Health and Longevity
Fasting and Moving More Often Might Help Us Live Healthier and Longer
I explain six compelling health and well-being reasons based on reviews and decades of experience.
Purpose of the Article
Discerning readers wonder why I am so adamant about fasting and exercising as they come across these two items in almost all of my metabolic and mental health articles.
One of my goals is to prevent diseases by lowering risks via healthy lifestyle choices such as improving our nutrition, sleep, exercise, rest, and fun.
By reviewing the literature and experimenting sensibly, I learned that exercise and time-restricted eating could have a significant metabolic, hormonal, and immunological effect on the body and contribute to longevity.
Even though sleep, rest, and fun are critical, I only focus on fasting and exercise for metabolic and mental health in this article to clear doubts about these practical lifestyle interventions.
I summarize my points under six crucial topics to make this piece helpful and digestible.
As these six points are comprehensive and the literature includes thousands of scientific reports for each item, it is impossible to add them. However, interested readers can find sources using a keyword search of topics in Pubmed.
I wrote many articles on these topics. Therefore, I won’t repeat them. Instead, I link the stories for those interested in exploring the details. Older stories include references from credible sources.
This is not a theoretical piece, even though I briefly touch on the theories behind my practice. My goal is to provide a high-level overview to give an idea of how fasting and exercise affect the body and mind.
First, I touch on the paradox of fasting and exercise.
The Paradox of Fasting and Exercise
Fasting and exercise stress the body. However, paradoxically, stress from these practices initiates healing mechanisms that I explain in this article.
While fasting and exercise reduce calories, they can improve calorie utilization by empowering the body. More specifically, they contribute to the body by cleaning garbage and balancing hormones.
Both fasting and exercise can contribute to the body clearing the biological trash in various ways, putting the body in a more metabolically advantageous position.
While exercise increases blood flow and oxygen utilization and activates the lymphatic system, fasting initiates autophagy to remove pathogens and biological toxins.
Both fasting and exercise can improve hormonal balance even though initially they increase the cortisol hormone, which is catabolic. However, fasting and intense exercise significantly increases growth hormone and testosterone, anabolic hormones.
If done correctly, this paradoxical situation protects the body from muscle loss while contributing to healthy visceral fat loss.
Metabolic and Mental Health Benefits of Exercise and Fasting
In this section, I summarize the benefits under six broad topics.
1 — Insulin and Leptin Sensitivity
Insulin and leptin resistance are well-known causes of metabolic and mental health disorders.
Insulin resistance contributes to the development of metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases.
In my experience, recognizing the importance of hormones for our health and well-being has the most substantial effect. As a result of my focus on the hormonal profile, I managed to move from a pre-diabetic situation to a fat-burning metabolism without medical intervention.
The critical hormones for improving my physical and mental health were insulin, leptin, ghrelin, cortisol, growth hormone, testosterone, adiponectin, and CCK (cholecystokinin).
However, making the body insulin and leptin-sensitive played a critical role in balancing other hormones, as I explained in the attached articles
Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline
Make the Body Leptin-Sensitive to Lose Visceral Fat With a Simple Metabolic Shift
Optimize Cortisol to Melt Belly Fat and Keep Lean Muscles with Three Tips
2 — Metabolic Flexibility
Insulin and leptin sensitivity gave me metabolic flexibility. More specifically, when my body got more insulin and leptin-sensitive, it became fat-adapted, moving from sugar to fat-burning mode.
When the body gets fat-adapted, it becomes easier to utilize stored fat. Therefore, as soon as glycogen stores are emptied, and no food is available in the digestive system, the body starts using visceral fat.
Shortly after I practiced fasting and intense exercises like calisthenics and HIIT, my fat percentage gradually decreased. Since the body was fat-adapted and mainly used stored fat as an energy source, it protected my muscles.
In addition to subjective evidence, as shown in DEXA scans objectively, my visceral fat percentage decreased, and muscle quality and bone density increased.
Growing lean muscles can increase metabolic rate as muscles consume significant energy to develop and maintain their size. For example, after my body got fat-adapted, I never ran out of power even though I did not eat food for up to seven days.
Fat adaption also created alternative energy through ketosis, improving my mental health, particularly energy and mood. It also contributed to increasing BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) and improving my cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation, as I will briefly touch on in the next section.
3 — Neurological Effects
As I documented, fasting and exercise can positively change brain chemistry via various mechanisms such as ketosis, providing alternative energy to the brain, and addressing the glucose shortage due to impairment.
Two critical benefits of fasting and exercise are inducing ketosis as an alternative energy source and strengthening the gluconeogenesis process, keeping the blood sugar balanced.
When the body gains alternative energy from ketone bodies and balanced sugar through the well-functioning gluconeogenesis process, we can get a better hormonal and neurotransmitter balance.
After entering ketosis through fasting and exercise, my mental health significantly improved.
For example, my brain fog disappeared, my mild depression diminished, my mood enhanced, and my cognitive abilities like focus, attention, task switching, working memory, and problem-solving improved.
I tested my experimentation objectively and subjectively, reflected in my behavior and achievements. Consequently, I felt less agitated and stayed more focused on my work, making me more creative and productive.
The anti-inflammatory benefits of ketosis were a bonus to my physical and mental health, which I touched on in the next section.
4 — Reduced Inflammation
Inflammation is the root cause of physical and mental disorders. For example, as documented in multiple articles, chronic inflammation can cause metabolic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes, and some cancers.
Neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases (e.g., ALS and arthritis) are also associated with chronic inflammation.
The body needs adequate inflammation to recover from tears and damage. However, it perceives excessive inflammation (as it does sugar) as toxic, affecting arteries, the bloodstream, hormones, and neurotransmitters.
When the body is less inflamed, it functions better.
Both fasting and exercise can reduce inflammation. Ketosis induced by fasting and exercise is the primary mechanism for these benefits. Ketone bodies, particularly BHP (β-hydroxybutyrate), serve as a signaling molecule for anti-inflammatory effects.
More specifically, exercise helps remove toxins through the lymphatic system, creating an anti-inflammatory effect. In addition, fasting reduces inflammation by initiating autophagy, which I will cover in the next section.
5 — Autophagy (Self-Healing)
Both fasting and exercise can initiate autophagy. This was well-documented in the literature, as I explained in this article titled Here Is What Happened When I Experimentally Initiated Autophagy Decades Ago.
Autophagy is a complex and highly involved process. However, in simple terms, it activates the self-healing system, allowing the body to clear biological and metabolic garbage.
When the body senses energy deficiency contributed by the caloric deficit of fasting and exercise, it begins autophagy to create energy from bodily resources without energy-producing nutrition.
If we can safely increase the fasting window and manage exercise during that period, the process intensifies, clearing significant amounts of misfolded proteins, bacterial toxins, viruses, and other pathogens.
Here are Three Tips to Initiate Autophagy.
6 — Mitochondrial Enhancement
Every cell in the body needs energy. Mitochondria is the energy powerhouse of the cells. If our mitochondria get damaged, cells struggle to get sufficient energy.
Therefore, we suffer from chronic fatigue, manifesting as energy deficiency, even if we consume many calories. Chronic fatigue can affect the body and mind by lowering energy and upsetting mood.
The favorable stress from exercise and fasting might contribute to renewing mitochondria and making them more lively and denser. There are also other factors, such as thermogenesis, to improve mitochondrial health.
I documented my findings to make mitochondria denser in an article titled 12 Tips to Get Denser Mitochondria for Joyful Energy.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Exercise and time-restricted eating could have significant metabolic, hormonal, and immunological effects on the body. Thus, movement and fasting can contribute to healing, well-being, and life span.
In my opinion, healthy people can perform exercise and fasting and reap the health and well-being benefits with prudence and diligence. The side effects of fasting are manageable.
However, as exercise and fasting induce stress in the body, they might NOT be for everyone. Therefore, those with underlying health conditions must obtain support and approval from qualified healthcare professionals before starting these regimens.
Movement is indisputably essential for the body to survive and thrive. A sedentary lifestyle is a known risk factor for many health conditions.
Nutrition is essential for the body. However, excessive food consumption causes severe health conditions. Fasting is an excellent regimen to prevent overeating, keep calories in control, and maintain energy balance without putting the body in starvation mode.
As we know, an excessive caloric reduction can put the body in starvation mode and cause serious health issues such as loss of precious muscles and slowing down metabolism, as I mentioned in this article titled Seven Mistakes to Avoid When Losing Fat.
Fasting, especially intermittent style, and consuming adequate food in a specific window look like good health measures to improve blood glucose, decrease insulin releases, and improve leptin for satiety.
I provided the benefits of fasting and its potential therapeutic use in an article titled What If We Can Package Fasting as a Therapeutic Tool. I wish scientists could create a pill including exercise and fasting that can significantly eliminate obesity and associated disorders.
Exercise and fasting are too broad; hence, they require customization based on our needs and lifestyle goals. Before adding them to our lifestyle, getting support from qualified healthcare professionals is necessary. Gratefully, exercise and fasting entered the mainstream.
I firmly believe that with healthy lifestyle habits, we can significantly lower the risks of metabolic and mental health risks contributing to our health and life span. Health and longevity are our personal responsibility.
Here’s How a Mature-Age Couple Reversed Diabetes and Trimmed Their Bodies with Lifestyle Habits.
I No Longer Do Keto and Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss as I’ve No Fat to Lose.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
Petechiae, ALS, Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorders, Anemia, Dysautonomia, cardiac output, and urinary track disorders.
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Disclaimer: My posts do not include professional or health advice. I only document my reviews, observations, experiences, and perspectives to provide information and create awareness.
As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
Finally, After Burning Her House, Georgia Found Enlightenment
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8 Psychological Points I Had to Unlearn and Relearn the Opposite
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