Fasting During Easter Month? Make sure you're doing it right!

QHealth Tips is written by Martha Cardenas, a Holistic Nutrition professional. Q Swimwear publishes it as general wellness information for swimmers. It is not medical advice — talk to your own healthcare provider before changing your diet, supplements or training.

Fasting during Easter? Make sure you are doing it right!

In many cultures fasting is done as a practice that stems from religion. Nowadays, fasting has become popular, as science has shed light on the health benefits.

  • Improve cognitive function.
  • Improve metabolic flexibility — this is our ability to use glucose or fat as a fuel source.
  • Reduce inflammation — every chronic health condition has inflammation as an underlying factor, think cancer prevention.
  • Weight loss.
  • Improve physical performance, and endurance.

How to fast

  • If you are a beginner, start by leaving 12 hours between your last meal of the day and breakfast the next day. Ideally after this time your body will start producing ketones, or will do so until metabolic flexibility kicks in.
  • The next stage can be fasting for 18 hours. At this point you will be burning fat as fuel and reap the benefits described above.
  • Fasting for 24 hours will initiate autophagy — a process of tissue and cellular regeneration.

How to know if fasting is right for you or is being done correctly

  • Energy will feel stable and/or restored.
  • There will be a general sense of well-being, without headaches, blurred vision, nausea or alike.
  • You will not experience hunger, a sign that you are “being fed” without eating.
  • You will not experience sweet cravings — your brain’s cry for help for fuel.
  • You will preserve lean muscle mass.

What can you do if fasting is not going as you expected?

Investigate possible nutrient deficiencies like Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, L-carnitine and Biotin. You can start taking these and see if there is an improvement.

Our bodies function in a perfect and precise way; we only need to learn how to read their messages and act accordingly based on intuition and internal wisdom. Listen to your body.

To learn more about Martha or book an appointment, email her at martha@marthacardenas.com or follow her on Instagram at @marthacardenasnutricion.

QHealth Tips card on fasting: benefits, how to build from a 12-hour to a 24-hour fast, and signs that fasting is working.
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