Losing Fat: A Guide for the Lazy (Part II - Fasting)

In Part I of this series, I covered some elements of food choice, and, more specifically, how we can cause ourselves to spontaneously eat in accordance with a much healthier level of food intake, conducive to a lower, more natural, level of defended body-fattedness.

Today, I want to turn to another effective tool that can allow us to spontaneously eat less; though this method may seem a bit more controversial.  As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I'm talking about fasting.

In My Defense

Now, before you decide to hang my neck to high heaven for suggesting that fasting can be a viable (and healthy) tool in our fat loss arsenal, understand that I'm not talking about starvation dieting.  There's a very real difference between an occasional "break" from food, and chronic deprivation from food.  Moreover, realize that what I'm proposing we do is nothing radical or "new."

Cultures across the world have been practicing some form of fasting for thousands of years.  Even in early Christianity, fasting 2 days a week was a regular and common practice.

Also, relatively recent research seems to suggest that fasting can be an effective tool for improving health and aiding in weight loss.

If you really want to dig into the potential benefits of fasting, there are two experts (who in my mind at least) are the most coherent and logically oriented thinkers on this issue:  Martin Berkhan (a Swedish nutritionist and one "shredded" son of gun) and Brad Pilon (a nutritionist from Canada ay!).

These two are considered the leading giants in the field (if you want to call it a field) of fasting research.  These two both have done an excellent job of tackling many of the myths and fears surrounding fasting.  I strongly recommend checking out Berkhan's site (linked above.  Warning!  Berkhan is not averse to using less than savory word choice) and Brad's book, Eat Stop Eat (probably one of the best resources on fasting research I have ever seen).

While these two differ in their implementation of fasting, their justifications for its usage are complimentary.

But, my goal today is not to defend fasting (Brad and Martin have already made a powerful case for me).  Rather, my goal is prescriptive, not descriptive.

Let's Do Some Math (Yeah! Math!)

Now, we know that losing fat is a mater of eating less energy in the form of calories than your body expends. But, does it make a difference if we look at the implications of this equation of energy balance over the course of a longer time span than a day?  What I'm asking is, say we need a weekly caloric deficit of 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat (ruling out the fact that weight loss doesn't intrinsically work so simply).  Does it really make a difference if I eat at a 500 calorie deficit every day of the week, or if I eat at a 1,750 calorie deficit just 2 days out of the week, all the while eating a normal amount of calories the other 5 days a week.

Brad, Martin, and I say "no."  You of course won't lose 1/2 a pound of fat by not eating 1,750 calories in a single day.  But, the long term implications of this acute caloric deficit will play out over the course of the next several days.  Thus, over the span of a week, your weight loss would be no different whether you ate at a caloric deficit every day of the week or if you implemented 2 big caloric deficits 2 days out of the week.

It doesn't matter what we eat or when we eat.  It matters how much we eat. (read that again!)

Now, I'm not saying that we don't have to eat plenty of whole foods.  Understand, though, that diets of strictly whole foods such as paleo, or elimination diets such as Atkins, cause us to spontaneously eat less.  This is because these diets do a number of important things which decrease our psychological drive to eat to excess.  1) they reduce the variety of foods we have to choose from.  2) the foods they allow us to eat are often higher in protein, fiber, and water (characteristics which have been shown to improve the satiety of food).  Thus, diets which restrict our food selection or force us to eat foods higher in protein, fiber, and water change our brain's perception of how much food it should impel us to eat.  WE EAT LESS!

Fasting, likewise, can be used to allow us to eat less.  By simply taking a "break" from food for 1 or 2 days out of the week, and by continuing to eat "normally" for the rest of the week (by normally, I mean not using the "breaks" from food as an excuse to overeat or eat more than you otherwise would when you do eat), we can achieve weight loss.

Moreover, if we can combine fasting with the dietary guidelines I offered in Part I of this series, we can perhaps greatly improve our chances of losing weight (which were already quite high to begin with!).

But How to Go About Fasting?

There are really two types of fasting we have to choose from.  The first is called "intermittent fasting" (IF).  This consists of taking intermittent breaks from eating, such as a 24 hour fast 1-2x per week.  This is the method espoused by Brad Pilon.  Brad's method is really quite simple.  Just don't eat anything for a 24 hour period 1-2x a week (with at least 48 hours between fasts), and eat normally the rest of the time.

The other method we might refer to as "intermittent feasting."  This is the method used by Martin Berkhan.  This method entails a daily fast of 14-20 hours and a 4-10 hour "eating window" in which you consume your daily allotment of calories.  Some people have even taken this method to the extreme by eating just one meal a day (and a monstrous meal it is!).

Which one is for you?

Ultimately, the choice is yours as to which method would best suit you.  One is not in and of itself better.  It's just a matter of which one is better for you and your life circumstances.

Some people find the intermittent fasting approach much more convenient and less invasive to their daily lives.  This is because you can, with this method, begin your 24 hour fast at any time of the day (i.e. you can fast breakfast to breakfast, lunch to lunch, dinner to dinner, etc.).  In my experience, lunch to lunch and dinner to dinner seem to work pretty well from a psychological stand point (but do what suits you best).

Others, however, find a 24 hour fast too intrusive and difficult to accomplish.  For these people, a more moderate daily fast of 16-18 hours might be a more attractive option.  This method permits people to eat some incredibly massive meals.  Many may find that the sacrifice of daily fasting is well worth the rewards of eating large and filling meals.  In my personal experience, this method can be pretty fun.  I've used this method of intermittent feasting to eat entire boxes of crispy rice cereal in one sitting with protein powder "milk," to great effect.  Moreover, I ate these sorts of massive meals at night (a time when mainstream health "experts" claim I would be primed for storing my food as fat!), without gaining any amount of fat.  In fact, I lost fat.  Grant it, I did count calories, but this fact only serves to illustrate the point which I've already made:  It's how much we eat, not what or when, that determines weight loss or weight gain.  I've yet to see any legitimate research that has proven otherwise.

So, whatever method of fasting you choose (intermittent fasting, intermittent feasting, or some conglomerate of both), understand that it's the long term balance of energy in vs. energy out that will ultimately determine whether you gain or lose fat.  Don't deceive yourself, and don't be deceived by the flashy promises of health and wellness gurus (Dr. Oz) who just over-hype this or that weight loss tool in order to convince you that anything other than eating less is what truly matters.

Concluding Remarks

We've covered two viable tools that we can use to lose weight:  food choice, and fasting.  

Whether you want to use one, the other, or both is purely up to you.  People have reported seeing results with both independent of the other.

The Big Picture

We can see that by manipulating both the what and the when of eating, we can lose weight.  But, ultimately, changing the what and the when only work because they lead to a change in how much.

I tend to think that an effective lifestyle change requires us to manipulate the what and when to a certain extent, but how this change manifests itself can vary from person to person.

Keep in mind that the changes in food choice I proposed in Part I of this series, and the changes for when you eat that I've suggested in this post, will only be effective in the long term if you can make them work as a part of a lifestyle change.  My overriding admonition to you is this:  FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKS WELL AND WORKS WELL FOR YOU.  If that's a certain "diet," that's great!  If it's fasting, awesome!  If it's just counting calories and macros, that's cool too!

To be as redundant as possible:  IF IT WORKS, IT WORKS!

So what will work for you?  Well, only you can figure out the answer.

That's it till Part III of this series wherein I'll talk about resistance training and other modes of activity which can greatly improve the effectiveness and healthfulness of our weight loss efforts.