Lose That Beer Gut (While Still Drinking Beer)
Lose That Beer Gut(While Still Drinking Beer). Self care and other ways dads can take care of themselves and be better dads and better humans.
Before you read further: This is not a life-hack.
Sadly, the science of weight-loss is simple: if you consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight.
The inverse then is also true: to lose weight, you simply must consume less calories than you expend.
Ok, ok. So what are we talkin’ about?
Keto? Paleo?
Nope.
Those can also be effective, but for this article, we are focusing on a method, not a diet.
The Method?
Intermittent Fasting
To the unfamiliar, intermittent fasting is simply a restriction of the times each day you eat food.
A common example: the 16:8 fast.
The Method:
For 16 hours each day, you eat/drink nothing caloric.
For 8 Hours each day, you eat/drink your daily requirements.
There is a simple free app that does the math for you.
Example:
John eats his first meal at 12:00PM.
He eats a small snack at 4PM.
At 7PM, John eats his dinner, and then fasts until 12:00PM the next day.
It is that simple.
How It Works:
To start, what makes this approach viable for losing weight is how easy it is.
Unlike a restrictive diet like Keto, the only thing you need to change is the time frames in which you eat.
Further, by restricting your time frame of consumption, you allow your body to switch from burning your sugar stores into your fat stores, a process called “Metabolic Switching”.
As Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at John Hopkins puts it:
“If someone is eating three meals a day, plus snacks, and they’re not exercising, then every time they eat, they’re running on those calories and not burning their fat stores.”
Beyond this, one of Mattson’s recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that
“ Things happen during intermittent fasting that can protect organs against chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, age-related neurodegenerative disorders, even inflammatory bowel disease and many cancers.”
A Simpler Reason It Works
Less time spent snacking +
Fewer meals +
Zero full-calorie pops for breakfast =
Less calories entering your stomach.
Of course, calories are not the only determinant of health.
But we aren’t talkin’ health.
We are talkin’ about one thing: Losing Weight.
I also found the added benefit of making me a clearer thinker in the morning. And it has helped me avoid the post lunch crash because I am more thoughtful about what I eat for lunch (my first meal of the day).
So want to lose weight? Want to still drink carbalicious beer? Tired of your wife’s Keto farts?
Try Fasting.