Fasting
Firstly, a little friendly disclaimer: If you’re a type 1 diabetic or have any other serious medical conditions, it’s best to consult your doctor before attempting any fasting practices.
So, what is fasting? It’s important to note that it’s not just starving yourself. There is a difference between fasting and starving. Fasting is a voluntarily sacrifice of food in order to receive a whole host of health benefits and is set over a period of time determined by the faster. At any time within a fast you have the freedom to break the fast and eat something if you so please.
Starving is the involuntary lack of food leading to malnourishment if sustained over too long of a period. You’d actually be surprised as to how long you would need to go without food to become malnourished. Conveniently for most people, ample food is available at your finger tips at all times. Although, maybe a little too conveniently…
This blog is designed to give you an insight into different fasting practices, potential health benefits of fasting and give you some interesting information about what can make fasting easier to work into your day to day life. It is not meant to be prescriptive, or exhaustive.
Fasting practices have been around for thousands of years, but in recent years they’ve garnered a lot of mainstream media attention for their health benefits in times of rampant obesity, high prevalence of cardiovascular disease and increasing rates of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Fasting can be an incredible tool in your health maintenance toolkit, if done properly and safely.
Potential health benefits of fasting:
Fat Loss
Controlling your blood sugar (Important to prevent type 2 diabetes)
Decrease Systemic Inflammation
Protect Against Neurodegenerative Disease Such As Alzheimer’s
Cancer Prevention
Increase Longevity
There are multiple different types of fasting practices that include, but are not limited to water-only fasts, fasts that allow for zero calorie beverages such as tea and black coffee, fasts that allow for some pure fat intake (zero protein or carbohydrates) and time-restricted eating (intermittent fasting).
Each of these fasts have their health benefits and it’s important to choose which may be best for you. For example, if you’ve never practiced fasting before you may want to start off with a fast that allows for a morning coffee which will assist in appetite suppression and mental focus along with a couple of tablespoons of a healthy fat such as coconut oil spaced throughout the day.
This practice will help your body become accustomed to using fat for fuel as opposed to sugar. This state of fat burning is termed “ketosis”. It takes everyone different amounts of time to enter a state of ketosis but the more often you enter ketosis, the more your body becomes adapted to this state and the quicker you’ll feel more comfortable with caloric restriction.
Another way to speed up the time required to enter ketosis is to supplement with “exogenous ketones”, this term simply means ketones that come from an outside source and are not produced by your body. By supplementing with ketones you can help smooth the gear change from your body running primarily on sugar to primarily using fat for fuel. These supplements include MCT Oil and Ketone Ester powders and are available from health food shops. I could write a whole separate blog on ketosis and the ketogenic diet, and probably will in future but this surface level introduction is sufficient for the purposes of this blog.
It is a good idea to start your fasting journey with a few weeks of time-restricted eating. That is, eating your regular diet, but consuming all of your meals within an 8-hour window, say between 12pm and 8pm. Many people practice this protocol as a form of weight management and it can also be very effective for managing gut health also. as it gives your digestive system a daily break. From there you can progress to your first 24 hour fast.
A recommended protocol for a 24 hour fast:
Eat a low carbohydrate meal around 6pm the night before - Restricting your carbs in your last meal before the fast will decrease the time it takes to get into ketosis. By eating at 6pm and sleeping from roughly 10pm until 6am you’ve managed to get through half your fast by sleeping.
Have a black coffee with 1 tablespoon of MCT oil in it around 8am - This can help with alertness, and suppresses your appetite and boosts your ketone levels. Be warned, you might want to start with a teaspoon of MCT oil and progress to a tablespoon to avoid upsetting your gut.
Drink lots of water - Grab a one litre bottle of water, drink and refill 3 times throughout the day, or more if you exercise. You can also add a pinch of himalayan rock salt or celtic sea salt to the water to maintain electrolyte balance and prevent dehydration.
Take Magnesium - If you still wish exercise on fasting days which will deplete your magnesium storages it’s not a bad idea to supplement magnesium to prevent cramping.
Thats about it. 24 hours isn’t really too difficult so no great measures are required to get through it, but if you’re like me and can get seriously hangry, it’s probably best to plan a day that doesn’t involve to much forced social interaction…
The food industry has long convinced us that skipping a meal is bad for us and can lead to low blood sugar. This just simply isn’t the case, our body has the ability to regulate our blood sugar very closely. Your body will produce the sugar it requires to maintain your blood sugar levels. Sure they will lower during a fast, but they will remain within a healthy range. It’s okay to skip a few meals here and there, in fact, it will likely help you live longer and feel better!
Osteopath’s look at your body in a wholistic manner. That is, we look at all aspects of human health and wellbeing. Covering diet, sleep, exercise, mental health and physical health. If you’re interested in optimising your health and performance, come see us and let us help you get more out of life!