Fasting is a great way to lose body fat quickly and push you into the direction of better health. In terms of keeping your body weight low, fasting can definitely help you with this, as well as gaining muscle mass.

Keeping in mind, that fasting supposedly works, even if you do not alter your food choices, but I am not one to comment the effectiveness of a diet with processed foods, as I eat very well every day, allowing some indulgences a couple of times a week. I would say, that this is normally what people do trying to maintain low body fat. It’s been my strategy for many years. Therefore this is based on my own experiences, whilst on a very healthy, whole food diet.

When it comes to fasting, it’s the window of non eating that’s important. It allows our bodies to tap into fat reserves for energy, thus slowly diminishing those excessive stores of body fat we may have. In the fasting state, you also increase your HGH, which is a promoter of muscle mass accumulation and fat burning.

The reason why fasting is so effective is because of the diminishing levels of insulin. It actually plummets when fasting. Fasting provides the hormonal changes that are prevented when on a low calorie diet, and eating small meals all the time during the day. Therefore, it’s in the actual intermittency of fasting which makes all the difference.

When we are resistant to insulin, it’s very difficult to lose body fat and gain muscle mass. When we keep our levels of insulin low, for extended periods of time, we prevent becoming resistant to it. This is where the magic actually happens. Over time, you will notice that your body is better able to utilise nutrients. This happens at different times for individuals, but consistency in fasting is what matters. Those who pivot from short to long duration fasting every single day, may get to this point faster than those who only fast a couple of times per week.

Now, when it comes to your metabolism, fasting actually increase this rate. Fasting over 4 consecutive days has been shown to increase your metabolism by 12%, whilst also maintaining your VO2 max. It may also be interesting to note that twenty two days of alternate daily fasting also does not decrease your metabolism.

The trigger is this: Fasting produces hormonal adaptations, insulin drops which helps to prevent insulin resistance, noradrenalin rises, keeping the metabolism high. Then we have a rising of growth hormone that maintains lean muscle mass as well as increasing our potential to grow lean muscle.

This pretty much sums up the adaptations that fasting is responsible for – this is why it’s so effective and popular. It’s possibly the most easiest and realistic lifestyle plan anyone can have. People don’t only use it as a means to lose body fat, but to also get back their health and increase longevity.

Hopefully this has helped you to better understand2 metabolism and how fasting effects this, as well as the advantages for building muscle mass. If you appreciate this, why not stick with my ranting via my website or join me on fb and insta social. Please feel free to upvote this answer if it has been useful in some way to you.

Research finding has been taken from an article by Dr Jason Fung.

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