We are pleased to announce that as of March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor has been introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!
Extended Fasting - Dr. Jason Fung
gwenmf
Posts: 888 Member
Just an exert from the article:
Another common fear is that fasting equals starvation, which is not true. First of all, starvation is a forced situation that you have no control over whereas fasting is optional. You have complete control. Many also believe they cannot or should not fast because it will send their body into "starvation mode" — a situation where the body starts holding on to fat rather than burning it off.
"What they're talking about is where the body's metabolism starts to slow down so significantly that instead of burning 2,000 calories a day, your body might burn 1,000 calories a day. In that case, even if you're eating only 1,500 calories a day, for example, you're going to gain your weight back. That's actually what happens when you reduce your calories. We know that … as you cut your calorie intake, your calorie expenditure goes down as well.
Starvation mode actually is guaranteed if you just try and cut your calories. But what's interesting is that fasting doesn't do that. What happens during fasting is that … after four days of fasting, the basal metabolic rate is actually 10 percent higher than when you started. The body has not shut down at all. In fact, what it's done is it switched fuel sources. It switched from burning food to burning [body] fat. Once it's burning [body] fat, it's like, 'Hey, there's plenty of this stuff. Let's burn our 2,000 calories'…"
This is also why fasting tends to increase energy opposed to leaving you feeling drained. If you're overweight and lethargic, fasting helps unlock all that energy already lodged in your body that you previously had no access to. Fasting forces your body to start accessing those stores of energy, and once that happens, your body suddenly has a near unlimited supply of energy!
Fasting also helps improve other biochemical systems in your body. There's interplay of hormonal systems like the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), AMPK, leptin and IGF-1 — all of which are optimized in the right direction when fasting. It also improves your mitochondrial function, allowing your mitochondria to regenerate. So it's not just simply turning on an enzyme switch to burn fat; it's a very complex process that upregulates in the direction of health.
and another snippet:
'You have to eat. You have to eat.' But in fact, that's not true. If you think about it, in the old days … there would be lots of days where people didn't eat …
That's really what [body] fat is [for]. It's really simply stored fuel; stored food energy. We're using it [when we fast]. That's it. That's all that happens. There's no serious side effects or consequences to fasting.
and a link to the article for those interested.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/16/complete-guide-fasting.aspx
Another common fear is that fasting equals starvation, which is not true. First of all, starvation is a forced situation that you have no control over whereas fasting is optional. You have complete control. Many also believe they cannot or should not fast because it will send their body into "starvation mode" — a situation where the body starts holding on to fat rather than burning it off.
"What they're talking about is where the body's metabolism starts to slow down so significantly that instead of burning 2,000 calories a day, your body might burn 1,000 calories a day. In that case, even if you're eating only 1,500 calories a day, for example, you're going to gain your weight back. That's actually what happens when you reduce your calories. We know that … as you cut your calorie intake, your calorie expenditure goes down as well.
Starvation mode actually is guaranteed if you just try and cut your calories. But what's interesting is that fasting doesn't do that. What happens during fasting is that … after four days of fasting, the basal metabolic rate is actually 10 percent higher than when you started. The body has not shut down at all. In fact, what it's done is it switched fuel sources. It switched from burning food to burning [body] fat. Once it's burning [body] fat, it's like, 'Hey, there's plenty of this stuff. Let's burn our 2,000 calories'…"
This is also why fasting tends to increase energy opposed to leaving you feeling drained. If you're overweight and lethargic, fasting helps unlock all that energy already lodged in your body that you previously had no access to. Fasting forces your body to start accessing those stores of energy, and once that happens, your body suddenly has a near unlimited supply of energy!
Fasting also helps improve other biochemical systems in your body. There's interplay of hormonal systems like the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), AMPK, leptin and IGF-1 — all of which are optimized in the right direction when fasting. It also improves your mitochondrial function, allowing your mitochondria to regenerate. So it's not just simply turning on an enzyme switch to burn fat; it's a very complex process that upregulates in the direction of health.
and another snippet:
'You have to eat. You have to eat.' But in fact, that's not true. If you think about it, in the old days … there would be lots of days where people didn't eat …
That's really what [body] fat is [for]. It's really simply stored fuel; stored food energy. We're using it [when we fast]. That's it. That's all that happens. There's no serious side effects or consequences to fasting.
and a link to the article for those interested.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/16/complete-guide-fasting.aspx
2
This discussion has been closed.