Human Growth Hormone, Autophagy & Time restricted eating. Why I LOVE this practice so much!
- I find it easier to start my fast earlier in the evening around 4:00PM or 5:00PM
- I fast for atleast 16 hours at a time. Sometimes I do 18 or 24 hours.
- I fast 3-4 times a week.
- I eat whatever I want, in my plant based diet. I do not deprive myself of foods I love and crave and I feel fully satisfied and 100% content.
- I do not get hungry at night and if I do, I break the fast and eat, no problem.
- It took me about six months to adjust my body and not get hungry at night.
- I eat 2 meals a day plus snacks. Light breakfast, juice and a large lunch/dinner around 3:30/4/5/5:30
- I don’t eat when I travel, sometimes I will fast 36 hours for long travel days. The food times when traveling is actually what disrupts your circadian rhythm when traveling.
- If I don’t fast for a week or two it will not throw my body out of balance. I listen to my body.
- I don’t fast while I’m on my period.
- Since fasting my body has more muscle mass and I exercise less
- Since fasting my body and skin look better than it ever has
- Since fasting I sleep better and feel better
- I have been fasting two years
These benefits of this practice have changed my life. The most important thing fasting does is clean out all the old toxic cells through Autophagy which occurs at 16 hours. This is why fasting is what the leading doctors in the world turn to for their chronic illness patients because the body uses its natural abilities to heal and recover the organs itself. Autophagy is controlled digestion of damaged organelles within a cell. This means that the body is getting rid of old damaged cells during autophogy, leaving only healthy, young cells.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) also kicks in at 16 hours. If your growth hormone is low, you will feel and look older than your age. For me personally I have noticed a huge difference in my skin, my body, my tone, I look younger than I did two years ago.
Low levels of human growth hormone cause thinning skin, sagging skin, loss of bone density, fat gain, loss of muscle tone, difficulty sleeping, and sleep apnea. When you produce human growth hormone, your body naturally resets itself to its circadian rhythm. Scientist refer to human growth hormone as “Youth Hormone because this hormone is essentially keeping you youthful and vibrant.
The other amazing benefit of fasting is during time restricted eating your body doesn’t have to use all its energy digesting food so it uses energy to restore and repair organs such as the liver and kidneys. The magic number for time restricted eating is also 16 hours. It takes 6-8 hours to digest our food. So after we eat, the body is just working to digest for the next 6-8 hours to go through the small intestine, large intestine than longer to pass through the liver.
Circadian Rhythm is 24-hour rhythms that are driven by a circadian clock, and they have been widely observed in plants, animals, fungi, and cyanobacteria. Its important to follow the natural circadian rhythm for eating otherwise the fasting will not have its full benefits. Just like sleep, if we go bed at 2:00 or 3:00 am and lets say we wake up 11:00 and we got a full 8 hours of sleep, the body wills till have missed out on the resorative and regenerative sleep because that naturally happens due to the circadian rhythm between the hours of 11:00PM to 2:00AM. So in order to get the full restorative sleep you must go to bed by 11:00. Same with fasting, our body is set up to release melatonin after 12:00 PM, after the sun sets is when we should be eating our last meal and same as when the sun rises we should be eating our first meal. If we eat dinner at 11:00Pm when our body thinks its time for restorative sleep, we not only confuse our body and throw the rhythm off balance but we don’t get the full benefits of the fast.
A Typical Fasting day:
(Started Fast the evening before at 5:00PM)
9:00am -Water with lemon, salt and magnesium (fast broken)
9:00am- Tea with plant milk
9:30am -Pressed Juice with celery, lemon, romain, apple, lime, carrot or other greens
12:00pm -sauteed greens, spinach, kale, leeks, bok choy. Side of tempe or other steamed veggies and a plant protein.
4:00 or 5:00pm- a really good plant based dinner.
from 5 on I drink water and tea
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