#168 - Don’t Break The 12-Hour Gap: Health Tips for Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting tip number 39 is for those who are just getting started with intermittent fasting. Coach Tadris Parker has personally tested this recommendation and a hundred other health tips commonly shared in the running and fitness world. Listen to the audio clip below to hear his take on this advice: “Don’t break the 12-hour gap.” Learn more at Keep Calm and Run To The Best You!
The body enters a fasting state after 12 hours. “So, in terms of fasting, a window of 12 hours between the last meal of one day and the first meal of the next is the minimum required to give your detox processes the time and energy to catch up with the necessary work of maintaining inner cleanliness.”—Alejandro Junger, MD, founder of international health and wellness company CLEAN
Tip 39. Don’t break the 12-hour gap (intermittent fasting)
Alejandro Junger is exactly right about the 12-hour fasting window. He’s an LA-based cardiologist and adrenal fatigue expert so he understands this from a medical science perspective. Dr. Junger promotes a program called 21-Day Clean which honestly sounds like a rehab. Let’s see how the natural detox process works and learn how it connects to breaking an addiction.
Detoxification takes discipline
Think of rehab, where a person is coming off of alcohol or another drug. The process is absolutely brutal, mentally and physically, when you’re addicted to something that’s not good for you. It will be tough to break out of the habit and cleanse your body from that substance, but once you DO get past that hump and adopt healthy habits, you will feel better, you will be a better person, and you’ll have increased your life expectancy. It’s helpful to focus on the end game when you’re struggling. We want to get healthy, so we will do what it takes and focus on getting clean.
Intermittent fasting is like going through a daily rehab program. Our bodies have a natural detoxification process. Thanks to the amazing functionality of the liver and the kidneys, these organs remove toxins and cleanse our blood automatically! You might think your body is pretty clean already but toxins are accumulating inside every day: heavy metals and chemicals that exist in our industrialized world make their way into our bloodstream, not to mention all of the junk that we eat. Even stress causes toxins to accumulate and acids to build up. Daily detox is a crucial step for any healthy human, and it kicks off during the 12-hour gap.
What is the 12-hour gap?
Humans are designed for intermittent fasting. This great detoxification system doesn’t work if we’re eating food around the clock. To detox naturally, you need to designate a 12-hour shift for fasting so your organs can do their cleansing work. A minimum of 12 food-free hours every day is essential because it takes at least this long for your system to reach the detoxification phase.
Discipline with eating and sleeping is the only part of our natural detox rehab that we have to do consciously. Everything else happens without effort, if we give our bodies what it needs for this detox process to happen. And what it needs is fasting and sleep. Remember that next time you hear the term “fast asleep” because that should be your detox mantra. Fast, asleep. Fast, asleep!
There are many ways to reach 12 hours of intermittent fasting, but the easiest way for a beginner is to build it around your sleeping schedule. The 12-hour gap begins when we stop eating hours before bedtime, then we must get a full 8-10 hours of sleep, and wait a couple of hours before we begin eating again. Whether you work nights or hold a day job, use your sleeping time to your advantage and get past the 12-hour mark, or even aim to reach 16 hours which is what Coach Tadris Parker recommends.
Our bodies are priceless. We should take better care of our bodies more than we care for our cars and our homes. Schedule your day to support detox through intermittent fasting. If you respect the model for intermittent fasting, even without changing your diet, (Delay, don’t deny) you will still reap the benefits. To kick your health up a notch, take this time to revamp your diet. After fasting, you should eat whole foods - avoid preservatives and chemical-laced diet foods when you break your fast. Choose a balance of proteins and vitamin-rich options and your body will thank you for it. Join us in this goal to Keep Clean and Keep Calm!
At Keep Calm and Run To The Best You, we are actively helping people from all walks of life to get healthier and happier in the body they’ve got! We’ve collected advice from professionals, combed through archives, and gathered insights from our group members. Click here to see the rest of our 101 health tips about running, intermittent fasting, and weight loss.
Find support and accountability at Run/Walk Club
Coach Tadris Parker educates and motivates people at all levels of intermittent fasting and mindful eating.
Email coachtadris@gmail.com with questions about our Run/Walk Club, running events, or health programs.
Get support and accountability on your journey to better health in a casual and fun setting: Join the Run/Walk Club!
Listen To This Week’s Podcast To Hear From A Man Than Runs Races While Juggling!
