There have been two game-changers in my health and fitness journey: Weights and Intermittent Fasting (IF).
I’ve always been active and loved cardio and yoga, but those two activities alone did not make me super lean and toned, which is what I’ve always strived for.
It has now been 2 years since I started to consistently lift weights and about 1+ year since I started intermittent fasting.
Combining these two things with a healthy diet of mostly plants has changed my body so much! I can now see muscles I’ve never seen and I FEEL way better than I’ve ever felt.
In case you don’t know, here are some benefits of time-restricted eating (I follow a 16:8 fast 5-6 days a week. That means I have an 8 hour window of eating and a 16 hour window of going without food. In general, I stop eating at 7pm and don’t eat the next day until 11am.)
Benefits of fasting:
GUT REST: My belly feels so much better when I don’t eat all the time. On a cellular level, when you give your body a rest from digesting food, it redirects that energy into healing and repair.
AUTOPHAGY: This is your body’s self-cleaning process. Autophagy reduces inflammation, slows aging, and enhances your body’s detoxification process.
DISEASE PREVENTION: Studies show IF reduces the risk of almost every chronic disease.
ANTI-AGING/LONGEVITY: IF slows aging from oxidative stress.
Since I started to fast, I noticed I have way more energy than I’ve ever had AND I’ve lost more fat even though I eat WAY MORE fat than I ever did. My favorite fats are from: avocado, coconut/olive oil, seeds (I’m allergic to nuts, or I would eat them 😉), and chocolate.
Btw – since I don’t like getting hangry, in the morning, I drink coffee and C8 MCT Oil from @bulletproofcoffee. The combination of coffee and MCTs keeps me in a state of ketosis (fat burning stage; when your body uses fat instead of carbohydrates as its primary fuel source), and it suppresses hunger while boosting energy.
WEIGHTS:
While a cardio workout burns more calories than a weight-training workout, weights build more muscle. Since muscle burns more calories at rest compared to fat, you can increase your resting metabolism with more muscle mass. Basically, you’ll be burning more calories at rest if your body has more muscle than fat. Don’t get me wrong, I still love cardio and yoga, but since I wanted to lean out and carry more muscle than fat, adding weight lifting has done wonders.
