Once or twice a year, a detox cure cleanses the body so that it can face a new season at its best.

Purges are no longer in vogue, but detoxes are becoming increasingly popular. So, cleansing the body after inactivity and excess will be welcome. To get back into shape, there's an extremely effective way: intermittent fasting. We've been hearing more and more about it in sporting circles since the 1990s. But this natural tool for regaining or improving fitness and health can easily be adopted by everyone. Easier to practice than dry or water fasting, let's take a look at the many benefits it can bring and the 15 good reasons to adopt it.

The body's adaptive faculties contribute to good health, and to be effective, the body's adaptability must be stimulated. Just as chronic, daily stress depletes the endocrine system (mainly the thyroid gland, the gland of adaptation par excellence) and undermines adaptive faculties, so too do chronic, daily stresses. stress Intense, short courses of action such as intense physical exercise, subjecting the body to heat and then cold, or depriving it of food for a short period, will strengthen these faculties and enable it to re-establish homeostasis much more effectively and much more quickly.

1 - Give up worrying about what and how much to put on your plate

Most diets or eating habits dictate what you should or shouldn't put on your plate, what you should or shouldn't combine, or more radically, what you should ban altogether. One of the most common rules is to reduce the daily quantity of food or the number of calories taken into the body.

2 - Worrying only about how often and when to eat

To start intermittent fasting, you need to lengthen the time between 2 main food intakes and/or reduce the number of intakes. If you're used to eating 5 meals a day, simply reduce to 4. If you're used to eating 4 meals a day, just go to 3. If you're already eating 3 meals a day, including breakfast, perhaps you could do away with it?

3 - The goal and main benefit: resting the digestive system

In our Western civilization, the digestive system is rarely truly at rest. In fact, during the course of a day, we eat several times, sometimes up to 6 or 7 times, and this for 65, 70, 80 or 90 years. For most of us, a "normal" diet consists of an early breakfast, sometimes a mid-morning snack, followed by a midday meal. The afternoon is interspersed with another snack. And the day ends with a meal in the evening, sometimes with nibbles in front of the TV. In this way, the digestive system is continually stimulated. The short intervals between the various food intakes give it no time to rest. But we all know that every system, every machine, needs a rest if it is to last, because no machine, no organism, can hold out if it's constantly working at full capacity. If you're giving your body and mind a vacation and a rest, perhaps it's time to make sure you're getting some. to your digestive system?

4 - Reduce insulin peaks and rest the pancreas

For every food we eat, regardless of quantity or quality, we secrete insulin. This hormone is directly linked to blood sugar levels. It is responsible for storing glucose in the form of glycogen in the liver and muscles. If food intake (mainly fast and slow sugars) exceeds the body's energy needs, the excess will be stored in the form of adipose tissue.

5 - Better use of fat reserves: loss of body fat

By offering the body long time slots without insulin secretion, this will enable it to destock thanks to the secretion of other hormones. Intermittent youth trains the body to better manage and use lipid reserves as a fuel reserve.

6 - Increase muscle mass

Periods of abstinence from food lead to an increase in testosterone levels. This anabolic hormone enables the body to increase muscle mass, but not only that.

7 - Potentiate and conserve: libido - mental - energy

Maintaining your libido, keeping your mind strong and having enough energy to manage your day-to-day life- these are just some of the effects of testosterone. Testosterone is a predominantly male hormone, although all women have a small share of male hormones among their total hormones. Testosterone is essential for giving the body power (muscular and mental) and stamina (physical and psychological), as well as for ensuring a good libido. It also has numerous psychological effects. For example, it makes you more self-confident, gives you the energy you need to carry out your projects, and helps you stand up to life's trials and tribulations. Testosterone secretions tend to fall for around 3 hours after any food intake.

8 - Positive effects on GH and BDNF growth hormones

While food intake leads to a reduction in certain hormones, it also leads to an increase in other hormonal secretions. This is how Growth Hormone (GH) and Growth Hormone BDNF (a neurotrophic hormone closely related to Nerve Growth Factor -NGF) come into play. GH activates tissue reconstruction and regeneration, particularly in muscle and connective tissue. BDNF, on the other hand, ensures the regeneration and reconstruction of nerve tissue and neurons. Intermittent fasting therefore not only reduces fat storage, but also boosts muscle mass and the nervous system's ability to transmit information. This is one of the main reasons why intermittent fasting has become so popular among athletes .

9 - Promoting new neuronal connections

During intermittent youth, there is an increase in BDNF growth hormone levels, enabling the establishment of new neuronal connections, as well as greater efficiency of these connections. We can therefore only recommend intermittent exercise for the prevention of degenerative diseases affecting the brain and nervous system. Numerous studies currently demonstrate the beneficial effects of intermittent fasting and total fasting not only on nervous system pathologies, but also on the majority of health problems.

10 - Optimal cortisol levels

This hormone is often mistakenly referred to as the "stress hormone " when considering chronic, intense and deleterious daily stress. High levels of cortisol are considered pathological (weight gain, inflammation...) when they are chronic. On the other hand, punctual elevations in cortisol, adrenalin and noradrenalin lead to correct nutrient storage, proper utilization of reserves, anti-inflammatory action, etc. Properly secreted , these hormones put the body on alert and enable it to cope with life's stresses, both physically and physiologically, as well as mentally. 

11 - Reclaiming one's own feelings and managing the sensation of hunger

In our world, everything is rhythmic, set like clockwork according to time and clocks, but are our body's rhythms really in phase with time and with the hectic schedules of our hectic lives? We're so used to looking at our watch that we've lost the ability to listen to our body and feel its true needs. It's very interesting to ask ourselves: am I eating because it's time to eat? Or do I eat because I'm really hungry? And when it's " official " time to eat, am I really hungry, or do I just feel the urge to eat? Today, we've totally lost touch with our natural physiological rhythms. The practice of fasting and intermittent fasting allows us to truly reconnect with our biological clocks and abandon our cultural conditioning linked to food and the sensation of hunger.

12 - Setting up the autophagy process

Autophagy, autolysis or autophagocytosis - all these terms refer to the same mechanism by which the cell self-digests and degrades itself, ordegrades elements that have become useless or troublesome for its proper functioning. In fact, it's a process by which the cell recycles some of its components and metabolites, such as proteins (aged or malformed) or certain waste products. The macro-autophagy generated by fasting or intermittent fasting is a formidable means of cellular self-cleansing. It's a very deep cleansing, since it applies to the very interior of cells. It is therefore one of the most powerful ways to detoxify and detoxify the body. This practice is far more powerful than any other technique, such as lymphatic drainage, sauna or hammam, scrubbing, drainage with plants... Although combining several methods is an excellent thing.

13 - Prevent: burnout, depression, fibromyalgia, hypothyroidism and other illnesses linked to glandular imbalance

Since intermittent fasting (or not) leads to better hormonal regulation, many health problems that are currently very common (burnout, depression, fibromyalgia, hypothyroidism...) can be improved (not to say cured) or avoided by these practices. Making the glandular system as reactive and adaptive as possible is always beneficial to health, and intermittent fasting contributes to this.

14 - Bringing biological rhythms and clocks back into phase

As we've already mentioned, abstaining from food and putting the digestive system to rest for a few hours or days will enable us not only to listen to ourselves again, but also to re-establish the physiological rhythms of all the body's secretions. We live by a circadian rhythm, which means we're active during the day and supposed to sleep at night. However, many people experience sleep disorders, insomnia, difficulty falling asleep, etc. Rebalancing all our physiological secretions and getting back in tune with our biological rhythms can only be positive for all our physiological reactions and functions.

15 - The most commonly adopted model: 4 p.m. - 8 a.m.

It's very simple to do: simply refrain from eating after your evening meal, say from 8.30pm onwards, until 12.30pm or 1pm. This gives your body a long period of time during which the digestive organs are not stimulated. At mealtimes, there are no calorie or quantity restrictions. You can eat whatever you like at the other two meals. The only restriction is that you must avoid snacking during the fasting period.

As there are several different intermittent fasting rhythms, everyone needs to find the one that suits them best.

The 5/2 formula recommends 5 days of balanced nutrition followed by 2 days of calorie restriction. During these two days, a diet The recommended diet is mainly vegetarian, with no starchy foods or cereals. Calorie intake during these two days should be limited to 500 calories per day .

An alternative (16/8) is to eat during an 8-hour period, and not to ingest anything for the following 16 hours. Some consider that the body begins to fast after 12 hours without solid food. However, the regular practice of abstaining from food for 8 hours demonstrates clear, profound physiological changes.