits of long term fasting, there is one more thing you should know which is how to do fasting correctly. Long term doesn’t mean you should do fast until you starving because it is a wrong way to do it. The list below is consisting of some points you should remember if you want to do fasting correctly:
- Before you start the fasting is important for you to eat nutritious and healthy breakfast. The breakfast should consist of carbohydrate as the source of energy, vitamins, minerals and also fiber. It is recommended to consume fruits juice during this time.
- You should set a proper time everyday so your body metabolism will adjust to the schedule. It is forbidden to start the fasting and end it in different time every day because it is only making your metabolism confused.
- When you break the fast, you should be careful with sugary foods because it could cause significant weight gain.
- When the time to break the fast is coming, you shouldn’t postpone it but break the fast as fast as possible.
- Though it is recommended to do it in regular basis but it is not recommended to do it nonstop. Give it a rest like doing it only twice or three times a week, instead of every day.
It is true that there are a lot of health benefits of long term fasting but you should do it based on your present conditions. Mothers during pregnancy and breastfeeding are not recommended to do this long term fasting because it may put both the mothers and the babies in dangers. Those who have specific health conditions should consult with their doctors as well to make sure that they are safe enough to do long term fasting.