In this video I'm gonna take you through seven frequently asked questions in regards to fasting.
So if you've been thinking about fasting, or maybe you've just heard about it on the
grapevine, you know somebody that does it, stick around because we're going to jump straight
into it after the intro.
So let me start things off by just putting it out there that I'm not an expert in this
whole topic.
I have practised it for around about six or so years now, and I have done a lot of reading
and research of my own, and I have practised it with my clients, and also I've learnt a
lot from people that are a lot smarter than me on this subject such as Martin Berkhan,
Brad Pilon, and other dietary, or "food people" that I look up to such as Alan Aragon and
Leigh Peele.
And also in saying all of that, the fasting video I put out recently where I recommended
trying out a 24 hour fast, is not something that I always do personally.
But it's just a good little bit of homework to see what your capabilities are, see where
you're at in regards to your mind control and also just to notice those hunger cravings.
And while I have learnt a lot from people like Martin Berkhan, who runs the Lean Gains
website, which is kinda like the pioneer website for intermittent fasting, I don't see what
I do as that now.
I kinda have adjusted and just sort of made it my own diet that suits my lifestyle.
And in saying that typical intermittent fasting programs promote the whole 16 hour fast with
the 8 hour eating window for men, and then the 10 hour eating and the 14 hour fast for
women.
That's just not something that I tend to stick to all the time.
I like kinda just to eat with how my lifestyle is.
So maybe I'm too busy on certain days and I can only eat 4-5 hours in the whole day,
and sometimes it's 10 hours.
I don't always stick to that nice 16:8 ratio that they do promote in that whole diet.
And what that means for me is that it just opens up more flexibility.
Which is why I chose this style of eating in the first place.
So getting all that out of the way, what I also want to say here is that everything that
I say in this video is not gospel.
I want you to definitely go seek out more advice, go do your own reading and research,
go talk to your doctor especially if you might have health issues.
What I'm going to talk about in this video is my own research, my own knowledge, and
I guess my own anecdotes, kinda what I have noticed in my own diets and the people around
me that I have promoted to try out this style of eating.
So let's get straight into it.
Question 1: Will Fasting Ruin Your Metabolism?
Now this question comes up a lot, a lot of people are really concerned with what actually
goes on when they stop eating.
Because people are so used to eating all the time, as soon as you tell them to stop eating,
or just restrict a certain window of eating, they sometimes can kinda get freaked out.
Some of them say that they feel faint or get dizzy, other people just can't handle the
hunger cravings.
But the ruining the metabolism is definitely a myth here, and two things come to mind when
talking about metabolism in regards to fasting.
One being: thermic effect of food, which I talked about in my previous video on fasting.
And that's in relation to how many calories are burnt each time that you eat a meal.
So generally it is said about 10% of calories are burnt upon consumption of food.
So obviously type of food, macronutrient ratios, play a part in this 10%, but that's just kinda
like a nice number to look at.
As discussed in the previous video where I talked about if you ate say, a 200 calorie
meal, you'd be burning about 20 calories.
And if you ate five of those meals, you would have a total overall calorie consumption of
around about 1000.
And with the 10% deduction off that you're gonna be taking away 100 of those calories.
And if we, say, split up those thousand overall calories into two 500 calorie meals, you're
going to be burning 50 each time that you ate them.
So you're gonna still be left with a hundred calories being burnt from TEF alone.
So it doesn't really matter what you eat.
Whether it be the two 500 calories meals or the five 200 calorie meals, you're gonna still
be burning around about 100 calories from TEF.
So that kinda wipes the whole possibility of "stoking the metabolic fire" which a lot
of people say, you know: 'you gotta be eating every 2-3 hours to be spiking that metabolism,
to be burning that fat', and it's just simply not the case in this regard.
And another quick point that comes up with this whole metabolism question is digestion
rates.
And it is said that if you're eating a proper meal, a proper nutrient dense meal, consisting
of a good amount of protein, fats, and carbohydrates, that you're looking at up to 6-7 hours for
your body to completely digest and break down those food molecules.
It seems to me that those two points are classic worries when it comes to fasting and metabolism
in general.
But I do implore you here to do your own research on those points that I did discuss.
So question number two is What Types of Fasting Methods Are Out There?
And obviously I've talked about one of the more popular ones being Intermittent Fasting
at the start of this video.
But there are other time restricted eating methods such as the 5/2 and the 6/1 diet whereby
people will eat at regular or maintenance calories for five days, or the six days, and
then fast for the remaining days of the week.
This method works well for a lot of people because they don't really have to stress about
dieting down or being hungry all the time, they can just eat at normal amounts and then
just completely restrict their calories for the remaining days.
Other methods of fasting out there consist of prolonged periods of fasting whereby people
will restrict their eating for 24 right up to 72 hours.
This is really beneficial for certain people, but this is just another topic in general,
so I'm going to leave it right there on this video.
Again, I do implore you to do your own research and find the style of eating that suits your
lifestyle.
So question number three is Why Fast?
And the list of benefits when it comes fasting is definitely becoming extensive.
A lot of research is coming out on it, a lot of people are jumping on board and trying
it out for themselves and experiencing the benefits.
And just like I talked about in my previous fasting video where I talked about autophagy,
which occurs around about the 12 hour mark, and it's responsible for cell deletion and
cell restoration.
So basically like a reset of your body.
That's definitely one benefit here.
Other benefits here include psychological power where you know when you are hungry or
you're just desiring just another snack just because you're used to eating like that.
Suiting your lifestyle so you don't have to worry about carrying around all the tupperware
containers to work.
You know, making them every night.
Improving mood and energy levels.
Enabling more time to be productive.
So you're not worrying "oh I better go eat another meal, it's been two hours!".
Allowing yourself to be more satisfied when you do actually eat.
You know, if you're eating six smaller meals, they're just kinda bite sized and you're like
"oh yeah, cool, I've finished eating."
But you consider eating six smaller bite-sized meals or just eating three square meals.
And a final one here is an increase in certain hormones such as dopamine, the two adrenaline
hormones, and also becoming more insulin sensitive.
Which means that your body is better at decreasing elevated blood glucose levels after consumption
of food.
But in saying all that, please keep in mind that fasting is not some magic tool or pill,
you still gotta worry about overall calories, types of food, nutrient timing, all those
types of things still play a role in how your body responds to what diet you undertake.
Question number four is Should You Fast?
And after saying everything in question three, it seems like yeah maybe you should give it
a go, but you've still gotta take into consideration things like your own age, your gender, your
body fat percentage, your activity levels, whether your pregnant or not, and also one
big thing here is your goals.
Does it suit your lifestyle?
What are you trying to achieve when you do fast?
I guess the real answer here is: it depends.
Maybe you need to think about it some more.
Do some more reading.
Talk to your doctor about it.
You've just gotta determine whether or not it suits your lifestyle and what you're trying
to achieve overall.
So question number five is How Often Should You Fast?
And this question comes up a lot when talking about fasting.
But, like I discussed in the previous questions, you've gotta determine what you're trying
to achieve when you're doing this.
You've also gotta determine what style of fasting you're thinking about.
So maybe you're thinking about intermittent fasting or the 5/2 style of eating, or perhaps
the 24 hour fast once a month.
I do recommend that you try out a 24 hour fast first.
This seems to be a good homework exercise for a lot of people so that they can experience
what goes on and see how they feel about the whole fasting side of things.
Question number six is What Should You Eat Before And After Fasting?
This is a real simple one to answer.
You've just gotta always look for proper food, so restricting that packaged stuff, you wanna
make sure that you're eating a good amount of fibrous vegetables, good amount of protein,
good amount of good fats before and after.
Don't overeat when it comes to breaking the fast.
So you might feel really hungry as the time ticks and it gets closer to when you can break
your fast and have your break-fast.
But don't go crazy here.
Don't overdo it.
Just eat what a normal meal would be to you in your normal day-to-day life.
Another thing to consider whether or not your physically active.
So, I tend to break my fast after training or at least within a 3-4 hour window after
training.
And that just allows me to eat a nice amount of vegetables, good amount of protein, a bit
of starchy carbohydrate too if I want to.
The main thing here is just to be consistent.
You don't wanna be overdoing it when you can break your fast.
And you wanna aim for proper real food.
And finally question number seven is What Are You Allowed During The Fast?
Now, the opinion here differs between method to method, and from advocate to advocate.
But always the logic is to consume water, limit your coffees but you know, you're allowed
one or two black coffees during the fast, you can have one or two pieces of chewing
gum, tea is obviously fine but just don't overdo it with the milk and the sugars.
Methods like intermittent fasting allow 40 calories or so during the fast, so that obviously
enables a little bit of milk in your coffee or whatnot.
But again, this is all individual preferences.
What style suits you?
What do you want to achieve?
I tend to only have one, maybe two black coffees during my fast.
I have one to two pieces of chewing gum.
There is discussion about when you're chewing you're going to be stimulating digestive enzymes,
so if you're chewing gum you're going to be stimulating that whole digestion process.
Also in regards to drinking coffee, you're still gonna be stimulating some sort of digestion
process.
But this is obviously going to differ from individual to individual and what they're
trying to achieve.
And obviously people are going to differ in regards to: perhaps they've chewed gum all
their life and their body just knows they're not actually consuming food, so they're not
going to be secreting those digestive enzymes so much.
I guess the main points when it comes to these seven questions is that it really does vary
from individual to individual.
You have to determine what your goals are when it comes to fasting.
Perhaps you need to do more reading, think a little bit more, talk to some people that
know a little bit more about it then you do.
But really this whole fasting world is just another style of eating that can suit certain
people's lifestyle.
So you just have to consider that when it comes to it.
But in any case, I hope these seven questions have helped you in some way.
Perhaps some of them were on your mind and now they've been answered.
Hey guys, Hayden here.
I did this video as a bit of a follow-up to my previous fasting video.
So if you did happen to watch that, and you had questions after viewing it, hopefully
they were answered in this video.
Obviously it's real hard to hit every single question and therefore answer every single
question perfectly.
But hopefully I did do some sort of justice in this one.
Let me know what you thought of it.
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
And I do recommend that you check out those guys that I mentioned at the start of the
video.
Leigh Peele, Alan Aragon, Brad Pilon, and of course, Martin Berkhan.
I'm gonna link their websites down below in the description alongside the other fasting
video.
So if you did happen to miss it or you just don't know what I'm talking about, go there
and it might answer some more questions or help you see things a little bit more clearly.
I just wanna say as well that it's hard to put everything into a video as short as this.
So I implore you to do your own research, check out those links below, and maybe watch
some other YouTube videos out there, too.
Other than that, leave a like if you enjoyed it, hit that subscribe button if you want
more videos like this.
And I guess that's it for this week, so thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.