Have you ever set any health and wellness goals for yourself? If not, stop what you are doing and write down 3 sustainable goals centered around improved health - this means goals that you can sustainably make incremental progress towards over a long period of time. The oxymoron that is “health standing” fails to adequately and appropriately convey the fact that each one of us has a moving target for a healthy status that is constantly shifting closer to or further away from good health with every habit, daily holistic health routine, and training regimen. While many of us have been trained to believe that a health assessment is a projection of where your health is headed, I believe that a health assessment essentially acts as a snapshot of where your body is at that given moment. I believe it is this point that can empower and motivate you to take daily steps toward incrementally improving your health and as a result your health assessments over time. Amongst these daily steps toward health is intermittent fasting and weight loss.
Intermittent fasting is classified in short as - relatively short periods of repeated fasting (without food) lasting at least 12 hours. While this may initially be a difficult concept to consider at first, hear me out before you write it off... Intermittent fasting has shown in several studies an affinity for providing your body’s digestive system with a necessary chance to rest and over the course of 12-36 hours (or longer depending on lifestyle factors) facilitating your body’s shift from a carbohydrate burner to a fat burner for energy through the use of ketones. Amazingly, burning fat provides the body more than twice as much energy per unit than its carbohydrate counterpart. Additionally, fat burns cleaner in the body leaving less inflammation and toxic waste behind. This fat burning state known as ‘ketosis’ brings with it a large list of benefits conducive to enhanced bodily function including:
Healthy weight management
Reduced blood glucose and insulin
Enhanced nutrient absorption
Boosts bodily immune functions
Improved & sustained energy
Sharpened focus
Portion & overeating control
Reduced inflammation
Improved gut health
I want to stress the fact that Weight Loss is a symptom of a holistically healthy lifestyle laden with daily health improvement practices like intermittent fasting, daily consumption of 96oz of water, or getting 6-8hours of sleep per night. The concept of losing weight without developing sustainable holistic health habits is a flawed one destined to put you in a game of back and forth between weight loss and weight gain. We are all capable of losing weight, what many need help with is keeping their weight down and or building muscle. Fun Fact: the more lean muscle you have, the more energy your body uses to function meaning the combination of a natural whole food meal plan, intermittent fasting, and training program focused on building lean muscle mass will have a compounding positive effect on your ability to lose weight and keep that weight off.
~ Coach Tae
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