Month: February 2024

Prolonged Fasting is a piece of cake! Or is it?

Photo by manu schwendener on Unsplash

What is prolonged fasting?

Well, extended or prolonged fasting which is fasting for more than 24 hours is not your lovely 16/8. It’s more challenging and I should say it’s another level of fasting altogether.

First, it requires more dedication since unlike short fasts you still need to live in an environment where people continue to eat and you have to deal with food preparation for them and feel all the smells and looks of the food.

So if you can, do extended fasting when there is no one around, so not to be distracted.

Second, prolonged fasts are less comfortable than 16/8. After about 24 hours into a fast you start feeling a feeling of emptiness in the stomach that is a little bit annoying, but bearable. And at 8:00 PM as it also happens during regular fast you’ll feel hungry due to high levels of ghrelin hormone.

The good news is that in the morning of the second day of fasting if you do 42 hours for example, you don’t want to eat at all. Which is the same thing I feel during short fasts too.

Third, when you do prolonged fast you may feel coldness and low energy even though after about 24-36 hours (depending on the amount of glycogen in the liver) body should switch to using fat as main source of energy. Also, you may feel like going to sleep very early. Which is the case for me today, as usual when doing 42 hours fast.

Benefits of extended fasting

But, don’t forget that this is not in vain:

  1. During prolonged fasts you lose fat really fast.
  2. You have more time since you do not need to buy, cook or prepare food, unless you have kids. Then it sucks.
  3. You have an opportunity to look at your usual life from outside and see how our life is food-centric most of the time.
  4. Autophagy is in full swing only during prolonged fasts starting after 24 hours into fasting. I am not sure that 16/8 turns on autophagy at all (I’ll check this point in scientific papers later).

So there you have it


Extended fasting is challenging, but it comes with some benefits. If you don’t do it too frequently it can be even fun, when you do it with a partner, and kids are sent to spend time with grandpas and grandmas. And you use free time for walking, reading and sleeping.

How to lose weight and have fun doing it?

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

Can you lose fat and maintain your weight after this?

If you want to understand how to lose weight, then there are a couple of steps to follow to achieve this.

Pre-requisites

1. Check that you have no constraints that can prevent you from doing intermittent fasting. Which are

Do not try intermittent fasting if you are

  • a pregnant woman
  • a breastfeeding woman
  • underweight person
  • a child under 18 years old
  • has a medical condition that requires consultation with a doctor

Watch me!

2. I strongly recommend you to watch How to Avoid Insulin Resistance and Why it’s Important | Dr. Robert Lustig & Dr. Dom D’Agostino to understand how too much Insulin hormone that is released due to sugary and starchy foods and drinks consumption drives weight gain (fat gain). 

When you understand this simple thing then you can do three things below:

  • You can change what you eat to lessen or completely remove sugary and starchy foods and drinks from food you eat. This approach is also known as Insulin lowering diet (aka low-carb and Ketogenic diets)
  • Or you can go on an Intermittent Fasting lane and strive to do 16 hours long fast and 8 hours long eating window. It’s flexible and you can start from 12 hours fast, which means skipping your breakfast. It’s simple as that.
  • Or you can combine both of the above approaches.

3. Then if you feel like it you can start walking. As soon as you start losing weight (at first water) after stopping eating ultra processed food and sugar, you may find yourself more energetic and walking is a good thing to engage in.

4. At last, if you want to you can start doing resistance training using your own body (push-ups), resistance bands or dumbbells (these can be expensive to buy new, but you can find used ones at FB marketplace for example).

To summarize

For most of the people, it possible to lose weight without using drugs, surgeries and going to the gym by understanding that excessive amount of Insulin hormone is what is driving weight gain.

When you stop eating sugary and starchy foods, drinking sugary drinks all of which is called Ultra Processed food there is nothing that can prevent you from being healthier.

You can do it!

References:

The people that theirs advice I listen very carefully are:

  1. Benjamin Bikman, PhD – “Why We Get Sick”
  2. Jason Fung, MD – “The Obesity Code”
  3. Gary Taubes, investigative journalist – “Why We Get Fat”
  4. Mark Mattson, PhD – “Intermittent Fasting Revolution”
  5. Robert Lustig, MD – “Fat Chance”
  6. David Perlmutter, MD – “Drop Acid”
  7. Gin Stephens, author – “Fast. Feast. Repeat”
  8. Dr. Sten Ekberg (YouTuber)
  9. Dr. Berg (YouTuber)
  10. Thomas DeLauer (YouTuber)