Christopher Griffiths
New Approach to Nutrition 05/31/2011
This past weekend was Memorial Day, and I hosted a barbecue for friends and family - sort of a tradition that I've been keeping up for the past 5 or 6 years. One of my guests was Dr. David Eifrig, who publishes the Retirement Millionaire newsletter. We happened to start a chat about fasting, when I expressed that it's something I do fairly regularly, and I was fascinated to hear (and subsequently read) about its recently discovered health benefits.
According to a study published in the journal Nature, intermittent fasting has some of the same dramatic health benefits found from diets characterized by extreme caloric restriction. I read the study - it's full of interesting sciencey tidbits speculating on the mechanisms responsible for its life expectancy increases. The upshot seems to be that your body changes its chemistry slightly when you're fasting. Stressing your system gently seems to inhibit the growth of cancer cells, and to improve your body's ability to regulate blood sugar among other things.
For my part, I'm going to implement a weekly fast-day. I've fasted today (Tuesday), but I think that since I don't usually train martial arts on Sunday, it may be a better candidate in the future. Pugilism on an empty stomach might be a bad idea - it's not clever to scrap when you're weak.
According to a study published in the journal Nature, intermittent fasting has some of the same dramatic health benefits found from diets characterized by extreme caloric restriction. I read the study - it's full of interesting sciencey tidbits speculating on the mechanisms responsible for its life expectancy increases. The upshot seems to be that your body changes its chemistry slightly when you're fasting. Stressing your system gently seems to inhibit the growth of cancer cells, and to improve your body's ability to regulate blood sugar among other things.
For my part, I'm going to implement a weekly fast-day. I've fasted today (Tuesday), but I think that since I don't usually train martial arts on Sunday, it may be a better candidate in the future. Pugilism on an empty stomach might be a bad idea - it's not clever to scrap when you're weak.
