24 Hour Fast Benefits – 12 Reasons Why to Try it

You hear people talking about intermittent fasting all the time. Don’t you find it interesting how you can stop eating for plenty of time? Aren’t you curious about how your body will respond? How it will go on without any source of energy? And what exactly are the famous 24 hour fast benefits?

Even if you know, what happens if you fast for a few days? Will your body be able to live through it?

There are a lot of things you don’t know about fasting, it’s time to find out now how it can be helpful!

How a 24-Hour Fast Goes

It pretty much explains itself, a full day fast means you stop eating from breakfast to breakfast or whatever meal you choose.

The thing about this fasting style is that it doesn’t affect you negatively, you can still eat one meal a day and you can still take your meds with food if needed, you can even take supplements with that one meal to avoid muscle loss and provide you with the needed minerals.

The fact that you can still eat once a day also doesn’t mess up with your family schedules if you have one meal with them daily.

You simply drink your cup of coffee and keep on skipping food until it’s time for your daily meal. While taking care of drinking enough liquids and water.

The recommended weekly amount of 24-hour fasting is three times per week.

You can raise it up to five days per week when your body gets used to it.

Benefits of 24-Hours Fasting

Here’s the info you’ve been waiting for! What can fasting do to your body? Why is all the fuss about it? Read to find out!

1- Weight Loss

It’s a no brainer fasting will cause weight loss. No food = No weight gain.

The body burns all the fats and glucose in it during fasting, and it renews its cells. It’s like getting your body a makeover!

If you manage to follow a good exercise plan while fasting, you will get the body of your dreams in no time, but you need to watch your exercising intensity, to avoid restraining your muscles.

2- High Metabolism

Metabolism begins to slow down as we advance in age, your body doesn’t burn fats and digest food when you’re 50 the way it did when you were 20, that’s a fact.

Studies done on the results of intermittent fasting showed it actually has an effect on the body’s metabolic rate.

Fasting lets the digestive system take a break, leaving it a plenty of time to fix the effects of everyday damage.

Toxins are then let out of your body and the hormones are balanced, which boosts your metabolism by a significant amount.

Take care though because fasting for more than 48 hours can have an opposite effect and slow down your metabolism instead.

3- Renewed immune system

Intermittent fasting completely resets the immune system of the body, because stem cells start producing white blood cells immediately when you stop eating.

It can be really beneficial for people suffering chemotherapy or weak immune systems, under the supervision of a doctor of course.

4- Ketosis Process is On

When the body uses up its glucose stored in the liver, it starts burning fats as the new source of energy, which generates Ketones. That’s why the process is called Ketosis.

Ketones enhance concentration and productivity, it affects the brain positively.

Interested in the Ketosis process? You can actually get a custom keto diet that would perfectly fit your body type, lifestyle, and food preferences.

5- No More Toxins

Toxins in our body are stored in the liver and kidneys, when you are fasting, the kidney has a chance to lose the toxins contained in it along with the water stored in your body.

The liver works as a storage unit for vitamins and minerals of the body, it turns to burning stored fat and glycogen when you’re fasting.

That’s why fasting improves the detoxification process that your body already does on its own.

There’s also a little fact that you need to know, every gram of carbs you ingest needs about 4 grams of water to digest it, excess water can contain toxins that gets stored in your body as fats.

So, when you’re fasting and no carbs are entering your body, you don’t need that excess water.

6- Balanced Blood Pressure

Fasting can mess with the blood pressure, the first day or two of fasting can give you a feeling of low blood pressure, that’s completely normal because the body gets rid of its fats and salts.

Afterward, your body gets used to it and your blood pressure becomes normal.

In fact, it’s healthier that way because high blood pressure causes weight gain and can cause heart issues in the long term.

7- No Inflammation

Inflammation is mostly caused by free radicals that are responsible for oxidative stress.

Free radicals are present in food, it’s easy now to connect the dots!
Fasting means no food for plenty of time, which means free radicals significantly get lower.

Fasting also lowers insulin levels which helps protect the body against inflammation.

8- Good Heart Health

Heart diseases are the most common side effect of aging, they are caused by an unhealthy diet, smoking, imbalanced blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

Fasting controls nearly all the risk factors that can cause heart diseases. It balances blood pressure and cholesterol.

It also causes lower glucose levels which decrease the production of triglycerides in the liver.

To be brief, fasting controls the levels of anything that can affect the heart muscles due to the amount of time spent with no intake on food.

9- Anti Aging Effects

There’s a process that happens in the body called autophagy. It’s when the body puts the damaged or broken cells to use for generating energy. The cells are then replaced by good ones. That means the body technically recycles its cells which slows down aging because a buildup of damaged cells can cause early aging effects.

This process happens when you’re on a day-long fast, it stops once you ingest food even in little amounts, because your body’s priority then is digestion.

So intermittent fasting is one way to offer your body more chances of autophagy.

10- Balanced Insulin Levels

High levels of insulin cause weight gain and can be bad for diabetes patients. They are caused by our style of eating. The body is designed to receive only 3 meals a day but let’s face it, we eat about 4-6 times daily.

That causes high glucose levels in the level which in turn causes insulin imbalance that can result in type 2 diabetes due to the excess load it puts on the kidney.

During fasting, no food gets in your body which means no insulin is produced, that’s why fasting can protect you against a lot of bad effects of insulin imbalance.

11- High Growth hormone

Fasting increases the amount of growth hormone in the body, which naturally gets lower as we age, causing lower metabolism and less muscle mass.

You might even find it weird that some people ingest artificial growth hormone to slow down aging effects!

While 24-hours fasting can give you the same effect.

12- Lower Stress Levels

There is a stress level called Cortisol, it’s produced by the body during times of physical and mental stress, which puts the body in an alert state.

It’s the body’s way to put itself in survival mode in case it’s needed, high levels of this hormone cause weight gain and disturbed sleep habits.

During fasting, this hormone remains at its normal level.

Fast Safely!

You don’t just start fasting without getting the help you need first, that’s why you need to read this article, to know exactly what to do and what to avoid during fasting. Read to find out what you shouldn’t do:

Don’t dive in deep!

I get you’re all excited now about fasting that you know how it can benefit your body and get you in shape, but don’t get in above your head!

You need to start with a short fasting period and gradually make it up the charts.

It makes it easier for your body to adapt and makes you more immune to the hunger!

The full 24 hour fast should be your goal, start with intermittent fasting and you will be able to pass through a full day with no food intake whatsoever.

Don’t forget your liquids!

Consuming enough water and liquids is ESSENTIAL, capital letters!

You don’t even want to know what dehydration can do to your body, a headache will seem like a piece of cake then.

You need to increase your water intake to compensate for the loss of food.

Grab your fibers!

Keep in mind that fasting causes constipation, a lot of it! It’s something you definitely don’t want to go through!

You need to insure you get enough fibers on your non-fasting days to compensate for the loss of it during fasting days.

General Notes:

If you suffer diabetes, you need to speak to your doctor before going for this, because fasting might not be the best option for you.

If you’re pregnant, underweight or suffered an eating disorder before, I wouldn’t recommend fasting without the supervision of a doctor.

Getting your blood tested before starting this kind of diet can be beneficial for you to be 100% sure your body won’t get affected in a bad way.

Planning the way you will break your fast can be really helpful too, to avoid binge eating and unhealthy eating methods. Which brings us to another thing you need to look out for:

Break Your Fast Safely!

You may not think much of this but breaking the fast is one of the most important factors for it to work. I recommend you follow these ways for safe, successful fasting:

• A sip of water: Start by drinking a small amount of water if your fasting is a no food/no water type.
• A small meal: Don’t put a load of your digestive system, start by eating small portions of food.
• Slow chewing: Take your time chewing each bite, to trick your mind into thinking you’re full faster.
• Don’t eat raw food: Again, we don’t want to upset our digestive system when it’s just starting, that’s why it’s better to break your fast on cooked foods that are easier to digest.
• Stay in your comfort zone: Don’t go out trying new kinds of foods when your body is recovering from fasting, it can make you ill and it can restrain your digestive system.

How Your Body Responds to Fasting

The body runs on energy the same way a car runs on fuel. The most important source of energy is glucose, it’s present in carbs.

When carbs are digested, the glucose is stored in your liver and muscles, waiting to be let into your bloodstream when you need it.

Intermittent Fasting messes up this process because no carbs are being let into your body. This results in the liver using up all the glucose in it and getting your body in fasting mode.

Your body then begins burning more calories, using the fat as its new source of glucose. That’s the state your body is in after 24 hours of fasting, which is the safe zone.

When your body runs out of fats to burn into energy, it gets into survival mode and starts to burn muscle tissue for energy. That only occurs after days and weeks with no food, which is not an option in the one-day fasting we’re talking about.

To Wrap It Up!

Fasting is an interesting way to lose weight.

It lets you know how amazing the human body is, how it can keep you going with no source of energy!

It also lets you connect to your body on the spiritual level.

There is much more to talk about regarding fasting, but now you know how to start and how wonderful it can be.

It’s an experience you don’t want to miss!