fasting and weight loss

Fasting and Weight Loss

…Is a controversial subject. Right now, a lot of people, including myself use intermittent fasting techniques to either maintain our body weight OR to lose fat (while yes – maintaining muscle mass)…but I think that most people are still not using this easy technique.

Why Use Fasting For Weight Loss

Most people are completely horrified by the idea of fasting as a method to lose weight. Immediately people will start throwing terms like “starvation,” “muscle loss,” and “metabolism slowdown” around. This could be true if you did this say…everyday. But doing a modified intermittent fast (as I am going to describe below) once or twice a week? Not a big deal AND it will even boost your fat burning hormones (HGH.)

How Fasting Works for Weight Loss

First and foremost, eating fewer calories than your body requires is the key to weight loss. If you don’t know how to figure out what that number is click here to read a previous post. You can go about “eating less” a variety of ways. You can eat the same thing you would eat normally, but less of it. This works perfectly provided you were not overeating to begin with.

If are guilty of overeating on a daily basis (many people are and don’t know it, so don’t feel bad) you may need to eat a lot less or consider eating something different. Sometimes people have very good luck with low carb diets or primal style diets as it makes “eating less” easier because these diets automatically cut out most high calorie or processed food (plus foods like bread that are easy to over eat without meaning to, or can cause awful cravings for similar type foods which are hard to resist.)

No matter what approach you choose, the most important factor is that you pick a plan that you can stick to until you are done losing fat. I find it is easiest for me to stick to a low carb/primal type plan with lots of lean protein and vegetables because – it is filling while relatively low in calories, generally quick to prepare, can be inexpensive, and doesn’t cause me to crave high calories foods (after the first few days.)

However, no matter how good your plan, you need to have a backup plan. Sometimes you will fall off your diet, have social obligations that require more eating than your plan allows, or simply you are so busy you don’t have time for a plan that requires thinking -

This is where fasting for weight loss comes in.

How to Fast For Weight Loss

All you do is avoid eating for up to 24hrs (although you can choose a shorter span of time if need be) and then go back to eating normally. So ideally what you do is the night before, eat your dinner and then nothing else (but calorie free liquids) until the next day’s dinner. Then, and this is very important – eat a normal sized dinner. Not a monster dinner. The same 400-600 calorie dinner you would have had anyways.

That’s it. Without spending any money or doing anything out of your way from normal, you just cut at least 1000 calories.

Question: Can I drink coffee, tea, or diet soda during the fast? Yes.

Question: Can I fast more than two times per week? Maybe…but by and large its not recommended. This is meant to be a moderate and easy to use technique, nothing more.

How NOT to Fast for Weight Loss

Question: Can I drink juice? No, the idea is you stay calorie free.

Additional Advantages of Fasting For Weight Loss

Fasting increases your body’s production of HGH and reduces insulin production. This means you burn more fat instead of storing it. When you fast, your body will release Adipose tissue HSL (tell your body’s fat cell to release fat) and Muscle tissue LPL (Lipoprotein Lipase – tells your body to burn fat as fuel.) Reducing insulin is key for burning fat as normally your body prefers to burn blood sugar as fuel first. If you do not have any available sugar to burn, then you will burn even more fat than you normally would.

You will become aware of how much of your eating is simply habit rather than hunger.

If you choose to fast weekly for weight loss as a method of creating an average weekly deficit – then you can eat more on non fasting days compared to a diet where you must eat the same amount every day. Depending on how how you need to go to create a daily deficit, sometimes this calorie level is so low that completing workouts or other activities is a struggle. If this is the case, doing a couple fast days per week on non-workout days could be just what you need.

You don’t need to feel so guilty if you accidentally slip up a little periodically as you know all you need to do is a little responsible fasting.

You WILL experience weight loss. Now, obviously this will largely be water and food missing from your digestive system BUT many people will find this really encouraging and this will help keep you on diet as you won’t want to see that deficit go away.

Problems With Fasting for Weight Loss

Fasting is not for everyone. Some people will find despite their best intentions, fasting causes huge drops in blood sugar (this is less likely to happen if you are following a low carb diet as this is one of my biggest problems) or leads them to severely over eat. I recommend trying a fast for the first time the day after you have eaten normally just to see how you react.

Fasting will not work if you add those “skipped” calories back in during the rest of the week.

Fasting is also too hard if you are already eating very little on a daily basis. This is probably common sense.

If fasting sounds like it might work well for you, you can get the full story here.