Effects of Intermittent Fasting to your Body in Between Stages

In this article, we look at what happens to the body during fasting, as well as what a person can do to make fasting safer. We know that the body needs energy and its primary energy source is a sugar called glucose, which usually comes from carbohydrates, including grains, dairy products, fruits, certain vegetables, beans, and even sweets. The liver and muscles store the glucose and release it into the bloodstream whenever the body needs it.

A short period of fasting does not necessarily mean that you will be in a starvation mode. Starvation mode, in reality, is what happens when you’re actually starving to death and have been deprived of nutrients to a severe degree. That’s when your body starts eating away at its own muscle tissue in order to survive. This would most likely take your body several days (or more) without any food at all, and it wouldn’t happen until you chewed through a substantial amount of body fat first. Fasting is like a detox that you do to your body. It does not harm or cause any illness (unless you are under a medical condition), rather it has many benefits to your body and your health . Below are the stages that the body undergoes within each hours of fasting.

Effects of Intermittent Fasting to your Body in Between Stages

High Blood Sugar Stage (between 0-4 hours)

Between 0 and 4 hours, your body is still ingesting and processing your last meal. After your body breaks down carbs, protein, and fat into glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids, your body metabolizes them for energy or stores them for later use. Depending on the last thing you ate before starting your fast, a few different hormones could be at play in your bloodstream.
If you have eaten a heavy meal full of carbs, you will most likely to store lots of glucose in your bloodstream which results to a rise in insulin. That is why diabetics were advised to reduce their carb intake. The pancreas is the one in charge to secrete insulin for your body to store glucose for energy production, protein synthesis in muscles or stored for later use either as glycogen (short-term storage) or as adipose tissue (long-term storage).Up to 4 hours after having a meal, your blood sugar remains high. A spike in insulin usually results in a sugar crash due to which people start feeling hungry again after 4 hours of a meal. The higher the glycemic index of your meal the greater this crash will be. This is why high carb food keeps people hooked onto eating a lot.

Low Blood Sugar Stage (between 4-8 hours)

In this stage, blood sugar starts to drop and starts moving towards its normal levels. After the first 6 hours of fasting, you will find yourself experiencing another wave of hunger pangs. It may trigger some emotions like anger, frustration, feeling down or sadness.

In reality, hunger signal comes in waves. If you hydrate and focus on something else it will fade. Try to get yourself busy in order to ignore hunger signals because eventually it will come to pass. Practicing to control your hunger will help you distinguish between actual hunger (lack of nutrients) and boredom or psychological hunger, which could lead to a healthier relationship with food. It is also best if your last meal before fasting is at night time. You will be saving about 8 hours of your fasting time because you will not likely to experience hunger pangs when you are asleep. It is a myth when old people say that you must not let hunger pass you or else you will get ill. If you feel hungry, you can take lots of water, black coffee or tea to fill in yourself.

One of the most effective hacks for making you feel full during fasting is to take some bone broth. Aside from making you feel full, it contains the added nutrients such as collagen, glucosamine, minerals, and electrolytes in order for you to go on for an extra mile on your fasting. The artificially sweetened drinks like diet soda you take during fasting are like drugs. They can be a nice treat during a fast but sometimes they can make your hunger cravings worse when you’re done.

Because you are giving your body a break from food, the energy you would spend on digestion can help heal the body. When you add the healing nutrients in liquid form, you are giving your body tools it needs to restore itself. If you want to add a more healing boost to your fast, take a tablespoon or two of coconut oil or MCT oil alongside your cups of bone broth. These oils provide extra gut support, and also help reap all the benefits of bone broth. Since the bone broth and the MCT and coconut oils are technically liquids, you are not compromising the effectiveness of your fast. These healthy fats require no energy to break down, and they can turn into ketones immediately.

Normal Blood Sugar Stage (between 8-12 hours)

Between 8-12 hours without any food or calories, your body will run out of glucose reserves. This is the moment when the actual fasting starts, so it is a desirable state to be in for people who are fasting for weight loss. In this state, the liver will use the last of its glucose reserves. The body enters into a state called gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis increases the number of calories the body burns. With no carbs coming in, the body creates its own glucose using mainly fat. Your blood sugar only returns to normal levels 12 hours after a meal.
You must take note that at 8:00 in the morning, you have a spike in cortisol which makes your body produce more glucose and have high blood sugar. In order to prevent this, you can take some exercise in the morning to burn those extra sugars.

Growth Hormone Stage (12 to 18 Hours)

The level of growth hormones in your body is now significantly higher than when you started fasting. Growth Hormone is vital for muscle repair and growth. In much longer fasts (beyond 72 hours without food), your body may enter starvation mode and begin slowing down its metabolic rate (how fast it uses energy) and tapping into muscle tissue for energy.

If you stick to a low carb diet, as early as this time, you would enter into a Ketosis State. Ketosis is a metabolic state that allows your body to burn fat instead of sugars or glycogen. By drastically reducing your carb intake to under 50 grams per day, your body is forced to use up its glycogen stores for energy — and eventually, switch to using ketones as fuel. It is adviceable to fill up your system with lots of water to suffice your hunger pangs. Continually doing this throughout your fasting, you expect to peeing like crazy. In fact, peeing a lot is usually a sign of ketosis (when your body begins burning fat for energy and releasing its glycogen stores).

Autophagy and Fat Burning Stage (18 to 24 Hours )

This stage is a state of self-repair. The self-repair mechanism programs within every cell of the body are triggered. Damaged components are broken down and consumed for energy – new and more effective components are created. You will start to see the impact on your skin. Autophagy is extremely important in preventing several conditions like Alzheimer’s.

Depending on your carb intake, the body primarily continue to utilize fats for energy. This state results in increased Ketone Bodies (or Keto Bodies) in your system. Research indicates that this state is also linked with overall decrease in inflammation in the body. Rejuvenation and healing processes start to kick in. You start to feel more alert and attentive. If you are into a 24-hour fasting be sure to well prepare your meal before and after fasting. You can might as well choose a meal that is calorie dense (pasta with heavy sauce), protein heavy meals and have some whole grains & veggies

After a large dinner, try to eat some sweet but protein-rich foods like protein-fortified oatmeal, milk, and/or Greek yogurt. Research suggests that occasional 24-hour fasting can improve cardiovascular health. Some evidence from research on animals shows that fasting can help fight certain kinds of cancer or even help preserve memory.

Healing Stage (24 to 48 Hours)

In this stage, there would be a depletion of glycogen reserves within your liver and start to use ketones as the alternative fuel for energy. Apetites in this stage were suppresed. Cravings are also gone on this stage. Atniodixant reserves are building up and your body provides more oxygen. Within 24 hours of fasting, inflammation is dropping significantly. There would also be gut healing because at this stage you start increasing stem cells within the gut. Improvement in the cardio vascular and brain functions rises in this stage. More BDNF(Brain-derived neurotrophic factor) were produced. BDNF is a factor that help produce new brain cells to improve brain performance.

Boosting of Immune System (48 to 72 Hours)

In this stage, your body continue to stimulate stem cells and promote the body for further healing, repair and anti-aging. This promotes to lessen your risk for certain types of cancer and shrinkage of certian tumors with which your body starts making more mitochondria. Mitochondria serves as batteries, powering various functions of the cell and the organism as a whole.

Now you are already in the finish line. After fasting, it’s time to replenish yourself and break the fast. I would just like to remind you not to treat yourself too generously after fasting or else you’ll end up being bloated and feel ill because of the amount of food intake that will create a shock on your intestines. There are several ways a person can break their fast safely:

• Drink again lots of water. This will help you lessen your food intake after fasting.
• Eat a small meal: Eating a large meal immediately after a fast can strain the digestive system.
• Chew food thoroughly: Chew each bite at least 30 times.
• Eat cooked foods: Go for foods that are easier to digest, such as cooked vegetables instead of raw.
• Lessen meat intake for the first meal after fasting because meat are harder to digest.
• Avoid experimenting: Trying new foods after a fast can make digestion harder and may make a person feel ill.

If you are planning to make intermittent fasting as a weight loss tool and sustain it as your lifestyle, better go for 18/6 method but if you want to do fasting for health reasons and cure, you can go for a periodic prolonged fasting like 24-hour fasting or until 72 hours. Going a day without eating is generally safe and can be beneficial in several ways. If a person is fasting for health reasons, it is essential that they do it safely and for no longer than is necessary. Long-term fasting starves the body of essential nutrients and can cause many complications.

HealthFix by:penfix