Fasting 101: How I healed my gut

Chances are, you’ve already heard about fasting and the many benefits it can provide.

Over the past year, fasting has grown in popularity mostly due to its aid with weight-loss and speeding up metabolism, however, there are so many other benefits to fasting which make it stand out among the many ‘fad diets’ of this world.

Intermittent fasting – being an eating pattern where you eat for eight hours of the day and fast for 16 – is now backed by numerous studies that prove it has powerful benefits for your body, brain, and gut health.

Although a desire to lose weight is the most common reason people try fasting, I first gave it a go after reading about a study which found fasting to help reduce IBS symptoms such as stomach pain and bloating. For me personally, I now credit it as having been the answer to healing my IBS and other digestive problems including food sensitivities.

When you fast, your insulin levels drop, metabolism boosts, growth hormone increases, and your body enters a fat-burning state that overall reduces oxidative stress and inflammation in the stomach – all key benefits that make for a healthy gut.

Fasting allows your intestine time to cleanse, clearing your body of toxins. This ultimately leaves you feeling lighter, more energised, and super focused. By allowing your body time to clear itself, it also provides a chance for healing.

After intermittent fasting for a few weeks, I found that I could suddenly tolerate more foods including small amounts of gluten and dairy while the bloated, sluggish feeling I lived with daily slowly went away.

You will get hungry but your body will quickly adjust to the new pattern and before you know it, you’ll actually prefer fasting. Intermittent fasting isn't for everyone, however, it is just another tool in the toolbox that can be useful for some people and provide you with health benefits you may have been missing out on.

Basically, my best advice is to give it a try. Set aside a few days to adjust to your fasting pattern and see how you feel after a week or two. You don’t need to dramatically change your daily balanced diet or anything, just follow any of the three fasting time frames and see how your body responds.

If you decide to try it out, keep in mind that you need to eat healthy as well. If you’re just going to eat junk food during your ‘eating window’ you may as well not bother fasting – Keep it balanced and clean.

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The three types of fasting

The 16:8 method

The idea is that you fast for 14-16 hours each day restricting your daily ‘eating window’ to 8-10 hours.

You can choose what times suit you best – since I’m up early in the morning I found that fasting between 6pm and 10am worked best for my schedule. This also meant that I didn’t need to skip breakfast, instead, I eat a decent breakfast at 10am lunch at 1pm and dinner just before 6pm with snacks in between.

The traditional approach is to stop eating at 8pm and have your next meal at 12 noon – this would mean skipping breakfast and only eating lunch, dinner, and snacks.

You can drink water, tea without milk and other non-caloric beverages during the fast, and this can help reduce hunger levels.

It is generally recommended that women only fast 14-15 hours.

The 5:2 method

This method involves eating normally for five days of the week and then restricting your calorie intake to 500-600 two days of the week.

I personally don’t follow this style as I find it too difficult with the amount I gym and sport I do, however, it is another option to consider if you don’t like the idea of fasting every day.

Eat-Stop-Eat

The Eat-Stop-Eat fast – arguably the hardest of the three – involves a 24-hour fast up to twice a week.

Most people fast from breakfast one day to breakfast the next or lunch to lunch. During the fasting time, you can also still drink water, tea without milk, or any other non-caloric beverage then eat as usual on the days you don’t fast.