Most of us are guilty, at one time or another, of doing something we know isn’t doing our bodies any favors. Think enjoying too many rich deserts; one too many glasses of wine, or pasta smothered in a delectable creamy sauce. On the other hand, we often don’t do things that we know are good for us, or don’t do them consistently or long enough, like exercising. Or fasting!
Yes, fasting! Although 73% of women 45+ recognize the benefits of fasting, according to a FabOverFifty poll of 100 women, the overwhelming majority (78%) don’t fast for enough time to reap them. And, the rewards can be big, including increased longevity, health and wellness, as well as the renewal or elimination of damaged cells and tissues. Fasting can help your cells acts like they did when you were younger, giving you more energy.
Of the 27% of poll respondents who’ve never attempted fasting, half of them think it’s “too hard,” and 40% said that they “never thought about it.” No question, fasting is hard to do, but you should be interested to know that you don’t have to starve or even deprive yourself of so many foods you enjoy to enjoy the benefits of fasting.
A Game-Changing Way To Fast (With Food)
A valuable dietary program, called the ProLon® Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD™), has been scientifically proven to positively impact biological aging and related health markers. And, just as the name implies, this diet “imitates” fasting, but you don’t actually fast. You’ll achieve all the good things that fasting does, but it’s a safer and easier approach that gives you more energy. Plus, you’ll eat!
Here’s how it works: You consume a carefully prepared, strictly controlled selection of food with high healthy fat, very low protein, a moderate amount of carbohydrates, low sugar and salt for just five days a month, for three months in a row. You eat your regular diet on the days inbetween.
I’ve recently completed the second five-day round of the ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet, which was easier to do than the initial round. I didn’t feel as headachy on the second day and third days; my mind is clear and bright; my insides feel cleansed, and I’m invigorated.
Regenerate and Rejuvenate!
Fasting to improve our health dates back centuries; Hippocrates and Plato were big fans of the practice. And, scientists believe that ever since hunter-gatherers had unpredictable access to food, humans have evolved with livers and muscles that store quickly accessible carbohydrates in the form of glycogen, and fat tissue holding long-lasting energy reserves. We could sustain ourselves for weeks without food, as long as we had water!
Fasting is dynamic because “it pressures the body to shift from using glucose for fuel to using fat,” explained Dr. James Kelley, consulting medical science liaison with L-Nutra, the company that created the ProLon fasting with food program. The fat is converted to compounds, called ketones, during this process, which is a source of energy that burns more efficiently than glucose, Dr. Kelley said. “But the most interesting effect of fasting for many days in a row is the impact of regeneration and rejuvenation. When the body goes into a fasting state, key nutrient-sensing pathways are turned off, and regenerative pathways are activated. This triggers the whole body to react to optimize itself and become more energy-efficient and generally healthier.”
We need to “stress” our bodies at the cellular level far more than we usually do, at least when it comes to nutrition, Dr. Kelley explained. That means not feeding it the way we normally do. “Americans eat too much food, especially foods that can impede our cells from functioning optimally,” he said. Many of us get too fat and too sluggish as we age. We don’t give our cells a chance to naturally and properly regenerate and rejuvenate, so we’re stuck with loads of damaged, poorly performing cells that can cause all kinds of havoc on our bodies, and contribute to age-related illnesses.
Melting Away Your Fat
Carrying around excess weight takes lots of energy, and if we keep eating more energy than we expend, we just keep getting fatter, more sedentary, and less healthy. The ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet “hijacks the same burn mechanisms in our bodies as if we’re fasting, and melts away your fat,” Dr. Kelley said. “It looks at every single cell in the body and says, ‘are you healthy enough to be repaired or do I need to delete you?’ By eliminating poorly functioning cells and restoring others, the ProLon Meal Program activates a system-wide spring cleaning. You wind up with new tissue sitting next to optimized old tissue.”
When you’re on the ProLon Diet, your body uses the energy you’ve stored, lowers the amount of energy you need, and gets rid of your excess unwanted fat, so your body becomes more efficient!
The ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet isn’t magic. “It simply takes advantage of your body’s natural processes that are built into you,” Dr. Kelley explained. The diet can affect a wide range of markers that contribute to aging, including helping to maintain healthy levels of cholesterol, blood pressure, fasting glucose, and inflammation. “The benefits are best felt if you train your body over a three-month period,” Dr. Kelley added.
The Food on Your ‘Fast’
The ProLon fasting with food program provides all the foods you’ll eat during the five days, packaged in five individual boxes marked Day 1 through Day 5. An insert offers suggestions on what to eat for each meal, but you can consume the foods for the day in whatever order you’d like. They include plant and nut-based energy bars, soups like minestrone and quinoa and tomato, snacks, drinks, and supplements. .
You won’t see a single artificial ingredient. The minestrone includes peas, vegetable stock, parsley, carrot, and olive oil. The choco crisp bar is made with almond and cocoa butters, chocolate chips and brown rice. And, a tropical berry flavor glycerin drink “is like having a Red Bull, but for fasting, since glycerin is one of the components of energy when you’re in a fasting state,” Dr. Kelley said. The tasteful and fresh tasting food was created by Italian food scientists, who love good cuisine.
The scientifically developed, plant-based foods optimally nourish your body while promoting regenerative and rejuvenating changes, but not activating any pro-aging processes. They also give you the energy and nutrition you need to maintain lean body mass, which a traditional fast won’t do,” Dr. Kelley emphasized. You’ll eat 1,150 on the first day, and about 800 calories on days two through five, so unless you’re used to eating thousands of calories every single day, you won’t starve!
ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet gives you the goodness of food, combined with the advantages of fasting. You won’t find a smarter way to benefit your body!
to get ProLon today and enter code GERI10 for 10% off your order.
This post has been written in partnership with proLon. All opinions are my own.
*ProLon has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Its product is intended for use by healthy individuals who want to optimize their health and wellbeing, not to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. You can take a health self assessment evaluation to find out if ProLon is right for you.
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