Eat Stop Eat..Let's Understand Fasting

Most often my clients ask me the most common question “Isn’t fasting the easiest way to lose fat?”

Let’s get this out of the way right now

People have been fasting throughout history. For hundreds of thousands of years, our hunter-gatherer ancestors spent their lives having to search for food.

Humans were forced to fast involuntarily. once they found food they feasted, followed by more days of fasting. Because of this, many scientists believe that these harsh evolutionary conditions created a new genotype within humans—a genotype that gives our bodies the necessary cellular tools to adapt to the cycles of fasting and then feasting.

Intermittent or prolonged fasting is a healthy, science-backed approach that aids in

-Healing our bodies,

-Losing body fat

-Upgrading our overall physical and mental performance.

The best place to start is to understand what it means to fast is to understand we have

2 Fuel Systems

Glucose Burner System

This gets activated when we eat. Eating food raises our blood sugar and releases insulin.

Our cells sense this influx of sugar in our blood and use that sugar, called glucose i.e. transported by insulin. When we eat, our body also goes into storage mode.

Some food we eat is converted into energy that’s used right away, but most of us eat more than we need to, and what we don’t need, we store. There are 2 ways to store energy

1. Glucose molecules can be linked into long chains called glycogen i.e. stored in the

Liver (80-100 grams) & Muscles (200-250 grams).

The maximum storage capacity of Glycogen is 300-450 grams

2. Once the body crosses the limit of storing glycogen in the liver and muscles it starts to convert “Glucose into Fat”.This newly created fat can be stored in the liver or fat deposits in the body

Fat Burner System

When we stop eating for a minimum of 12 hours our blood sugar drops and insulin is not released.

This slow decline of glucose in our blood triggers our cells to switch over to the second energy system—called the fat-burner system.

This is much like a hybrid car that switches from gas to electric for fuel, this switchover is when the fasting benefits begin.

The fat-burner energy system that comes into play whilst fasting has potent anti-ageing effects and cellular healing benefits

Cellular Healing Benefits Include

To sum it up

Whether you are looking to get into amazing shape or simply to feel your absolute best, with fasting you are in the right place to find out how not eating for a set period kicks your body into a fasting state that brings with it an incredible array of benefits.

Instead of eating throughout the day, you concentrate your daily meals into one window of time, flipping a metabolic switch in your body that promotes fat burning, gut health, insulin sensitivity, and mental sharpness, among a host of other benefits.

References

-The Complete Guide to Fasting - Jason Fung

- Fast Like a Girl - Dr Mindy Pelz

- Intermittent Fasting Made Easy - Thomas DeLauer