Low Carb Love 28 Day Program
Graduations Bonus 2.
The Power of Fasting

Cumulus Spiced Eggs recipe here.

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I remember the first time I came across the concept of fasting.

It made sense… of course if you don’t eat for long periods of time you’ll lose weight.

BUT what would it be like to skip meals?

Would it be some form of torture?

Long story short, while I was surprised how I could survive without eating. My first few attempts were really hard.

So I gave up on the idea.

Until a few years later when I thought I’d try again.

This time I was eating fairly low carb. It amazed me how much easier fasting was.

And how great the results were.

These days fasting is a key part of my health strategy. I pretty much skip breakfast every day and once or twice a week I skip dinner too so I get in a 23-24 hour fast.

If this sounds crazy, keep reading…

I promise it will be worth it!

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN TODAY:

• Why fasting can be helpful.
• The different types of fasting.
• How to fast.

WHY FASTING?

1. Improves insulin sensitivity
As you know, insulin is also known as the ‘fat storage’ hormone. The more sensitive your body is, the less insulin you need and the less likely you are to be storing fat and putting on weight. Win win win!

2. Lose weight / fat
Of everything I’ve tried, it’s the easiest way to lose weight, fat in particular.

How it works is that when you’re fasting, you stop eating and your body has to switch over to burning fat for fuel instead of burning carbs.

So, you’re directly burning that fat you’ve stored.

3. Increases human growth hormone naturally
Human growth hormone is awesome for repair and growth of tissues.

I really notice my hair and nails are stronger and grow much faster.

This hormone also helps slow down the aging process.

4. More time
I love that on fasting days, you don’t have to spend all this time preparing food and cleaning up.

If you’re not having dinner there’s so much more time in the evenings to spend on yourself.

5. WONT reduce metabolism or reduce muscle mass
There’s a myth that if you don’t eat, it’s going to reduce your metabolism and / or reduce your muscle mass.

From everything I’ve read about fasting and my own personal experience, is this is absolutely not true.

We’re actually designed, so that in times of famine our bodies switch to burning fat and preserve our muscle mass.

From an evolutionary perspective it makes sense that when there isn’t much food we don’t start eating our own muscles which would jeopardize our ability to hunt and gather to feed ourselves.

6. It makes food taste better!
Another benefit is that when I do start eating again, I find food tastes so amazing!

I’m naturally drawn to eat really mindfully and really enjoy my food. It makes food even more special!

5 DIFFERENT TYPES OF FASTS

1. Skip breakfast
This is something I do every day. I find it’s the easiest method because you wake up and you’re already in a fasting state so it’s really easy to just keep going.

This is probably contrary to everything you’ve heard about the importance of a healthy breakfast. The thing to be mindful of is that the only problem with skipping breakfast is, if you get really hungry and make bad food choices when you do decide to eat.

So, if you skip breakfast and then have cookies at 11 o’clock instead of having breakfast, it would have been better to have a healthy breakfast.

But if you skip breakfast and your next meal is healthy there’s absolutely nothing wrong with skipping breakfast. As I mentioned before, it’s not going to reduce your metabolism. You don’t need to eat all these little meals every day to keep your blood sugar stable.

It’s actually the opposite. The less often you eat, the less likely you are to spike your blood sugar.

2. Skip dinner
This can be a little bit harder because you have lunch and then you need to transition to a fasted state. When it gets to dinner time you’re tired and it can be tough.

But if you can just push through and distract yourself then you wake up the next morning and you haven’t eaten anything since lunch and the day before. – a 24 hour fast.

My favourite distraction technique is to drink lots of water. I also focus on using the time in the evening to do something fun like reading a good book or doing some knitting.

It’s great to have the extra time. Going to bed early and getting some extra sleep can also help.

I’m finding we’re also saving heaps of money on food.

3. The 5:2 diet
Michael Mosley, an English doctor and journalist, he writes about an approach to fasting where two days a week, you ‘fast’ by only eating 500 calories per day (600 for men).

You can spread it out however you like. You could have 500 calories all in one meal. You could spread it in three little meals across the day.

It’s really up to you.

I’m not a huge fan because I find counting calories is a pain and takes the fun out of eating. I find it easier just to not eat at all.

But this 500 calorie can be a really great starting place if you’re new to fasting.

If you’d like to try this, Michael Mosley’s book, ‘The Fast Diet’ would be a good one to check out.

4. Eat-stop-eat – 24 hour fast
If you’re a bit more adventurous and you’re ready to try a 24-hour fast, there’s a book called, ‘Eat, Stop Eat’. Essentially you’d have lunch on say Tuesday, you skip dinner, skip breakfast and then have lunch on the Wednesday. So you get 24 hours fasting but there’s no day where you’re going without food.

5. 36 hour fast
This is the most extreme fast I’ve tried. Basically I eat dinner say on Tuesday night, and not eat anything for the all of Wednesday and then just have breakfast or lunch to break my fast on Friday morning.

HOW TO FAST

IMPORTANT: Make sure you check with your doctor before experimenting with fasting. Especially if you are on any medication.

1. Get off the carb / blood sugar roller coaster.
Since you’re a graduate of the Low Carb Love 28-Day program, you’re already all over this. But I thought I’d mention it in case you’re recommending fasting to a friend. When you’re on the carb roller coaster fasting is so much harder.

I noticed this a few months ago I was fasting the day after Fergal’s birthday when I’d had some of his white chocolate birthday cake. My fast was soo hard. Where I normally hardly think about it, I really struggled and ended up breaking my fast early. The next week, though I was back to my Low Carb ways and my fast was easy.

2. Experiment with what works for you.
Once you’re eating relatively low carb, then it’s up to you to experiment with what works for you. As we’ve covered, there are many ways to include fasting in as part of your lifestyle.

3. Be gentle with yourself.
It can be difficult at first particularly if your body is not used to going without food and you are eating a lot of carbs.

One of the biggest problems is irritability. If that happens or if you’re really struggling, just eat something. It’s no big deal and try again another day or week.

Sometimes you’ll fast and it will feel amazing. You’ll feel really great and you’ll just cruise through it.

Then other days it will be a hard slog.

If you’re stressed, haven’t had a great sleep there can be days where every five minutes you’re thinking about food. If that happens or if you get to a point where you’re grumpy, just eat something and try again another day.

Be gentle with yourself and give your body time to learn this new skill.

4. Remember to eat normally when you break your fast.
It can be tempting to reward yourself with extra food once you do stop fasting. But it’s important to just eat normally as if you hadn’t fasted at all so you don’t undo all your good work.

5. Resource
I love this free app for tracking my fasting. It also has some great video content on the benefits of fasting.

NOTE: If you are on insulin or medication to lower your blood sugar, have any health problems or if you’ve had any eating disorders in the past, fasting is probably not suitable for you. Check with your doctor or your health professional before you start fasting.

SUMMARY

Here’s what we’ve covered:

• Fasting improves insulin sensitivity, helps weight loss, increases human growth hormone and makes food taste amazing (when you do eat)!
• There are many different styles of fasting to experiment with.
• To start fasting skipping breakfast is the easiest first step.

ACTIVITY

If you’d like to experiment, choose one fasting method and decide when you’re going to try it out. Of course check with your doctor first.

See you next week!

Cheers,
Jules x

ps. Have to tried fasting? Leave a comment below to share your experience.

2020 UPDATE:
I’ve recently been experimenting with protein fasting. Find out how and why over here.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: The Low Carb Love 28-Day Program is where I share my personal journey of managing my blood sugar eating (mostly) Low Carb. I am not a doctor and this information is not intended as specific advice. Please discuss with your doctor or dietician before changing your food intake. Especially if you’re on medication or have any special medical concerns.