The gut microbiome has gained significant attention in recent years for its profound impact on our health. Emerging research suggests that nurturing a healthy gut microbiome can play a crucial role in promoting overall well-being, from digestion to immune function and even mental health. In this article, we’ll explore four key nutritional strategies that can…
We know that fasting has many benefits, but the most popular one is, you guessed it, weight loss. However, if you’re truly interested in maximizing your healthspan, a more specific goal is fat loss, because if weight is all you’re focused on, you’re at risk for lean-mass loss, which has a negative effect on your body composition…
Do Sweeteners Break a Fast? The impact a sweetener has on an intermittent fast depends largely on the specific sweetener. In particular, whether the sweetener contributes to a negative blood glucose/insulin response, activates the digestive system, or triggers growth pathways that would shut down autophagy. Fasting can be tricky for anyone with a sweet tooth….
Like magnesium, Sodium is an essential nutrient, meaning you have to get it from food or supplements, your body can’t make it on its own. Your body needs sodium to maintain fluid volume and blood pressure, to transport other nutrients, to keep your muscles contracting and functioning properly, and to send signals from your nervous system.
If something has zero calories, it must be OK to consume during your fasting window, right? Unfortunately for diet-soda fans everywhere, that assumption is false. Calories aren’t the only fast-breaking culprits — there are other ingredients in these fizzy beverages that can derail your fasting goals. Depending on your fasting goals, diet soda may or…
When it comes to health and longevity, you’ll find people on both sides of the nature-versus-nurture aisle. But what if it isn’t one or the other, and both sides are right? Epigenetics is a field of study that blurs the lines of this age-old debate, and describes how our health behaviors — how we eat,…
Life gets hectic. And the more hectic it gets, the easier it can be for your health goals to start slipping — often without you even noticing. The solution is to check on your habits every so often. To check on your nutrition habits, for instance, “conventional wisdom” (a la, the diet industry) would have…
Fasting has long been recognized as a powerful practice for improving overall health and well-being. Beyond its effects on weight management and metabolism, fasting offers specific benefits for resetting and rejuvenating the digestive system. In this article, we’ll explore the reasons why fasting is considered an effective method to restore digestive health and promote optimal…
My mother was a classic ’90s-era dieter. She read the magazines. She checked labels. She bought low-fat and fat-free versions of whatever she could. And while she never taught me any of this explicitly, I absorbed implicit lessons about my own weight and how I ought to manage it — namely as a math equation….
Cynthia Thurlow wants you to know that intermittent fasting can change your life. And also: You probably need to eat more protein. Cynthia Thurlow, NP, is a world-renowned fasting and nutrition expert. As a clinician, author, and podcaster, she educates and empowers people around the world — especially women — to use intermittent fasting to…