fastingo 16:8 (fast for 16 hours: eat within 8 hours) o 20:4 (fast for 20 hours: eat within 4 hours)...

Fasting

“How-To” A Complete Guide to Getting Started by Dr. Becky Gillaspy

• The Best Way to Start

• 6 Common Mistakes to Avoid

• 3 Ways to Make Fasting MUCH Easier

copyright © 2020 Dr. Becky Fitness, LLC. All Rights Reserved. This content is for educational purposes only. 2

Getting Started Intermittent fasting is all about timing. By consciously dividing the day between times to

eat and times to fasting, you can lose weight and gain health.

A review study published in the Annual Review of Nutrition found that modifying eating

patterns to include fasting improved many metabolic health markers. They also

concluded that almost any intermittent fasting regimen could result in weight loss (1).

So, which fasting method is right for you? The answer has a lot to do with your lifestyle,

work schedule, and goals. Let’s start by looking at common ways to practice fasting.

Types of Fasts

While there are numerous ways to incorporate fasting into your routine, here are the

three general methods.

• Time-Restricted Eating. This method is popular and involves splitting your day

between a period of eating and fasting. If you’ve ever heard someone say that

they practice 16:8 Intermittent fasting, what they are saying is that they fast for 16

hours and consume food within the remaining 8 hours of the day.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-nutr-071816-064634


Other common Time-Restricted Eating methods include:

o 12:12 (fast for 12 hours: eat within 12 hours)




o 23:1 (a.k.a. One-Meal-A-Day or OMAD) (fast for 23 hours: eat within 1

hour)

• Alternate Day Fasting. The concept of fasting one day and feasting another is

known as alternate day fasting. There are two camps when it comes to this type

of fast.

o The more extreme version is to consume no calories for 24 to 36 hours

and then eat whatever you want within your eating window the next day

(2).

o The less extreme version is referred to as Modified Alternate Day Fasting.

This modification allows you to eat about 25% of your normal caloric intake

on your fasting day, which is often simplified to allowing 500 calories on

those fasting days.

• Prolonged or Extended Fasts. These fasting schedules involve fasting for longer

than one day. While there are potential benefits with longer fasts, including

weight loss and reduced insulin levels, there are also risks. These risks include,

but are not limited to, complications for people with diabetes, heart patients, and

those taking medications. If extending your fast is something that you’re

interested in, you’ll do best to do so while being monitored by your doctor.

5:2 Fasting

The 5:2 diet is like alternate day fasting and is another way to bring intermittent

fasting into your weekly routine.

It involves eating as you normally would for five days and then limiting your calories

to 500 (women) or 600 (men) calories for the remaining two days of the week. You

can choose which days to fast as long as you do not do them back to back. For

instance, fasting on a Friday and Sunday would fit this method.

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdfExtended/S1550-4131(19)30429-2


The Best Way to Start Fasting

You can jump into any method of intermittent fasting, but if you’re just getting started, I

recommend 12:12 Intermittent Fasting.

This method requires you to split your day into two 12-hour periods that cycle between

eating and fasting.

A 12:12 fast can also be thought of as an overnight fast. For instance, if you’ve ever had

a blood test scheduled for the morning, you were likely told to stop eating after dinner

and fast overnight. Performing a 12:12 intermittent fast is no more complicated than

that.

The benefits of starting with this short method are that it allows you to get comfortable

with the idea of fasting and helps your body acclimate to the change. Once you feel

comfortable at this level, you can add hours to your fast.

A schedule for getting started with fasting:

• Week 1: 12 hours of fasting each day (i.e., 7 PM to 7 AM)

• Week 2: 14 hours of fasting on the weekdays and 12 hours on the weekends

• Week 3: 16 hours of fasting on the weekdays and 14 hours on the weekends

• Week 4: 16 hours of fasting every day of the week


6 Common Intermittent Fasting Mistakes

Fasting is a tool that anyone can use to accelerate fat loss, but some mistakes can

make it harder than it has to be.

Mistake # 1: Too Much, Too Soon

The first mistake is trying to do too much too soon. If you spend any time on social

media, it is hard to avoid testimonials from people who have lost weight using

intermittent fasting.

This proof may encourage you to give it a try yourself, but if you jump right into a 16-

hour fast or longer, you may find yourself battling hunger and anxiety.

If you’re new to fasting, you’ll be happiest with your experience if you start with a shorter

fasting period. As I discussed in the last section, 12:12 fasting is a great entry-level

starting point that will provide benefits and that you can easily build on as your diet and

comfort level improves.

The 6 Mistakes At-A-Glance

• Trying to do too much too soon

• Eating a diet high in carbs (particularly refined carbs)

• Expecting too much from fasting alone

• Calorie creep (common with coffee drinkers)

• Eating too late at night

• Poor lifestyle habits (i.e., sleep, stress)


Mistake #2: Eating a High-Carb Diet

The second mistake is continuing to eat a high-carb diet. In particular, a diet that

contains refined carbs like bread, energy bars, pasta, and sweetened drinks or soda.

These foods cause your blood sugar levels to rise and then fall, which makes it hard to

go for long periods without food.

When your blood sugar dips, your body does not have readily accessible energy

available. Because your metabolism is running on carbs, you crave carbs.

You’ll find that your comfort level with fasting dramatically increases when you switch

your metabolism from being a good sugar burner to being a good fat burner. You do that

by adhering to a low-carb diet.

Low-carb diets work because they rob the body of those quick-burning carbs. This

forces your body to get adapt to burning fat for fuel. When your body has made that

transition, blood sugar levels stay steady. If there is no energy coming in from food, your

body pulls the energy it needs from body fat.


Mistake #3: Expecting Too Much

Adapting to a fat-burning diet leads me into the third mistake, which is expecting too

much from intermittent fasting alone.

While it is possible to see weight loss results right away when you start intermittent

fasting, fasting results can stall if you eat a poor diet or you have a metabolism that has

been slowed due to years of poor food choices. It is best to look at intermittent fasting as

a tool to enhance your weight loss strategy.

Having said that, intermittent fasting can have positive health and weight loss effects in

anyone, even those among us that carry some metabolic debt from the past. If you avoid

these next three mistakes, you can get the most out of intermittent fasting.

Mistake #4: Calorie Creep

A common mistake that I see is what I will call “calorie creep.” For the purists out there,

a fast means that no calories are consumed. However, many people like to have coffee

with cream or other fats in the mornings that they are fasting.

My husband and I tested coffee with cream and other fats to see how they would affect

our fast. What we found was even though the coffees contained calories that our bodies

needed to burn, they did not move us out of fat-burning mode making them ok to

consume.

It is important to note that

we tested one serving of fat

in a cup of coffee over two

hours.

If you are drinking three or

four cups of coffee each

morning and adding cream

to each cup, your calories

are creeping up to a point

where your body’s energy

needs are being met.

With your body’s energy

demand satisfied, your

body doesn't need to pull

energy out of body fat.


Mistake #5: Eating Too Late at Night

Another mistake is eating too late into the evening. While research is just starting to

show up on the best time to intermittent fast, the indications seem to be that fasting in

accordance with your natural circadian rhythm gives you the most benefit (3).

In the evening hours, your circadian clock influences the production of hormones that

prepare you for restorative sleep. Eating three hours before bed can work against this

hormonal balance.

Melatonin is a hormone that helps your body prepare for sleep. As it increases in the

evening hours, it triggers a decrease in the production of insulin by your pancreas. Since

insulin is needed to lower blood sugar, a late meal could cause your blood sugar level to

stay elevated throughout the nighttime hours (4).

That late-night meal will also cause blood flow to be directed to the digestive tract, which

keeps your core temperature elevated, making it hard for you to drop into the deep sleep

needed for repair and restoration.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.22449

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-009-1359-y


Mistake #6: Poor Lifestyle Issues

That ties into the final mistake

to discuss, which is lifestyle

issues that lead to poor sleep or

high stress. These factors

make it difficult for your body to

burn fat.

Poor sleep increases the

production of cortisol which is

commonly referred to as your

stress hormone.

Chronic stress, along with poor

sleep, results in chronically high

levels of cortisol.

As cortisol increases, so does

your blood glucose level, which

acts as a barrier to fat loss.

You can do all the right things

when it comes to intermittent

fasting, but if your stress level is high and your sleep is poor, your body will not be able

to burn the fat that you’re hoping to lose.

3 Ways to Make Intermittent Fasting

MUCH Easier Even when you know the advantages of fasting and you know how to avoid mistakes, it

can feel intimidating to think about going without food for 16 hours or more.

From working with thousands of individuals, here are three things that I have found to

make fasting much easier.


1. Stop Eating 3 Hours Before Bed!

You’ll find it much easier to complete your fast if you make it a rule to stop eating three

hours before bedtime. Think about the normal time that you go to bed, count back three

hours, and declare that time the end of your eating day.

This rule has benefits:

• When you avoid late-night eating your body has time to digest dinner before you

get in bed, improving sleep.

o When you eat late at night, blood flow is directed toward your stomach.

This raises your core temperature and makes it harder to fall into the deep

sleep needed for full rest.

o When you don’t sleep soundly, cravings are more pronounced.

• The three-hour-before-bed rule also allows you to avoid late-night snacking,

which is a habit that can easily derail a weight loss plan.


2. Add Fat to Your Coffee or Tea!

Another way to make intermittent fasting easier is to add fat to your coffee or tea. The

purists out there say that taking in fat calories breaks your fast and in the purest sense, I

agree. However, fat causes little or no rise in insulin, which is the hormone that kicks

your body out of fat-burning.

If you’re looking to use intermittent fasting as a long-term weight-loss strategy or having

trouble getting started, that pure fat will help take the edge off of hunger. As soon as

those calories are used, your body will return to burning body fat. Just be careful to

avoid “calorie creep” as I discussed on the last section. Avoid adding multiple servings

of cream to your coffee or tea. And, consider trying MCT oil.

When my husband and I tested different fats in coffee, we found that consuming MCT oil

improved our fast. With MCT oil stirred into our coffee we experienced a rise in ketones

and a drop in glucose over the two-hour testing period. That was a favorable state,

which suggested that our bodies were staying in fat-burning mode.

I suggest starting with a teaspoon of MCT oil to see how your body tolerates it and then

work up to a tablespoon if you’re feeling good. MCT oil can be found on Amazon.com.

The brand we use is Left Coast and found on our Amazon Affiliate Shop.

3. Become Fat Adapted!

The third tip is to get yourself fat-adapted

before you start practicing intermittent fasting.

According to Dr. Stephen Phinney and the

Virta Team, being fat adapted means that you

are restricting carbs enough to induce an

increase in fat burning.

When this adaptation has taken place, you are

no longer subjected to the blood sugar swings

that happen on a high-carb diet. It is these

blood sugar swings that cause the rapid onset

of hunger, which can force you to stop your

fast.

When you’re fat-adapted, your body is able to

easily convert fat to energy. Since there is a

vast supply stored on our bodies, our energy stays steady and we become free of

hunger and cravings.

The length of time it takes your body to become fat-adapted will depend on many

factors. The most important thing that you can do to reach this state quickly is to reduce

your daily carb intake. Would you like a guide to follow?

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References:

(1) Patterson, Ruth E., and Dorothy D. Sears. “Metabolic effects of intermittent

fasting.” Annual review of nutrition 37 (2017).

(2) Stekovic, Slaven, et al. “Alternate day fasting improves physiological and molecular

markers of aging in healthy, non-obese humans.” Cell metabolism 30.3 (2019): 462-476.

(3) Hutchison, Amy T., et al. “Time‐Restricted Feeding Improves Glucose Tolerance in

Men at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized Crossover Trial.” Obesity (2019).

(4) Mulder, Hindrik, et al. “Melatonin receptors in pancreatic islets: good morning to a

novel type 2 diabetes gene.” Diabetologia 52.7 (2009): 1240-1249.

https://www.drbeckyfitness.com/get-started-2/

https://www.drbeckyfitness.com/21-day-low-carb-challenge-lp/

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https://www.drbeckyfitness.com/21-day-keto-challenge/

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fastingo 16:8 (fast for 16 hours: eat within 8 hours) o 20:4 (fast for 20 hours: eat within 4 hours)...

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