How healthy is it to intermittent fast? And what time of day should you do it? According to Dr. Emily Poccia of Wildcraft Medicine in La Jolla, California, there are more benefits to eating earlier in the day, typically for 8 hours followed by 16 hours of fasting.
Here’s how intermittent fasting can be really helpful to the body:
- It helps re-establish your metabolism.
- Balances your blood sugar levels.
- Allows your digestive tract to rest in between eating.
Many of us are busy and snack throughout the day. However, not eating solid meals causes our blood sugar to stay up so it never drops and rises. Plus, our guts are always working.
Most people who intermittent fast start eating later in the day, like 1 or 2 pm. But our bodies actually receive food best in the beginning of the day.
When we wake up our cortisol levels are high, our blood sugar has dropped, and it’s time to get out of bed and eat.
Dr. Poccia explains that we receive food well in the morning and usually do better if we don’t eat late at night before bed.
She suggests to her patients, if they’re going to do intermittent fasting, to try to shift their timing so they’re eating a little earlier in the day and stopping a little earlier at night. This can be more difficult sometimes for our busy schedules but it works better for our health.
