Many popular diet trends exist to help improve your health.
All diets promote lifestyle changes that should be incorporated slowly into your life so you can easily adapt these changes without difficulty or huge unsustainable results.
Intermittent fasting has grown in popularity in recent years and as a result has people just like you searching for answer in order to deliver optimum health results.
So can you eat nuts during intermittent fasting?
Yes, you can eat nuts while you are intermittently fast. Nuts are a healthy fat that is an excellent source of protein. You can eat almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews to satiate any hunger cravings. Nuts offer an easy break during your intermittent fasting.
Nuts provide great health support because they do not create any blood sugar spikes and also help maintain your cognitive functions.
While intermittently fasting you need to be aware of your mental and physical condition.
It is easy to not consume enough calories or become dehydrated as you monitor your liquids and food consumption. To maintain a healthy diet you should be aware of the correct food to eat when you are allowed.
What is Intermittent Fasting?
This popular fasting trend consists of choosing specific periods when you do and do not eat.
This requires a small amount of calorie intake that promotes weight loss and a remarkable ability to recharge and detox your body. The goal is to focus on when you eat and not what.
The reason this fasting technique is popular is because of the positive results people have had.
Your body undergoes a hormonal change where your body instead of only burning sugar, you can burn fat because of your severely limited caloric and sugar intake.
Some common side effects of intermittent fasting consist of feeling hungry for the first few weeks as your body adapts to the new eating schedule.
What is Ketosis?
Ketosis is the primary goal you have when intermittent fasting.
Because you are not taking in many calories as the primary source of energy, your body receives its energy from your stored fat.
Your body goes into ketosis after 12 hours of not eating. The most common intermittent fasting lasts 16 hours.
If you find yourself fatigued consistently then you should reduce the hours you spend fasting. You can also gradually increase an hour each week as your body adjusts to the fasting pattern.
Ketosis is a great way to lose weight and detox your body, but you should discuss it with your doctor if this is a healthy plan.
What Can You Eat While Intermittent Fasting?
Fasting can last anywhere between 10, 12, or 14 hours, so the limited time you have to eat is critical to use wisely.
The most common intermittent fasting routine is fasting for 16 hours and then eating for 8 hours. The preferred eating period is between 10 a.m and 6 p.m.
There are many great foods you can eat while fasting, but it is important to receive all of the essential nutrients and vitamins consistently when you eat.
While you are detoxing your body during the intermittent fasting plan you need to use your time effectively when eating. To help eliminate hunger symptoms you need to have a high fiber and protein diet.
A healthy diet consists of protein-focused meals and whole foods. Your meals should focus on fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, lean proteins, and whole grains.
Eating these foods help conserve and maintain your energy throughout the long hours between meals.
Some recommended foods you should consider eating include:
- Fruit
- Papaya
- Berries
- A great nutrient and antioxidant
- Nuts
- Walnuts
- This is a great food that promotes heart and brain health.
- Almonds
- These nuts are rich in protein, fat, manganese, and magnesium
- Improve the quality of your skin, eyes, and brain health
- Protein
- Eggs, Lean beef, chicken, or seafood
- Help reduce hunger cravings
- Helps build muscle mass that boosts your metabolism
- Eggs, Lean beef, chicken, or seafood
- Walnuts
What To Avoid when Intermittent Fasting?
When you are intermittent fasting you should limit your snacking.
Snacking rarely provides any significant nutritional value. If you choose to waste time and energy snacking you eventually will overheat and increase your blood sugar, which leads to weight gain.
Although nuts are extremely nutritious, they can drastically increase your calorie amount.
You should monitor the portion sizes of your nuts, only grab a small amount at a time. If nuts and other snacks are too tempting you need to remove them from your sight.
Keep a distance between yourself and snacks by either removing them from your ability to access or hiding them from your sight.
Snacking is a mental game and building strong mental defences against a weakness helps build your tolerance during intermittent fasting.
What to Drink When Intermittent Fasting
When you are intermittently fasting your number one priority throughout is maintaining your liquids. You can do this because during your fasting your cannot eat food and your only source of nutrition is from liquids.
You should consume these liquids when fasting:
- Water
- Your number one liquid priority that keeps you hydrated
- Coffee or Tea
- Drink without any additives, these are decent water substitutes, but you are still limited
- Bone Broth
- Help rehydrate your body, contain minimal calories
A key fact to remember is that any drink that contains calories will break your fast and possibly bring your body out of ketosis.
Ketosis is the goal you want your body to maintain, where you are burning fat and achieving optimal weight loss.
Small amounts of calories will not take you out of ketosis, but you should monitor your caloric intake to make sure.
Why Water Matters?
You need to make sure you are drinking water regularly and consistently. Water is the most essential nutrient your body needs to function successfully and properly, so it should be your main priority.
You should prioritize water in the morning and eventually move towards coffee or tea in the afternoon.
This order preference is because the water in the morning until the early afternoon provides the clearest mental capacity and as your energy dwindles throughout the day you can add more options for liquids.
It is easy to choose coffee or tea to give you the strength to maintain your fast, but it can have the opposite of peace and relaxation on your body.
You may experience increased anxiety and restlessness. You should limit your consumption of caffeine during your fast and choose water.
How Many Calories Does it Take to Break a Fast?
Any small amount of calories will break your fast and bring your body out of ketosis.
The minimum amount of calories that puts your body in an eating period is 50 calories. If you drink the liquid that contains less than 50 calories, such as bone broth you will remain in a fasting stage.
The reason your body immediately goes into an eating period is that every calorie is translated and converted into fuel. If you are experiencing hunger cravings you should maintain your hydration and increase your liquids.
You can drink zero-calorie drinks to help your body feel full without the added calories.
Supplements can also break your fast. Gummy vitamins break your fast because they have small traces of sugar, protein, and fat that mimic food supplements that break your fast.
Protein powder also breaks your fast because of the large number of calories contained. This initiates your insulin reaction to the sugar, which indicates to your body to begin breaking down the sugar content.
This takes your body immediately out of its ketosis state.
When Do You Exercise?
This is another key factor when considering diet and especially fasting. You should consider exercising before you eat because exercising after eating may leave you feeling bloating and uncomfortable.
Also, you may experience hunger cravings after you exercise, so eating after your exercise is completed is the preferred order.
I’m Chris Watson & the Founder of EatForLonger.com. I’m a food and wellbeing enthusiast researching and sharing foodstuffs and simple food-based concepts, such as fasting and clean eating.
I hope it inspires you to make tiny changes to what you eat and when you eat while optimizing your healthspan and all-around well-being.
Read more About Me here.