Weight loss is ALWAYS a hot topic in the health and wellness industry. People are willing to do anything and everything to help shed excess pounds fast. Most of the popular diet trends are rarely if ever long term effective and some are even downright unsafe. Adopting a long tern healthy lifestyle and diet is the golden ticket! But who do you listen to? Where do you turn in an industry so vast with opinions, diets, strategies, and plans?????
There are two weight loss strategies that are making headlines again and for good reason.
Intermittent fasting and the Keto diet are researched backed healthy eating plans that produce longterm results. Once understood and properly followed these promising diets are not only helping people shed excess pounds but regain their overall health to!
Intermittent Fasting
Essentially this concept is timing your meals to allow for regular periods of fasting. This is NOT about starvation or severe calorie restriction. It is a strategic way of arranging your eating times each week to allow for these fasting periods.
Once you begin to fast it takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores. After that you start to shift to burning fat (this is where the magic happens).
However, if you are replenishing your glycogen by eating every 3-4 hours in the day you make it far more difficult for your body to use your fat stores as fuel.
So how exactly does this work?
Here is what daily intermittent fasting looks like in action
- The length of your fast must be at least 16 hours.
- This means eating only between the hours of 11am until 7pm or however you want to arrange your hours.
- Essentially, this way you skip breakfast and make lunch your first meal of the day instead. This will help shift you form carb burning to fat burning mode.
Make sure when you do eat you are choosing nutrient dense foods such as healthy fats, complex carbs, and clean protein choices.
Another popular intermittent fasting approach is slashing calories for two days a week. You can eat one, two, or three meals on those days as long as you keep the total calories at around 500 for women or 600 for men . To minimize any muscle loss shoot for 50 grams of protein. The rest of the week days you eat as you normally would.
A 600 calorie fasting day would look like this
Breakfast: Oatmeal with berries and a little milk = 250 calories
Dinner: Baked salmon with asparagus and tomatoes = 350 calories
It takes a few weeks, and you have to do it gradually, but once you succeed and switch to fat burning mode lots of good things start to happen including…
- cravings for sugar diminish
- weight-loss
- boosted levels of human growth hormone (aka the “fitness hormone”)
- improved brain function
- reduced cancer risk
- and may even lengthen your life
NOTE: Intermittent fasting is NOT intended for
-Children
-Pregnant or nursing women
-Weak,frail,or underweight individuals
-The elderly
BOTTOM LINE: Intermittent fasting is not so much a diet but a lifestyle.
KETO (Ketosis)
“Keto” is short for being in the state of ketosis, a metabolic state that occurs when most of the body’s energy comes from ketone bodies in the blood rather than from glucose obtained from eating foods with carbohydrates.
What the heck does that mean? Basically the Ketogenic diet is a very high-fat / low carbohydrate diet. It has been practiced since the 1920’s and is based upon a solid understanding of physiology and nutrition science.
The state of ketosis is able to occur only when fat provides most of the body’s daily calorie needs, which takes the place of glucose as the preferred source of energy. The body switches from being a carb burner to a fat burner. Fat is a more stable source of energy and is said to have a many benefits for the brain.
The keto diet is also a way to lose weight effectively. The body burns off fat stores for energy. While in ketosis, a person experiences more stable energy throughout the day. Without large amounts of carbs in the diet sugar cravings diminish naturally.
A Keto diet plan looks like this
- Lots of HEALTHY fats such as grass-fed butter, coconut oil, pure olive oil, duck fats, etc.
- Any clean organic meats, such as steaks, chicken, deer, bison, elk, duck, etc.
- Leafy greens such as spinach, kale, and broccolli
- Avoidance of sugar and all starches
Benefits
-Long term weight loss
-Possible cancer prevention
-Life longevity
-Increased energy
-Decreased food cravings
-Mood stability
One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to the ketogenic diet is not doing the research. This diet can have some ugly side effects if the proper balance of fat and protein is not established. There are home test strips you can purchase to see if your body has entered the state of ketosis.
BOTTOM LINE: KETO IS A TOTAL DIET PACKAGE THAT DELIVERS RESULTS WHEN FOLLOWED PROPERLY
Guess its not a secret anymore to just the elite and powerful who are using these diets to extend longevity and keep weight off for good.
You to can reap all the benefits these diets have to offer!!!!
Have you tried Intermittent fasting or Keto?
Let me know!
Be Well 🙂
Susie R.