Fasting and fat burning
Let’s get rid of the elephant in the room straight away. Fasting is NOT starving yourself.
Fasting is completely different to starving. Starving is the INVOLUNTARY abstinence from food and fasting is a controlled abstinence for a particular reason, whether that be for health, weight loss, spiritual or other reasons.
Starving and fasting should not be confused with each other.
Whereas starving would be forced upon you, fasting may be done for any period of time, that could be from a few hours to weeks or months.
The longest recorded fast was done by a man called Angus Barbieri in Scotland. Starting in June 1965 he fasted for a total of 382 days. He lived on black tea, black coffee, sparkling water and vitamins. He lost 276 pounds (125 kg) and had no adverse effects.
Angus Barbieri before and after his 382 day fast
Many people fast for long periods of time and if you have the fat to burn you will not burn muscle. According to studies you only start burning a significant amount of muscle when you get down to about 4% of body fat.
So if people can fast for days, weeks and months, and even over a year in one case, then why have we become so afraid of it?
Fasting has no standard duration as it is only the absence of eating. So anytime you are not eating, you are fasting. We fast every single night as we sleep and it should be considered a part of normal life.
Consider the term ‘breakfast’. This word refers to the meal that ‘breaks your fast’. That word alone acknowledges that fasting is a part of daily life.
Fasting has been practiced for thousands of years but has been largely forgotten. There is not many people talking about fasting and it is certainly not in the diet and food industries advantage to promote this.
The big food companies have slowly changed how we think about fasting. Instead of being a purifying, healthy tradition, it is now seen as something to avoid at all costs.
Fasting, after all, is bad for business. How are they going to sell all of their food and snacks if people aren’t eating them? Even the NHS and nutritional authorities now allege that skipping one meal will have dire consequences!
‘You always need breakfast in the morning’
‘You need to have snacks to prevent a low blood sugar’
‘You will be more hungry if you don’t snack’
‘You should NEVER miss a meal’
Really?
If humans needed 3 meals a day plus 2-3 snacks to keep us healthy, we would have died out long ago. But the messages are everywhere, TV, books, media and when we get that message over and over again, it creates the illusion that it’s true.
But the opposite is true.
There is NO correlation between constant eating and good health. NONE.
The Disappearance of Fasting
In the 1970’s, a typical American or Brit ate three meals a day with no snacks. A typical day may start with breakfast at 08:00, lunch about 13:00 and then dinner at 18:00. That means the typical person’s eating window would be around 10 hours a day. That would be nicely balanced with 14 hours of fasting.
What was the obesity levels then? Not nearly the problem we have today.
Today, instead of not snacking we actually ENCOURAGE it. We even have the mindset that snacking more will help you lose weight. Erm no.
Consider a typical person’s diet today. They have breakfast at around 8:00am, snack at around 10:00, lunch at 13:00, snack around 15:00, dinner at 18:00 and another snack in the evening. They might not stop eating until about 21:00.
Now the typical person is eating 5-6 times a day and their eating window is around 16-18 hours a day.
The balance of feeding and fasting is completely out of sync.
Eating Window
When we eat, we ingest more energy than we can immediately use. The energy that we haven’t immediately used is stored away for later. The hormone that does this is insulin.
Any food will cause an insulin response but dietary fat does not trigger insulin as much as protein and especially carbohydrates.
Insulin has two main functions.
- It allows the body to immediately start using food energy.
Carbs are absorbed and quickly turned into glucose, raising the blood sugar.
Insulin’s job is to lower that blood sugar.
To do this, insulin will allow the glucose to enter into most cells of the body. The cells use the glucose for fuel and the blood sugar is lowered.
Proteins are broken down into amino acids and absorbed. If there is an excess of amino acid, they may also be turned to glucose. Proteins can stimulate insulin as much as some carbs.
Fats are directly absorbed and have a minimal effect of insulin.
2. Insulin helps to store the excess energy
There are two ways the body stores energy.
1. Glucose molecules can become a chain called glycogen and stored in the liver
2. Once the glycogen limit has been reached in the liver, the body turns glucose into fat
The above process is called ‘de novo lipogenesis’ which just means ‘making fat from new’.
This new fat can be stored in the liver or on the body. There is NO limit as to how much fat can be created.
Fasting Window
The above process now goes into reverse.
Insulin levels drop and this signals the body to start burning the stored energy.
The body will first start burning the glycogen that is stored in the liver as this is the most easily accessible source of energy.
Depending what you have eaten, the liver can store enough to provide energy for about 24 hours.
After that, the body starts to break down the stored body fat.
In a Nutshell
The body exists in two states
- The Fed State (High Insulin)
- The Fasted State (Low Insulin)
We are either storing food for energy or burning food for energy.
If eating and fasting were balanced, there is no net weight gain.
But, if we spend the majority of the day in the fed state, over time, we will gain weight.
Eat Food ----> Raise Insulin ----> Store sugar in the liver and produce fat in the liver and body
No Food ----> Lower Insulin ----> Burn stored sugar in the liver and burn body fat
It really is as simple as that.
Fancy giving it a try? Check out my Quick Start Guide to Fasting