Today I want to share with you my mindset around fasting. There are many healing-mechanisms that is activated when the body gets a rest from digesting food. But you also open up the door to your fat stores.

It is all about balance

Our bodies are built for feasting and fasting, it needs to have a balance between the eating and non-eating. If one side gets too much attention, either the feasting or the fasting, this is not good for us. It is all about balance. In the hunter and gatherer times this mechanism had a purpose to make sure that we could survive a few days without food.

To not be able to get a hold of food is today, for most of us, no longer a problem. But what we tend to forget is that our bodies are very much the same as back then. And if we do not live according to those times then things will start to go wrong with our metabolism.

The purpose of storing fat has changed

Instead of the extra fat storage being there for us to keep us alive. Being overweight is now a sign of  energy overload and essentially an energy toxicity. The ability to store fat is in today’s world now the way our bodies keep us safe by being able to store all of this excess energy. If we did not have this ability our blood sugars would skyrocket, and we would get severely sick. This is because high blood sugar damage the vessels that supply blood to vital organs, which increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, kidney disease, vision problems, and nerve problems. Unfortunately this only lasts for so long though. After 10, 15, 20 years these issues will eventually surface anyway as the body cannot keep this up and “save us” from this lifestyle forever.

Metabolic flexibility

The balance equation also goes for the metabolic flexibility; your body should be able to handle both sugar and fats. If you constantly give your body sugar, then it “forgets” how to use fat for fuel and if you only feed yourself fats then your mitochondria will eventually actually start to refuse the glucose. This is because it has learnt that the glucose should be spared for those organs that cannot survive without glucose, which is the brain for example.

Both of these phenomenon’s are reversible though by adding fats/sugar back into your diet again in a controlled manner. Your body will remember how this is done in a good way again if you give it some time.

Now let us talk about hormones for a second

As I started this post, fasting opens up the door your fat stores. Why is this? Well it is because when you fast you do not eat. When you do not eat you do not spike your blood sugar. This in turns allows for insulin to go down. Insulin is the fat storing hormone. If insulin is elevated – you will not be able to burn fat.

The understanding of hormones caters for my mindset around fasting

My baseline energy need is around 1800 calories. If I skip breakfast which is roughly 500 – 700 calories of my total calorie intake and fast instead, my body still have a need for those 500 – 700 calories. But since I am fasting and allowing my insulin to drop, my body will get those calories from its own fat stores instead. So essentially, I am not skipping a meal, I am allowing my body to tap into its own fat stores and get those calories from them instead of from food. And by training my “fasting muscle” this process gets easier and easier as I become better at switching between fat and glucose.