Q & A: Do i have to fast

​Thank you for sharing your burning questions with me! One question that came up a lot was regarding intermittent fasting. I wanted to give you the broad stroke answer on fasting ahead of the opening of the Weight Loss Success course to sign up. Here we go. 

Do I have to fast?
The short answer is no. You don’t have to practice intermittent fasting, but you DO need windows of not eating.

Observational studies have found that small frequent meals do not produce the results we expect. This outdated model of eating 5-6 times a day increases hunger, food consumption, and does not help reduce weight gain. (For a recent client, she was able to lose weight with this one step.). But, at the same time, you don’t need 16-18 hours of fasting - particularly as a woman - on a daily basis.

What is a non-eating window?
Time when you're not eating or consuming caloric fluids. Non-eating windows are highly beneficial. The non-eating window gives you time to, one, burn off the foods you consume and, two, to switch into fat burning mode to burn off stored energy found in your muscles, fat cells, and organs. A non-eating window can last anywhere from 5-12 hours.

In non eating windows you 

1. Create metabolic flexibility - teaching your body to burn both glucose and fat. This decreases hunger, cravings, and energy dips. It also trains your body to not go to hangry when you miss a meal - you will have greater stamina and less food dependence.

2. You give your gut time to repair and your microbes a chance to feast. Your gut naturally is equipped to repair itself, but it needs time not involved in digestion. If once digestion is over, you refill, your gut doesn’t get a chance to repair.

Digestion takes 6-8 hours from mouth to large intestines. Eating every 3-4 hours keeps this process in continual motion. Having a period of 5+ hours between meals and 12 hours of rest at night gives the digestive track repair time. This will benefit you with less sickness, fewer allergies, and more regular bowels.

Prolonged fasting (3-5 days) is a tool to:

1. Reset your weight set point. Your weight set point is an interesting mechanism which keeps your weight basically the same despite occasional overeating or under eating. This is also the bane of weight loss because it pushes you to regain. To not regain without continual dieting - you must reset your set point. Fasting is a tool for this.

2. Feel younger. Prolonged fasting is a tool for rejuvenation. Longer periods of fasting that happen monthly, seasonally, or yearly helps your entire body renew itself on a cell level. We use this in the Deep Reset and in juice cleanses.  

To learn more about fasting, stay tuned. It is a wonderful tool and not as onerous as you may have thought or experienced.  
Love,
Julia
xo

P.S. If you didn't get to submit your burning questions - do so here.
https://www.thejolielife.com/your-burning-questions.html