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
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.
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Other common Time-Restricted Eating methods include:
o 12:12 (fast for 12 hours: eat within 12 hours)
o 14:10 (fast for 14 hours: eat within 10 hours)
o 16:8 (fast for 16 hours: eat within 8 hours)
o 20:4 (fast for 20 hours: eat within 4 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.
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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
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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.
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 # 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 16hour 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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