Do you watch the Friends series every once in a while, and open the video randomly, no matter what season or episode, just laugh with the 6 friends in the play? Few American dramas are as well produced as Friends as it has endless aftertaste every season, and each review can harvest new feelings. Since the end of the tenth season in 2004, fans have been calling for a sequel to Friends.
Fortunately, 17 years later, they finally got their wish, and six people can be seen in the familiar apartment furnishings. Although this is not a continuation of the plot, it’s just that the stars sit together and talk about the story behind the play, which is enough to make the fans excited and cry.
So, do you still remember the beginning of the first episode of Friends? Are you surprised by Rachel who suddenly burst into the coffee shop in her wedding dress? Jennifer Aniston’s role as a rich woman Rachel made her an “American sweetheart” in the 1990s, and her hairstyle and dress became the object of American women’s imitation at that time. Recently, the lifestyle of Jennifer Aniston also piques the public’s interest with fans forever wanting to know the “secrets” of her look.
“I do intermittent fasting, so there’s no food in the morning,” she once told the Radio Times. “I noticed a big difference in going without solid food for 16 hours.” It seems that intermittent fasting is playing an important role in her life.
What does Intermittent Fasting Mean?
Intermittent fasting is a popular way of health preservation in today’s society, which is rather an eating approach to limit your eating time and set a fasting window than a specific diet. And different from totally fasting, intermittent fasting still needs to ensure the minimum calories required by the human body every day to maintain the normal operation of human life activities.
The nutritional concept of intermittent fasting actually has a short history. At first, the documentary East fast and Live Longer by BBC reporter Michael Mosley made the headlines and attracted much attention. And in 2016, Jason Fung‘s best-selling book The Obesity Code makes intermittent fasting more trustworthy.
How does Intermittent Fasting Work?
Generally speaking, as you stop eating, your body will go through 6 phases.
Phase 1. Blood Sugar Rises (Fasting for 0-4 Hours).
Your blood sugar begins to rise according to what you eat about 10 to 15 minutes after you eat and then remains at a higher level for about 4 hours.
Phase 2. Blood Sugar Drops (Fasting for 4-8 Hours).
A few hours after a meal, your blood sugar begins to drop because the glucose in the food you eat is either used for energy or stored for later use.
Phase 3. Blood Sugar Settles Down (Fasting for 8-12 Hours).
When your blood sugar drops, your body releases stored carbohydrates to provide energy and help stabilize your blood sugar.
Phase 4. Fat Burning (12 Hours).
When your body stops burning food or stored carbohydrates, it needs to find another source of energy. At this stage, your body will burn fat to provide energy.
Phase 5. Ketone Levels Rise (13 Hours).
When your body fat is burning, the fatty acids will be converted into ketone bodies. As long as you continue through the phase, your ketone level will continue to rise.
Phase 6. Autophagy (24 Hours).
Autophagy, also known as cell clean-up, is the process of getting rid of cells that are damaged or dysfunctional.
Jennifer’s Intermittent Fasting Plan
After having a certain understanding of what intermittent fasting is and how it works, Jennifer’s intermittent fasting makes for an excellent point of reference if you also call for a body shape like hers.
16:8 Fasting Plan
Along the journey of intermittent fasting, it’s possible for you to find different ways to do it, including 5:2 method, OMAD (One Meal A Day), 16:8 fasting, alternat-day fasting, whole-day fasting, choose-your-day fasting, and so on.
Among all the types of intermittent fasting, Jennifer practices a popular version called the 16:8 fasting method. Want to try Jennifer’s 16:8 method? Here’s how. The premise of this diet plan is that you eat during an eight-hour window and then fast for the rest of the time in a day. In fact, it is not such a difficult way to practice because most of the 18 hours of fasting can be sleeping time and it’s not difficult to cut one meal from the ordinary 3 meals in one day. For example, you can have your breakfast at 9 a.m. and end eating at 5 p.m. which is a suitable time for having dinner. As for Jennifer, she usually sets the eating window between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day.
A Celery Juice in the Morning
Jennifer also makes it a point to have a mindful morning, saying she feeds her dogs, meditates, and works out before drinking her morning cup of coffee. In addition, after getting up around 9 a.m., Jennifer said she often starts her day with a glass of celery juice. Although there is not much science to back it up (fresh vegetables and fruits are always better than their juice due to the high content of fibers), many social media influencers and celebrities are also trying celery juice and celebrating the green stuff right now.
One cup or 8 ounces of celery juice includes about:
- 42.5 calories
- Carbohydrates: 9g
- Protein: 2g
- Fat: 0.4g
- Calcium: 94.4mg
- Potassium: 614mg
- Sodium: 189mg
- Magnesium: 26mg
- Vitamin C: 7.32mg
Typically, the fasting window permits nothing but water, tea (black), or coffee (black) for the entire 16-hour fasting period, let alone a cup of celery juice that has 42.5 calories. But notably, celery contains two beneficial antioxidants, including luteolin and apigenin. A 2007 study has found that luteolin could reduce inflammation and lower allergic responses in mice with these conditions. Besides, a separate 2015 review has shown that apigenin limits damage to a variety of brain processes, thereby delaying and slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s. Although there’s some debate about whether celery juice technically breaks a fast, it’s not doing Aniston any harm. So, if you like celery juice then go to eat. The only thing you should keep in mind is controlling the calories amount.
A Huge Fan of Collagen Protein
In a recent interview with Vogue, Jennifer revealed that she has just signed up as the Chief Creative Officer of Vital Proteins. “I don’t want to be the face of something if it’s not a part of my daily routine. That’s really important to me,” she said. And she also added that after she started using collagen powder, she’s never looked back, from which you can believe that she is really a huge fan of collagen protein. Adding collagen protein to one’s diet during intermittent fasting, as Aniston’s doctor explained, can help tissues regenerate. Research has shown that collagen supplements can improve skin elasticity and prevent signs of skin aging like fine lines and wrinkles.
As a matter of fact, collagen proteins can be also got from the diet.
Good Sources of Collagen Protein
- Fish
- Chicken
- Egg whites
- Citrus fruits
- Berries
- Red and yellow vegetables
- Garlic
- White tea
- Leafy greens
- Cashews
- Tomatoes
- Bell peppers
- Beans
- Avocados
- Soy
- Herbs high in collagen (Chinese knotweed, horsetail, gynostemma)
- Herbs that help to produce collagen (qotukola, bala, ashwaqandha)
Meditation-Intermittent Fasting for the Mind
In addition to collagen in daily life, Jennifer also said that giving priority to her mental health is very important for elegant aging. In this effort, she doesn’t check her mobile phone in the first hour of the day and meditates every morning. Meditation has gained more and more attention as many people think of it as a way to reduce stress and develop concentration. In fact, this has a theoretical basis. A review published in 2014 has found that people who received meditation therapy have reduced depressive symptoms compared with those in a control group. Besides, meditation may help you better adapt to intermittent fasting. Why? Imagine if you really want to eat during fasting time and have been struggling with your psychology, why not try meditation at this time? You can enjoy all kinds of food you want in your mind! Interestingly, intermittent fasting, in turn, can promote more and longer concentration when you meditate.
Here are nine popular types of meditation practice:
- Mindfulness meditation
- Spiritual meditation
- Focused meditation
- Movement meditation
- Mantra meditation
- Transcendental meditation
- Progressive relaxation
- Loving-kindness meditation
- Visualization meditation
References:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5470611/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4590215/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583892/
