What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent Fasting is basically an eating pattern that restricts the amount of time you are allowed to eat.
There are many forms of this kind of eating method, like
● The 16/8 method
● The 5:2 diet
● Eat-Stop-Eat
And many more.
The simplest form is the 16/8 method, where you are required to fast for 16 hours and eat only in the remaining 8 hour window. The easiest way to do this is by skipping breakfast.
The other ways are similar to this, where you don’t eat anything for a chunk of time.
All in all, intermittent fasting is a pattern of eating where you don’t change what you eat but when you eat.
Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
But why would anyone skip breakfast? Isn’t it the most important meal of the day?
That myth seems to have been busted, leading to people using intermittent fasting to their health rescue.
These people have even seen improvements in their health, including these common but serious troubles.
1. Hormonal Imbalance
2. Excessive Weight
3. Diabetes
4. Bad Heart Health
5. Bad Brain Health
It is pretty obvious that your body will take time to adapt to the new form of eating. But if this change gets associated with a bad feeling, your brain might try to stop you from getting into it.
However, tea can help to associate some good feelings with this healthy practice and make it more manageable. Not only that, but it can also act as a catalyst to the process that happens during intermittent fasting and heals your body. Thus, making intermittent fasting more effective.
Here’s how.
How Tea helps with intermittent fasting
1. Tea reduces the Intermittent Fasting Stress
In case you need to work during your fasting period and your body is not used to it yet, you might find it difficult and even stressful to fast. It will do you no good if you keep counting hours until your feeding period.
During such times of stress, the body asks for happiness hormones like dopamine, and the simplest way (we think) to get that, is through sugary foods. But, doing so can lead you to overeat during your feeding period or break the fast altogether in the middle of the fasting period.
Tea contains a compound called L-theanine. This is a powerful amino acid which is well-known for its calming effects.
Hence, tea can prove pretty useful to help you relax and avoid breaking your fast because of stress.
2. Tea aids with Oxidative Stress
The rich presence of polyphenols and catechins in tea leaves help fight free radicals which could lead to oxidative stress in the body.
This oxidative stress is a cause of premature aging.
Tea, when coupled with intermittent fasting, gets rid of the free radicals way more quickly and efficiently than usual. This is because, during the fasting period there is no undigested food in the body that can act as a distraction while carrying out that process.
Therefore, the tea + intermittent fasting combo, can help you keep all those diseases at bay which happen due to oxidative stress. Thus, keeping you younger for long.
3. Tea promotes Autophagy
Don’t worry, that’s a new term for our vocabulary too.
Autophagy, literally translates to self-eating.
During intermittent fasting, your body does not have food to derive energy instantly. Since the body still needs energy to run, it starts eating up the damaged tissues and cells by recycling them for it. The more they recycle, the better for your body, as it had been storing the toxic elements since ages and hurting your health.
But how does tea promote this Autopha-whatever?
Well, tea has a robust compound known as EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate), which is said to supercharge the process of autophagy. And, thus, can prove immensely beneficial.
4. Tea helps tackle Hunger Pangs
Initially, when your body has not yet adapted to the new eating habit of intermittent fasting, you might struggle with a growling stomach and hunger pangs every once in a while.
The people around you may try to convince you that you are starving. But, the truth of the matter is, it is nowhere near to that (unless you are malnourished).
Just like our bodies have adapted to eating at several times during the day, it can very well adapt to eating the same calories in a restricted period of time.
Here’s how tea can help.
The catechins found in tea are said to inhibit the secretion of leptin and ghrelin. These are “hunger hormones” that signal hunger to the brain. Thus, helping you with the pangs.
In addition to the chemical positives towards hunger pangs, just filling up your belly with delicious tea can cure the pangs temporarily.
5. Tea promotes Weight loss
Well, if you are an avid reader at Teafloor, you know how teas can be the most simple and effective weight loss supplement you can ever find.
For the new readers out there, here’s why.
The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, produces tea that has high amounts of EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate).
This type of antioxidant helps reduce insulin levels. Since, intermittent fasting does the same to your body, this makes tea a great catalyst for the process.
In case you are wondering if that is even important…
The reduction in insulin levels is important because this hormone is the one which is responsible to store energy in fat cells. The more insulin the body produces, the more fat will be stored. And we surely won’t approve of that for long.
Another way tea helps promote weight loss is by becoming a low-calorie replacement for those sugar-ridden drinks that we consume for the sake of energy and mood upliftment.
All this clearly suggests how tea can provide tremendous help to intermittent fasting. And together, they can take us to a heavenly path of wholesome health and happiness.
Just like tea helps in intermittent fasting, we are here to help you get authentic tea straight from the gardens. Teafloor ensures that you get fresh teas with their EGCG, catechins, polyphenols and all other nutritional elements intact, for you to benefit yourself to the fullest.
I write to fulfill your appetite for thought, to get only in return your smile.