Here’s why celebs such as Beyonce and Ben Affleck swear by intermittent fasting

Celebrities such as Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Terry Crews, Ben Affleck, Beyonce, Liv Tyler and Miranda Kerr have always surprised us with their ability to quickly shed weight for their movie roles, music videos or for walking the ramp. And we’ve always wondered how do they do it? Well, we finally have the answer. These celebrities, over the years, have been following the principle of intermittent fasting.

For starters, IF (intermittent fasting) is not a diet. In fact, it is a new way of eating. IF can be defined as an eating pattern where one alternates between periods of eating and fasting. The focus during intermittent fasting is on the timing of consumption of your healthy meals. Nutritionists Kavita Devgan and Sunita Roy Chowdhury explain how IF works and what are it’s benefits.

How intermittent fasting works

Your body has two states- the “fed” state and the “fastest” state.

When you start the process of eating and digesting, your body tends to go into a fed state. After you have finished eating, your body stays in fed state for approximately 3-5 hours, which means you don’t feel hungry. The duration of fed state also depends on factors such as metabolism and your body type. In fed state, your body’s insulin level goes up. When your insulin levels are up then you don’t need to burn your body’s fat for energy. You don’t need to tap into your body’s fat for energy as the food you are eating, provides it.

However, after 3-5 hours when the fed state is over, your insulin level tends to drop. And after dinner, when you go for 8-10 hours without food, your body starts to burn the energy stored in your fat.

During Intermittent fasting, one tends to increase the gap between meals, as per their convenience, so that your body’s eating cycle’s alternates between fed state and fasting state, throughout the day.

The biggest advantage that Intermittent fasting offers, is that there is no fixed period for which you have to fast and eat. You can create a timetable as per your metabolism and body type. For example, you have your breakfast at 7am in the morning and then you have your lunch at 3pm in the afternoon. By following this, you have an eight hour gap in-between.

7 major health benefits that intermittent fasting

1) It helps to keep the blood sugar stable in the body, reducing insulin resistance in process, which is great for pre-diabetes.

2) It gives the body and digestion a much needed rest and induces important cellular repair processes, such as removing waste (toxic) material from cells. This way it helps to reduce inflammation too.

3) By intermittent fasting helps, you tend to consume fewer calories. Instead of running on fuel from the food you just ate, fasting allows your body to tap into reserves, which is fat. Hence, it’s an effective tool to lose weight and belly fat.

4) While long-term fasting can actually cause a drop in your metabolism, short-term fasting promoted by intermittent fasting is proven to increase metabolism.

5) It stimulates the brain. It promotes the growth of neurons and enhances memory performance. Also, it helps decrease the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

6) It boosts the immune system by boosting the body’s production of new white blood cells, which helps our body fight various infections.

7) It gives our bodies an anti-aging benefit.