Have you been trying out intermittent fasting? Or maybe you’re curious about it? Maybe you’ve tried it and now you’re wondering if it really does work? Maybe you’re just curious about how much tea is safe to drink during an intermittent fast.
Or maybe the reason you’re interested in intermittent fasting is because your friend told you that it would help with weight loss, but the problem is that they didn’t explain what kind of weight loss would be beneficial or whether or not drinking tea would actually do anything for losing weight.
What is Intermittent Fasting?
So let’s start by addressing the basics. Intermittent fasting is a popular way to lose weight. People who fast for at least one day a week have lost weight, but many people are curious about the effects of intermittent fasting on weight loss.
The idea behind intermittent fasting is that you can still eat normally during the times when you’re not fasting and still lose weight (at least some of it). It’s an eating pattern that involves skipping breakfast and having a normal lunch, but also not eating for a few hours after lunch.
This results in a caloric deficit (since you’re no longer eating during the fasting period) which can result in weight loss over time.
How long exactly the time periods are for intermittent fasting is up to each person. Usually, this means eating nothing for 16-24 hours every day, or only eating once per day during your fasted period.
How Does Intermittent Fasting Help Lose Weight?
Some of the common ways that intermittent fasting helps people lose weight include:
Lowering Appetite
One of the biggest problems with dieting is hunger and lack of appetite. This can lead to overeating or eating too much junk food when you’re hungry (or even worse, skipping meals altogether).
This is because your body doesn’t know what to do with all those extra calories and turns them into fat instead of using them for energy or storing them for later use. This results in more pounds being gained over time than if you were to eat normally.
One way that intermittent fasting may be able to help with this problem is by reducing hunger levels, thus leading to reduced calorie intake (since it takes a lot less calories to feel full after not eating for a few hours).
Additionally, if you eat less during your fasted period, then your body will be less likely to store fat, which means that your body will be more likely to burn off any extra calories (that you weren’t burning with intermittent fasting) as energy.
Suppressing Hunger Cravings
Another way that intermittent fasting may help people lose weight is by reducing cravings. This can be particularly helpful for people who have a hard time sticking to their diet plans when they’re feeling hungry or weak.
This is because if your body is used to staying emptier longer because it’s strictly following your intermittent fasting schedule, then your body will have an easier time resisting hunger pangs and choosing between “healthy” food options instead of going straight for the junk food (which would end up making it harder for you to stick with your diet plan).
In addition, since your body doesn’t know what’s coming up next, it won’t know how much of a deficit it needs to make so it won’t go into starvation mode and start storing fat.
In other words, if you’ve been dieting on an empty stomach before lunchtime, then by skipping breakfast but still eating normally after lunch, then your body isn’t going to expect anything from its next meal and thus won’t feel hungry for it.
Reducing Insulin Levels
It’s believed that intermittent fasting can help lower insulin levels in the body, which is one of the reasons why it’s been used to treat type 2 diabetes. If you’re not eating during your fasted period, then your body will have less of a need for insulin since it won’t be storing fat (and will instead use this extra energy as energy).
Thus, by lowering insulin levels, then you’ll end up burning more calories and reducing the amount of fat being stored in your body (which would otherwise cause weight gain). In addition, people who have low levels of insulin tend to be at higher risk for obesity because they’re able to store more fat than normal people (since their bodies aren’t working properly).
So by increasing the level of good cholesterol and decreasing bad cholesterol with intermittent fasting, then this may reduce obesity risks even further.
Would Drinking Tea Break Your Fast?
One of the most common questions about intermittent fasting is whether or not drinking tea would break your fast.
Intermittent fasting works by skipping meals, but people often worry that since tea has caffeine in it, then it might have an effect on their body and thus prevent them from losing weight.
In reality, this isn’t the case. If you’re not eating for a few hours every day (like with intermittent fasting), then your body will just burn off any extra calories that aren’t needed during that time period. So, tea is a fairly safe way for you to stave off any hunger pains while you wait for your next meal.
In addition, most teas contain antioxidants which can help boost metabolism and help with weight loss. If you drink green tea, then this will provide an additional benefit by reducing inflammation and helping protect against diseases like cancer and heart disease (since they may play a role in causing obesity).
Furthermore, drinking tea can be helpful when following an intermittent fast. Tea contains caffeine, which has been shown to help with reducing appetite and increasing fat burning while you’re sleeping. There’s also evidence that tea consumption helps reduce body fat levels in people who are overweight or obese.
Conclusion
You don’t need to worry about what type of tea you drink while following an intermittent fast because any beverage containing caffeine won’t break your fast because it will just be burned off instead of being stored as fat.
It’s true that many people worry about their diet breaking down when they’re having a cup of beverage after lunch or while fasting, but there’s no reason why this would happen with lighter types of beverages like water or even herbal teas, since those are mostly water anyway.
