People often think the benefits of Daily IF are those of calorie cutting, having less opportunity to eat, etc. But this is a small part of Daily IF. One of the greatest benefits of IF is turning your body into a daily fat-burning machine!

Your glycogen stores are burned through somewhere between the 12 and 16 hour fasting mark. If you have an eating window of 8 hours, you have a fasting window of twelve hours. Your body might not be burning its own fat yet at the point you start to eat!

Appetite Correction is a phenomenon in which, after three to four weeks of a consistent daily IF lifestyle, you stop being hungry during the fasting period AND you get full more quickly during your eating window. This occurs most often for those who are doing short eating windows of say, two, three, four, or five hours (often called 22:2, 21:3, 20:4, or 19:5).

With a longer eating window, you will often eat two full meals. While you may get full faster, the real beauty of AC comes in a shorter eating window with less time to “get hungry” again and again within that window.

While burning body fat is a huge benefit of IF, there is an element of Calorie In/Calorie Out (CI/CO) that cannot be overlooked in any weight management protocol. An eight hour window is long in terms of eating time.

A shorter eating window of 2 to 5 hours will usually result in OMAD–One Meal a Day. Within this time period, most people will eat an appetizer/snack/salad to open their window then an hour or two later have their meal followed by dessert within the hour or so, if desired. The short window, coupled with appetite correction (AC), yields a much lower total caloric intake for the day than an 8 hour eating window.

Autophagy, the body’s natural recycling program, occurs when your create membranes that “eat up” old cells. This process makes us more efficient machines–and plays a role in slowing down the growth of disease and aging. (Yay!)

This process, along with Appetite Correction, lowering of important lab numbers, body fat burning, energy, and mind clarity, all seem to occur more readily in longer daily IF windows/shorter eating windows.

If we cook, shop for, and clean up from two full meals (and perhaps a snack or two) in a longer eating window, we are missing the time saving benefits of a longer daily fast.

A longer fast also yields us more empowerment, more personal growth, and time to pursue other interests. Frankly, a longer fasting window can change your life in many positive ways.

#1 Your Fasting Window Might Not Be Long Enough to Burn Through Your Glycogen Stores: IF Journal Episode 4

#2 You Might Not Experience Appetite Correction (AC) in a Longer Eating Window: Appetite Correction by Burt Herring

#3 You Will Likely Consume Too Many Calories for Weight Loss to Take Place: Delay, Don’t Deny

#4 Your Body Will Experience the Other Benefits of Daily IF More Fully. The Obesity Code

#5 You Will Likely Experience More “Personal” IF Benefits With a Shorter Eating Window: IF Journal Podcast

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