 Fasting |
What is fasting?
Fasting is when you don’t eat anything at all for a prolonged period of time. I’m betting you have heard of “breakfast”? This is a meal that essentially breaks your overnight fast.
Is it healthy to fast overnight?
Your overnight fast isn’t that bad. Some hardcore individuals do set an alarm clock to wake up 4 hours into their sleep cycle in order to swill down a protein shake. I have actually done this before, except that I planned it out as follows:
Step 1: drink 1 full glass of water with night time supplements right before going to sleep.
Step 2: go to sleep.
Step 3: wake up 3-4 hours later to expel that glass of water after the body has processed it.
Step 4: while conscious, shove a couple spoonfuls of cottage cheese into the gullet.
Step 5: go back to sleep for another 4-5 hours.
While this is totally not necessary, some people do take it to this extreme. So, what is the reason for this? Why do they go to such an extreme? The answer is simple:
Fasting is Not Good For You
When people talk about fasting relative to weight loss, they are talking about fasting for at least one whole day or perhaps several days in a row. The common myth is that this type of fasting will detoxify your body, clean out your intestines, and kickstart a weight loss effort.
The reality is that none of these myths are true, nor do they have any scientific backing.
In fact, for some individuals on certain medications or with certain pre-existing health conditions, fasting could put you in a life threatening situation. Check with your doctor before embarking on any kind of fasting diet.
How Fasting Works
Normally your body gets energy primarily from blood glucose and fat molecule supplied by the food you eat. Your brain and nervous system depend on glucose for proper function. Anything left over after your body meets its energy needs is stored as glycogen in the liver and in your muscle tissue.
When blood glucose is gone after just a couple of hours of fasting, your body begins to deplete the stored glycogen, which doesn’t last all that long. The next step is for your body to enter an altered metabolic state wherein it starts to break down primarily protein and secondarily fat to make more glucose for the brain and nervous system. Unfortunately that protein comes from your own muscle tissue.
Side Effects of Fasting
When muscle mass and body fat are broken down for energy you will begin to lose weight, but the weight loss comes from dehydration and muscle tissue catabolism, and usually goes hand-in-hand with dizziness and fatigue.
The ketones that are produced from this altered metabolism are like poison to your body. They contaminate your kidneys and liver, and through a process that ends up leeching calcium from your bones, you could also end up with kidney stones. Never has this been considered a ‘healthy’ state.
Your body will also notice that there is a lack of energy coming in. At this point you go into a state of pseudo-hibernation where your body stores every single calorie it can into adipose tissue. Now you are thinking, “If I am fasting then there are no calories to store, so I don’t care what you say.” Well my friend, when you stop fasting, which you will have to do eventually, your body will be in such a slow metabolic state that it will store every extra calorie you consume immediately as fat.
The Results of Fasting
The outcome of your fast possibly:
- Made you dumb.
- Made you slow and uncoordinated.
- Damaged your internal organs.
- Burned up precious muscle tissue.
- Slowed your metabolism way down.
- Dehydrated you.
- And made you really, really hungry.
So basically you are putting yourself through several days of misery just to make yourself sick and replace muscle tissue with the fat tissue that will be stored as a result of your low metabolism. That doesn’t sounds like a fat loss diet to me.
 Healthy Woman |
How to Lose Fat Safely & Effectively
The ultimate answer to fat loss, is to eat just under your daily calorie maintenance level. Simply multiply your goal weight by 12 and eat that many calories each day. If you aren’t losing weight just subtract 100 calories each week until you start to lose a pound or two every week.
Your body desires proper nutrition. Feed it whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, fish, beans, nuts, low fat dairy products, other healthy protein sources, and other healthy fat sources. Drink plenty of water.
This way you will have all the nutrition available for your body to run smooth and efficiently. You will remain healthy, smart, alert, hydrated, agile, and active; everything it takes to survive and succeed at every day life.
Get 7-8 hours of sleep each night and add in 30 minutes of exercise at least 3 times a week to complete your healthy lifestyle.
Live Smart
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About Project Swole - Project Swole is managed and mostly written by Steve, a formerly IFPA and ISSA certified personal trainer and sport nutritionist, who has been studying, practicing, and experimenting with fitness and nutrition since 1992. Please use the content at Project Swole to supplement the advice of your doctor or physician. All medical questions should be directed towards a qualified medical professional, and the advice provided at Project Swole should be used at your own discretion.
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Tags: dieting, fasting, fat loss, weight loss
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I had always learned that the glycogen stored in adipose cells would be broken down into glucose more readily than the amino acids of protein. This would make sense for a faster’s argument. So long as the fast is not prolonged (over 18hrs) I can see this being beneficial for fat loss.
Am I wrong? I would just like to know your thoughts. Fasting for weight loss does not make perfect sense to me, but I haven’t read enough to make a decision yet.
Love the site, lots of good info. Keep it up!
This is really nice blog post,great informative
I really really liked this one.. Especially about the “proper” way to loose weight.You should write an article about that: The REal way to Loose weight! Or the “real” fastest way to loose weight! Yea something like that..You would have a lot of readers! I’m not overweight or anything, I am very thin, I just find your blogs very interesting since im into health and fitness.
All this info is very motivating! Keep it up!
-tiff-
At what point are you saying the body will start to use muscle for fuel ? If you are claiming this is within hours of your last you meal the information you are putting out is completely inaccurate. There are documented studies showing that fasts of 24 to 72 hrs have no effects on muscle. Articles like this just add to the misinformation. If you are going to make these kind of statements then post the studies to back them up. Short term fasting has the exact opposite effect to what you describe, and actually through the release of uncoupling protein 3, causes the body to burn more fat, with most benefits occurring between 18 and 24 hrs . Read Tunstall RJ, et al. Fasting activates the gene expression of UCP3 independent of genes
necessary for lipid transport and oxidation in skeletal muscle. Biochemical and Biophysical
Research Communications 2002; 294:301-308
A 24-hour period of fasting shifts your body from the fed state to the fasted state, which
causes large increases in both lipolysis (fat release) and fat oxidation (burning). I simple terms,fasting allows your body to take a break from storing fat, and start burning it, which is the exact reason our bodies were programmed to store it in the first place.
Well Dave, some of what you say is true. A 24 hour fast won’t be all that harmful, although you will be sacrificing 24 hours of potential muscle gain. That being said, a fast that lasts more than 24 hours, which is what I am really talking about here, will result in increased muscle loss and decreased fat loss.
The body will burn fat first as an energy source, but it takes more resources to break down a fat molecule than it does to break down a protein molecule. Therefore if you aren’t consuming enough fat to keep up with the body’s need for glucose and ATP, it will hit up stored protein, or muscle tissue. After the first day of a fast your fat intake will be zero and your body will switch to a mix of fat burning and protein burning in order to keep itself going. This is especially bad for intense resistance training athletes because our ATP demands are so much greater that we end up breaking down protein for energy sooner than sedentary individuals. So that means we are breaking down muscle tissue (metabolism) to help us cause trauma to muscle tissue (exercise) which needs energy (that you don’t have because you are fasting) to repair itself.
This is a catabolic process if I ever heard one. But yes, you will also lose a little fat.
Steve,
Thanks for the reply. I think there is much more to learn about Intermittent Fasting, what is interesting is I start to notice fitness experts like Craig Ballantyne are also starting to use Fasting as part of their training, and documenting their results. I don’t know on muscle gain, but I have not lost muscle in 12 weeks of using I.F. no fasts longer than 24hrs though !.
No fasts longer than 24 hours I can accept. For me personally, it will be a cold day in hell before I go through a whole day without eating.
I am afraid you have some more research coming your way: if you do IF and resistance training, you won’t lose muscle. Catabolism or starvation mode is not activated unless you fast for more than 72 hours. IF is now coming up, with a lot of papers backing it.
BTW, where is your Twitter widget? Want to follow you.
Yuck: that should be ‘lose’, not ‘loose’, a kind of spelling error which makes me tighten my sphincters….
Rambo:
I got it covered for you man.
The twitter widget is at the top right of each page on the sidebar.
I think weight loss is all about three things – attitude, diet and exercise. From my experience, reducing carb intake and doing aerobic exercises are keys to successful weight loss.
Well fasting I believe is actually a good thing for people who want to detoxify there bodies. When you stop eating for a period of time it lets your GI system get some much needed rest from all the food consumption, what this does is it frees up the bodies energy to focus on its metabolism and immune system. What generally happens in a fast where you dont eat for the first 1 -2 days you burn off your carbs and a bit of protein deposits as well, however by the 3rd day your body transitions into burning fat… fat that has deposited for a long period of time will release toxins… your body will start cleansing itself…
Fasting has plenty of scientific research. Do any medical search for intermittent fasting. Extended life span, increased insulin sensitivity, better nutrient partitioning are all benefits with scientific backing. Only after 72 hours of fasting does protein begin to be broken down for fuel. Plus digesting food activates the parasympathetic nervous system and causes storage hormones to be released (insulin, etc.), all which make you sleepy. If anyone starts an intermittent fasting protocol and begins doing fasted state workouts, whether it be aerobic or anaerobic, they’ll most likely feel an increase in energy and feel lighter, in addition to being more alert and into the workout.
You also state that if you don’t eat for a day then that’s a day of muscle building wasted.. But that’s not really how it works. When you resume eating the next day, protein synthesis increases dramatically making up for any loss, and allowing more growth to occur. Plus that’s a whole day of fat burning.
PS. I wrote this before I saw Rambodoc’s comment. He’s on the same page.
during fasting is there any chance of increase in of muscle mass and reduction in fat mass.
we have a client for whom this has happened and his water percentage has also increase. may i know the reason.
the fasting is basically what the muslims do during the ramzan season.
I keep learning more and more about fasting. Fasters, keep chiming in!
I know this comment section may be rather old, but since I was just reading up on fasting and noticed this site, I thought I’d leave a comment. I fasted on water only for 35 days. I lost 70 pounds. For the next 30 days, as I began to break myself from fasting, I fasted on fresh juice. I lost 35 more pounds (yes, I was very overweight). I did this fast two years ago, and it was the best decision I ever made. I am such a proponent of fasting that I’ve made it a part of my regular life. I feel great and look much better. No saggy skin or stretch marks either. I have maintained my weight of 130 pounds since fasting (I did gain back 10 pounds, but that’s it). After trying all kinds of diets, fasting was the only thing that worked for me. It may not work for everyone, so I’m not suggesting that all people should do it, but our views of fasting are mostly based on inaccurate information.
Thank you for your comment on fasting. I’m finding more and more proponents of fasting, but it is still not a good diet for gaining muscle, or even maintaining muscle in a fat loss phase. But for losing weight (muscle, fat, and water weight) fasting can be useful when used properly. Great job on your fat loss achievements.
I just got done with a fast and I feel better than ever! fasting has been used for thousands of years and practiced by every religion..it also makes perfect sense because your body is smart enough to canabalize the least important tissues(fat..toxins), it doesnt just start burning muscle! ya fasting is bad..and setting your alarm for 4 am to have cottage cheese or protein shakes is a terrific idea! spoken like a true meat head..
Actually, muscle tissue, aka amino acids, are easier for your body to break down into units of energy, than are fatty acids. Your body would prefer to store the fats for later, in case of famine or a hunger strike or something. Show me someone who regularly fasts and also squats 500 lbs, and I’ll eat my words.
Andreas Cahling fasts and can squat that:) I think he’s even a vegetarian too:) I fasted for ten days on water and lost 17 lbs. I didn’t do it for weight loss though, just to clean out my colon and toxins. At the end of it, my eye sight was better, my taste buds were much better, my sleep was much less required (4 or 5 hrs of deep sleep.. hadn’t been like that since i was a kid)and had tons of energy.. Especially my mental state was much clearer. That was a year ago and i am actually 5 lbs less than i was when the fast was done. The key to NOT gaining weight back is to not go back to eating the way you did pre-fast. If u want to maintain a 120 lb body weight, u gotta eat like a 120 pounder. It’s really much more simple than what is being fed to us. Just most people take what they hear and think of it as fact without asking questions or have any individual thought. And since most are too prideful to admit they could be wrong, they actually stick do the bull just because. lol.. People have fasted longer than 40 days.. a couple days, or even ten days of fasting will not be harmful to most people.. it would be the opposite. Plus whatever little muscle lost can easily build back fairly quickly. Especially if you are a trained individual, since muscle has memory. You make good points, but to say flat out that something is unhealthy when it actually has good health benefits does not seem like great advice (though respected, i see u really believe what your saying to help) Anyone want to do their own “research” and find out for yourselves, try this:
1: Fast for yourself for like 5 days or more and see how u feel a few days after.
2: Don’t take every article u read to heart. Internet is full of the most “popular” opinions, and not really facts. It took me 2 years of reading on here and many books, and doing it myself to come to this conclusion.
3: Here are some great books on the subject.. probably the best ones to recommend. First one is the “miracle of fasting” by Paul Bragg.. 2nd would be “Rational Fasting” by Arnold Ehret, and third is “Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise” by Bernarr MacFadden. These r gems that took me a while to finally come across after much searching.
There is my novel comment, lol, hope this helps
ohhhh and i forgot.. Metabolism does not stay low after a fast. Yes, it slows down while your fasting.. metabolism does what it does on a moment to moment basis. You fast, it slows.. You go back to eating and or exercise, it goes up right away cause it’s being asked to do the work of digesting food, or you are working out. It doesn’t just stay low forever after and you get fat. lol.. The only weight that will come back will be minimal, and most of it the water weight returning. The only way to get fat is to eat like a fat person.. the only way to lose weight is to eat less or fast. And fasting is the quickest route. The long term benefits are permanent if you just eat according to the requirements of you NEW body weight. lol i hate when i send a comment and forget to finish
Fasting is a great way to lose weight and cleanse the colon but one must know what he/she has to go through before deciding to proceed.
This is a great post, very useful information. Thanks!
Fasting Retreats recently posted..“Just wanted to express my gratitude for everything I witnessed at Tanglewood It truly was a divine life changing experience- and I am forever grateful” — Ryan Geoghegan
This is a very interesing post with opinions from both sides. I, like some others was very overweight at 275 lbs. After changing my diet and lifestyle to lose 35 lbs, I underwent a 22 day juice fast in which I lost about 35 more lbs and ended up at 203. 6 months later, I followed up with another 15 day juice fas and got to 185lbs. I did much research before fasting and found most of what fasting proponents said to be true. My body did not attack my muscle which I did have. Even though I had lots of stores bodyfat from bad lifestyle, I have worked ou for years. Within a few days of each fast, my body would replace the glycogen stores and water which amouned to about 6-7 lbs. I now incorporate intermittent fasting into my regular lifestyle. I have been able to add about 15 lbs of pure muscle to my frame and get more attention from my new found body than I ever have. FASTING IS A GOOD THING!!! And it works quickly. Not the 8 – 12 months it would have taken to lose 75 lbs with a 500 calorie a day deficit. Do the research yourself and don’ let anyone discourage you from utilizing this wonderful tool that nature has given us. It is not only good for weight/fat loss, but has tons of other health benefits. From a training perspective, I at 47 years old outlift both of my training partners at the gym and they are 10 and 17 years my juniors and equally as fit as I am. That is jus to stress the point that I have not experienced any muscle mass or endurance loss from fasing. At least not any that lasted beyond my glycogen stores being refilled. But I have reaped huge benefits from having a clean detoxified smaller body. My workout intensity after fasting has increased tremendously because my body just functions better after getting rid of all the toxicity. I learned that fat cells are used to store excess toxins when it is too busy(digesting food) to get rid of them. No matter how much of a calorie deficit you create, the bosy cannot get rid of the toxins in those fat cells until it can do it safely and it sees fasting as the perfect opporunity to do so.
I hope people who do fasting as diet will read this article. I am really against fasting and never would I ever try. I think the best part of losing weight is to make to eat healthy and safe.
You must not be a real personal trainer then, or you would be hip to the Intermittent Fasting revolution in recent years. Fasting works for weight loss.
Steve, I got the point that fasting works for weight loss but for me it’s unhealthy. I’m sorry but just an opinion.