I woke up Sunday morning with “Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens” on my mind. I know. Weird. They were the favorite things Julie Andrews sang about in Sound of Music, but it prompted me to think about my favorite things about intermittent fasting (IF).
My last two blog posts were about IF in a very general and impersonal way. I wanted to introduce you, dear reader, to a lifestyle that has been a big part of my life for the last 6 years, and to which Randy and I were recommitting in 2024.
It’s been more than a full week since we eased back into our 20-ish hour daily fast. I’ve lost about 4 of the 10 pounds I’ve gained but surprisingly, weight loss on IF for me isn’t the main thing. I forget that because weight gain is usually the first sign that I’m veering away from the lifestyle in the first place. The very best part, and my favorite benefit of IF, is that in a very short time I feel astonishingly good physically. Here is a recap of the non-weight-loss changes I feel in 9 short days.
First, the overall heavy, bloated, not-quite-right feeling is gone. One of the most significant benefits of intermittent fasting (with reduced sugar intake) for me is its nearly immediate effect on whole body chronic inflammation.
Now is a good time to tell you that I’m not a doctor, nor do I pretend to even know much about anatomy, physiology, or the metabolic processes of our body. I do know what I’ve learned specifically related to fasting and how it works for me. That’s what I’m going to tell you about in this post.
So…whole body (chronic) inflammation.
Generally speaking, inflammation is the body’s response to an irritant. We are all familiar with acute inflammation, like when you get a splinter in your finger. Redness, heat, swelling, and pain may develop until the splinter is removed and you clean, disinfect, and bandage the site of the splinter. A splinter is an every-once-in-a-while occurrence and you notice its effect easily and quickly.
Chronic inflammation is much more insidious and seems to be an epidemic of the age we live in. Chronic inflammation is when your body is in a constant state of high alert because of the irritants it’s exposed to. Chronic inflammation manifests in constant, low level body and/or joint pain, feeling swollen, listless, insomnia, weight gain, mood disorders, anxiety, frequent infections, and a tendency to contract all kinds of modern medical disorders (diabetes, cancer, COPD, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, stroke, etc.). It is a general rather than specific feeling of dis-ease.
We’re exposed to a heck of a lot of irritants in our time and culture. The type and overabundance of food is near the top of that naughty list. That, coupled with our sedentary lifestyle, contributes mightily to chronic inflammation. The good news is that within days of starting IF, I (and you too, can) feel astonishingly better.
One of the most obvious and noticeable things is that my chronic pain level drops. Usually, when I sit for more than 10 minutes or so, I need to slowly unfold when I get out of my chair. Everything seizes up and begins to hurt. It takes a bit of painful movement for my muscles to get the message that the rest of me wants to move. I also have neuropathy in my feet, and have for years. It’s hard to explain that though you can’t feel your feet, they hurt almost all the time. It’s most apparent at night, in bed, as I am trying to fall asleep. In addition to the pain, I get a restless leg kind of thing going on. Blessedly, when I am successfully fasting, that happens far less.
When I’m fasting, my sleep improves a lot. Good sleep is one of the keys to good health in general and is even more important as we age. Sleep improves brain function, mental and physical health. Good sleep helps ward off general dis-ease. I’m not sure why exactly…it could have something to do with the decreased pain level, but Intermittent fasting enhances the quality of my sleep. And while fasting my gut isn’t working overtime, growling at me, when I’m trying to fall asleep.
When I’m not fasting, I often feel like an overfilled balloon dangerously close to popping. Overall swollen …that’s what it feels like. I especially see the effects of that swollenness in my face in the mirror. When we returned from our holiday excursion to Missouri, my face looked to me much older and sicker than it appears when I’m fasting. I had bags under my eyes, my skin looked dull, and my chipmunk cheeks are prominent. Fasting has a very immediate positive effect on those issues. And that probably explains why the friend I wrote about a couple of weeks ago looked so much healthier after a year of IF.
Finally, another happy consequence of all the other benefits working together for my good, is I have more energy. I feel good enough every day to get off my butt and move more. Except for yesterday when it rained nonstop, I’ve taken a walk every single day. I bought some resistance bands and have scoured YouTube for some gentle starting workouts for seniors for both stretching and resistance. Unfortunately, on the 4th day of the Yes2Next YouTube channel’s workouts, I pulled a muscle in my lower back and had to suspend those for a bit. I did continue to walk through THAT pain, and it seemed to help the muscle strain improve faster.
I know from my research that many of the IF benefits are on a cellular level we can’t see. There’s a process called autophagy that begins at about the 17-hour mark of a fast. Simply put, autophagy is cells literally taking out their own garbage and repairing their own damage. Think of food as explosive devices we call bombs (like in a war). It’s believed that without enough time before we’re bombarded (again) with incoming food (bombs), our cells can’t clean up the chaos created from the last round of bombs, and the damage keeps accumulating until something collapses and becomes irreparable. That’s a simplified explanation of autophagy, but probably describes why there is such an epidemic of the modern diseases I mentioned early in the post.
I feel like I’ve rushed through and did not do justice to the important and potentially life changing topic of intermittent fasting. But it’s a good start. I’m happy to answer any specific questions you have in the comments below. And I encourage you to do your own research. It may just motivate you to take your own steps to look and feel fabulous in 2024.
I’ll see you there!
P.S. Last week I had my first follow-up mammogram after the cancer diagnosis and surgery. I’m happy to report the mammogram was clear and showed no areas of concern. I’m pretty sure that IF played a part in that result. Autophagy helps increase the effectiveness of our own immune systems. Tumors are often a result of internal inflammation. Draw your own conclusions. Either way, it’s great news for me.
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