Amazing benefits of an 18 Hour fasting

If you skip breakfast you will be able to achieve an 18 hour fasting window daily. The enormous benefits you will get from this will far outweigh the need to fill you tummy in the morning. If you have your first meal at 2 pm and last meal at 8 pm, this gives you a clear gap of 18 hours.

Since we want the scope of the article to be short, I would just like to mention that adding fat at the end of the meal will help you feel full between meals. Either have fat dense nuts like pistachio or if your able to get your hands on desi ghee prepared from a grass fed cow.

Benefits to the brain – ketones

Contrary to the popular belief, carbs and glucose is not the only source of energy for the brain. If there is no food in the tummy and blood glucose starts dropping low, Now the liver starts converting fat to glucose and releases it in the blood. It is the natural mechanism in the body to maintain blood glucose level at all times. Glucose is the main energy source of the cells of our body. This converted glucose from fats is called ketones.

There are three ways to produce ketones. Intermittent fasting, low carb diet or exercise. All these three activities deplete the energy source of glucose.

Brain functions like mood, cognitive functions, alertness, neuron activity, all improve with ketones. Glucose helps give more energy to the brain. But it also triggers the reward centers of the brain leading to addiction. Sweet addiction in children is another such example.

During the eating window, your body will run on glucose from the food. After the food digestion is over the body will run on glucose for some time. The liver will begin fat burning once glucose levels in the blood start dropping. This converted fat is ketones. Ketone production by the body does not have a set pattern. However it is safe to say that your early morning exercise and time at the job will be excellent brain activity.

Fasting reverses the damage to the brain. Continuous use of glucose as source of energy causes most of the damage. Excess glucose in blood makes the RCB sticky. They cannot reach inside the tiny capillaries in the body which hinders blood flow to the extremities. One of the first to be affected is the tiny nerve fibre connecting the brain to the eye. The tiny nerve optical fibre connecting the brain to the eye is usually the first to be affected.

Conclusion

Production of ketones begins at 16th hour. For some it might kick in earlier. So for two to three hours your body is running on ketones. This greatly benefits the brain and improves neuron activity. 18 hour fasting hence is a must if you want to benefit from ketones.