Always Hungry? Intermittent Fasting May Help

Do you feel that your appetite is preventing your weight loss efforts? According to studies, the brain may have an imbalanced satiety centre that causes constant cravings for food. The more calories consumed, the worse it becomes.

To rebalance appetite and the feeling of hunger, some doctors suggest skipping one dinner a week to reset the body’s hunger signals as Fasting The body can experience healthy changes if it is used regularly.

Dr. Hu Naiwen, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, introduced a weight loss technique that allows you to lose at least 1 lb per month simply by reducing one of your weekly meals.

Hu tried to eat less on Thursdays and more often at other times. Hu experienced temporary hunger relief by cutting down on the number of meals he ate per week. Wu found that he was able to reset his sensitivity to the hypothalamus satiety center, responsible for signaling fullness.

According to a Chinese medicine practitioner, “If you eat whenever you want, whatever you want all the time, the satiety center will become idle and no longer signals.” Hu suggests that anyone who has a large appetite should skip meals occasionally to reset their satiety centers.

Fasting Repairs Hypothalamus

Leptin is responsible for the functioning of human satiety centers in the hypothalamus.

The body’s level of leptin is affected by hunger. It will decrease when it feels hungry, but it will increase after eating. When the hypothalamus receives Leptin, it signals fullness.

But, this does not mean that you will feel fuller if you have more leptin. Since adipose tissue can produce leptin, people with obesity secrete more of it—thus, the hypothalamus becomes desensitized causing difficulty in signaling fullness.

Recent studies have highlighted the effect of diet restriction on feeling full. Some studies We have found that limiting calories intake can lower leptin levels, which prevents the hypothalamus’ imbalance from receiving leptin.

However, consuming more high-calorie foods such as fat, carbohydrates, fructose, and sucrose will decrease the hypothalamus’s sensitivity to fullness after a meal.

Another Study It was found that obese patients have difficulty feeling full due to an inflamed hypothalamus, blocked neurocyte pathways that produce fullness, and that fasting can help reduce hypothalamus inflammation.

It is vital to choose the right time for fasting. A clinical Try it out found that limiting meals to before 3 p.m. and fasting the rest of the day can improve the body’s sensitivity to insulin and reduce appetite at night. The human body’s ability to burn fat will also strengthen.

Research suggests that skipping dinner is good for your health, as your metabolism slows down at night. The human body’s metabolism is most active in the morning. The chances of metabolic imbalance are increased if you fast in the morning, and eat little at night.

Successful Fasting Increases Sleep Quality

Dr. Yang Jingduan, a Chinese and Western medicine doctor and director of Yang’s Integrated Medical Center in the United States, shared his personal body transformation after fasting in the evening. Yang’s results echo the conclusion of scientific research.

To lose weight, Yang tried what is called 16:8 fasting—eating within an eight hour time-frame daily, and drinking only water or zero-calorie beverages such as black coffee and tea for the remaining 16 hours.

Yang decided to skip breakfast at first. Yang preferred to have coffee with oatmilk in the morning.

Oat milk has 250 calories. Yang also found that skipping breakfast affected his work performance, especially when he was busy and couldn’t take lunch on time. Yang felt tired, irritated, overwhelmed and found it difficult to focus.

Yang switched to fasting at night because he didn’t have enough energy to make it through the day without eating breakfast.

He said that it was difficult to not eat at night when he first started. He wanted to unwind after a long day. He was used to spending his evenings in the kitchen watching TV and eating. It seemed that skipping dinner made his life more dull. Sometimes the doctor would become hungry and need to eat before going to sleep. Even though it disrupted his fasting habits, he would quickly get back to normal the rest.

Yang noticed a number of positive changes in Yang’s body after he skipped dinner.

1. His weight went from 196 to 180 lbs. His stomach also shrank, and his waist dropped from 38 to 34 inches.

2. Yang felt more energetic during the afternoons than in the evenings. He felt more energetic and less fatigued. Yang stated that his body was no longer dependent on food for energy. His body also burned more sugar and fat.

3. An unexpected benefit was in lifestyle—not having to take the time to prepare, eat, and clean up after dinner means he had more spare time at night to exercise, read, and meditate. He found that he could fall asleep one to two hours earlier.

4. A fourth improvement was a better sleep quality. Yang could get seven hours of sleep each night and wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.

Fasting should be gradual

Yang stated: “If you want your intermittent fasting to be successful, you should progress gradually. If you are used to eating three meals plus snacks daily, it may be difficult to fast for 16 hours suddenly.”

Patients could start by fasting for 10 hours, then gradually increase their time to fast for 12, 14, or 16 hours. Yang recommends that fasting be increased from one day per week up to two, three, or four days. Gradually increasing the fasting duration gives the body time to adapt and builds a sense accomplishment.

Yang reminded us that we shouldn’t feel defeated or weak when we break fasting times. Yang explained that intermittent fasting would always have dips or flows. The results will come if we keep to our routine and make it a daily habit.

Yang warns us that although fasting emphasizes the time and calories of eating, there may be some compensation during meals when fasting 16 hours. The body may feel the need to eat more in order to make up for lost meals.

But, it is possible to lose the effectiveness of a fasting program if you eat too much. However, if you consume less than 1,200 calories a day, it can drastically lower your metabolism and lead to muscle loss.

Fasting people should eat more plant-based foods and organic ingredients to reduce their intake of sugar and fat. You will see better results if you increase your water intake and do some exercise while fasting.

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