One mistake I see a lot of people make when getting into the fasting lifestyle is being in a consistent calorie deficit.
Not only is this unsustainable but it can have a negative effect on your metabolism.
When you are in a consistent calorie deficit, alongside fasting, your body goes into “starvation mode” it starts to slow down your metabolism in order to conserve energy.
As a result, your progress grinds to a halt and you stop burning as much bodyfat, resulting in a reduce in weight loss.
This is a survival mechanism that our bodies have developed to help us survive during times of scarcity or famine. However, in this day and age, this can be detrimental to our weight loss goals.
On the other hand, keeping your calorie intake high during your eating window when fasting, can actually be beneficial for weight loss.
This is because when you eat enough, your body doesn’t go into starvation mode and your metabolism stays elevated. Additionally, when you’re not in a calorie deficit, your body can more easily access stored fat for energy, which leads to weight loss.
If we think of it like this –
Person A – reduces their calories to 1500 every day for a week, totalling 10500 calories for that week.
They are now in a calorie deficit of 3500 for that week. However, their metabolism has now dropped slightly. Meaning as they go on, their deficit will be even less. As a result, burning less body fat.
Person B – Stays at 2000 calories but decides to fast for 2 days of that week. They are now having 10,000 calories total. However on the days that they are fasting, their metabolic rate is still at 2000. Meaning they will have burned 2000 calories each day they didn’t eat. Totalling 4000 calories burned + the extra 500 less than person A had.
Now in the long run, person B is continuing to burn 2000 calories each day they don’t eat, each week maintaining an overall deficit of 4500.
Person A’s metabolism will actually drop week by week and their body will start running on less and less.
Who do you think is going to be able to maintain this? In the long run, who is going to have burned more calories, and have burned more body fat?
I will let you decide.
Here’s another theory.
Let’s go back to hunter-gatherer times, where our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of always having food available.
They would often go through periods of scarcity where they wouldn’t eat for a day or two.
Now do you think after going a day or 2 without food, they would sit down to their big meal and think to themselves, “actually, I am going to not eat half of this meal, as I want to remain in a deficit”.
NO!
They would be eating till they’re full and probably a little more. As they didn’t know when their next meal was going to be.
Eating when full tells our body, that there isn’t a scarcity and that there will likely be food available again. As a result, it won’t need to reduce the metabolism to preserve body fat. And will be able to tap into those fat stores more easily when there is no food available. I.e., when the body is in a fasted state.
Not I am not telling you to do a 5-2 method. But if you are fasting and are not making any progress in terms of fat loss, as yourself. Am I in a constant calorie deficit.
Perhaps try keeping the intake high on most of the days, then reducing it on 1-3 of these days.
For me, I eat between 3500-5000 per day when I do eat, but I also add in prolonged fasts, where I wont eat for 36-48 hours.
And so, I am skipping a full days’ worth of food. And I can tell you, from my experience that this theory does work!
As always, if you have any questions, comments or think there is something I have missed.
Please email me @ [email protected]
Fasting 101.
It’s not a diet.
It’s a lifestyle.
