How Intermittent Fasting Makes Your Skin Look Younger

I’ve been intermittent fasting for about six months now. And it’s got to be one of the easiest strategies for:

• Staying lean
• Building muscle
• and Increasing energy 

But there's an unexpected benefit on top of this.

Researchers are finding evidence that this type of time-restricted eating also delays aging.

• Helping you live longer and
• Stay looking younger

These age-defying benefits are down to a process called Autophagy.

Let’s see how that comes into play….

Intermittent fasting isn’t a diet, it’s a pattern of eating.  

And requires very little change in your behaviour.

You can either restrict your eating to an 8-hour period each day (say from 1pm to 8pm) and fast for the other 16 hours.

Or you can fast for 24-hours, once a week.

And you don’t need to be extreme about this to get great results.

So for me, I don’t eat breakfast. I start eating at 1pm with lunch, then have a second meal around 8pm each day. Then, I fast for 16 hours until I have lunch the following day at 1pm.

The author James Clear found that after a year of Intermittent Fasting he’d increased muscle mass, decreased body fat and increased explosiveness – even though he was going to the gym less.

Personally I found the first week of IF to be easy – I had lots of energy, and no hunger pangs at all.

But the second and third weeks got a little harder!

I felt sluggish and fatigued and woke up hungry each morning.

But I pushed through and by Week Four I was fine. Experiencing all the benefits that James spoke of!

So it’s worth persevering with!

Intermittent fasting is one of the easiest ways of building muscle, decreasing body fat and increasing your energy

Unlike other eating regimes, intermittent fasting isn’t based on what you eat, or how much you eat - but WHEN you eat.

So why does when you eat matter?

Well, fasting puts your body in a fat burning state. Something that only happens 12 hours after you last ate.

Essentially after every meal your digestion cycles through three different states – the fed state, the post-absorptive state and the fasted state.

• 3 to 5 hours after you started eating (the FED state)
  Your body digests and absorbs the food you just ate. When you are in the fed state, it's very hard to burn fat because your insulin levels are high.
• 8 to 12 hours after eating - (the POST-ABSORPTIVE state)
  Just a way of saying that your body isn’t processing a meal.
• 12 hours after eating – (the FASTED state)
  When you're in the fasted state your body can burn fat that was inaccessible before.We don't enter the fasted state until 12 hours after our last meal, so it's rare that our bodies are in this fat burning state

This is one of the reasons that by intermittent fasting you can lose fat without changing what you eat, how much you eat, or how often you exercise.

But, just as with other restrictive eating regimes, you may need to add supplements to your diet to make sure you’re getting all the essential nutrients you need.

Fat loss is great of course, but there’s other health benefits too.

When researchers studied what happens when your body goes without food, they found that not only does fasting speed up your metabolism, it also leads to:

• Better sleep 
  We’ve got more here on why an improvement in sleep quality is important - "10 Benefits of Taking a Power Nap (and glowing skin is one of them)".
• Reduced inflammation
• Better immunity
• And Improved insulin sensitivity

And all types of fasting improved the common markers of aging - helping to bring down your blood pressure, reducing cholesterol and lowering the risk factors for chronic disease.

This is echoed in the Blue Zones. These five regions are home to some of the oldest and healthiest people in the world.

Calorie restriction and periodic fasting are common in Blue Zones and significantly reduce the risk factors for certain diseases and prolong healthy life.

These age-defying benefits are down to a process called Autophagy.

It’s your body's way of clearing out old, damaged cells and proteins to create new, strong, healthy ones.

The ultimate detox.

Yoshinori Ohsumi is one of the world’s experts on autophagy. He recognised that this cellular cleansing process comes into play during starvation, allowing cells to survive and contributing to cell longevity.

When autophagy kicks in, dull, damaged cells are replaced by younger, brighter cells.

So your skin looks younger and clearer.

Autophagy can be set in motion by many things - like exercise, quality sleep and social connection.

But most experts agree that intermittent fasting is the most effective way to trigger autophagy.

Alternating periods of eating with periods of fasting creates a balance that ensures that damaged cells get cleared out but healthy cells remain intact.

But while autophagy does have amazing skin care benefits you can't only fast your way to glowing, youthful skin.

You need a good skin care routine too.

If you combine exceptional skin care products (like ours) with autophagy (by intermittent fasting) you’re going a long way to staying, and looking, as youthful as possible.

Adopting the following healthy lifestyle habits will make sure that you’re always looking your best.

• Get enough sleep 
•  Exercise for 30 minutes a day (ideally a combination of cardio and strength training)
•  Clean and gently exfoliate your face every day
• Keep your skin hydrated and smooth

Can intermittent fasting clear acne?

Intermittent fasting can work to reduce the inflammation and other issues that lead to acne.

So it can clear acne…but only in some cases.

Usually there’s more than one underlying cause for acne, so it doesn’t work for everybody.

And more research is still needed.

Can intermittent fasting cause skin problems?

No. Typically intermittent fasting hasn't been shown to trigger any skin problems.

However, if it’s combined with a high-protein, low-carb keto diet this may cause an acne-like rash.

Intermittent fasting is one of the easiest ways of building muscle, decreasing body fat and increasing your energy.

And by triggering the cellular cleansing process of autophagy, intermittent fasting also improves your life span – and makes your skin look smoother and younger.

After all, it makes sense that what you eat - and how you eat - has an impact on your skin too.