How To Fast Properly To Lose Weight

At any give time, you have at least 100,000 calories worth of energy in the form of body fat waiting to be used.

Intermittent fasting is an unbelievably powerful way to start burning those fat stores for energy. But there are rules to intermittent fasting. This is why some people get amazing results and some people don’t. There’s definitely a right way

And in this video, I’m gonna show you how to fast properly to lose weight.

 

How To Fast Properly To Lose Weight

The first thing you need to do if you want to know how to fast properly to lose weight is…

1. Don’t start with intermittent fasting.

There are levels to this.

What I mean by that is if you’re someone who’s got really bad eating habits. Your diet is complete junk. Learning how to fast properly to lose weight is not something you want to start with.

You need to fix your diet first.

And this isn’t even about whether you should do Paleo, Zone, or Keto. Should you do IIFYM or should you go vegan? No. And we’ll get to that in a second.

You need to stop eating like an asshole first.

If your idea of a daily diet is you start the day by eating a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast. Or you stop by your closest drive thru and get a breakfast sandwich. Then you eat a granola bar or a protein bar as a snack. Or your idea of eating vegetables is eating the lettuce on a Big Mac, then you need to fix that first.

It’s not always about going from 0 to 100. You’re not a light switch. You’re more like a radio knob. What I mean by that is if you’re at a 10, you need to work your way down to a 9, then an 8, then down to a 7, and so on.

Like I said, there are rules to this.

If you’re someone who eats chips, cookies, and candy. Then you need to replace that with healthier alternatives like nuts, cheese, hard boiled eggs, and dark chocolate.

If you have no choice but to eat out, then you need to start with making better decisions. Maybe skip the fries and order a side salad or skip the bun on your burger.

If you’re somebody who drinks 3-5 cans of coke a day, then maybe start by replacing that with diet coke. And diet coke is still not the greatest. But again, you have to start somewhere. And then you slowly wanna wean your way off of it. Bring it down to two cans a day, then one. Then replace it with club soda or just plain old water.

If you’re somebody who snacks all day. If you eat 6 meals a day or more. You need to cut that down to 5, then 4, and then 3, and just eat like a normal human being.

A lot of people struggle mightily and fail miserably when they’re learning how to fast properly to lose weight. Because they find out about intermittent fasting, they do it, but they still have the worst eating habits.

They’re extremely addicted to food. They’re extremely addicted to sugar. They have chronically high insulin levels. Then they do intermittent fasting, or worse, they jump into an extended fast. So they get really hungry, they get headaches, they get hangry, they have the worst time doing it, so they quit. They feel like a failure. They say that it doesn’t work for them.

Actually it’s perfectly normal for you to feel like crap because your body is literally freaking out. It’s literally going through carb withdrawals.

Here’s the thing. If you just do the things I mentioned above and get to a proper baseline with your diet. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised how good you’re going to feel, how much more energy you’ll have, and how much weight you’re going to lose.

Only then should you even start thinking about intermittent fasting. If you don’t, you a literally rowing upstream for no reason.

Now, once you’ve made those changes comes step number two.

2. Picking a fasting schedule that fits your lifestyle.

Look at your schedule. Do you have kids? Do you make food for your kids? Are you single? Do you need to have to have a sit down meal with your family? Do you work during the day or at night? Are you on shift work? What kind of work do you do? Do you do physical labour? Do you like to go out on weekends?

Once you evaluate those things, then you need to look at where you can fit intermittent fasting to your schedule. This is important because you want to schedule your fast around your life, not the other way around. You want to turn this into a lifestyle. This isn’t something that you do temporarily.

For example, for a lot of people with a 9-5 job, skipping breakfast is usually pretty easy. So if you do that, you’ll just have lunch and dinner and if you eat those two meals within an 8 hour eating window, then there’s your 16 hour fast.

If you don’t have a regular schedule, you’ll have to be a little bit more creative with your fasting window.

Speaking of a 16 hour fast. In my opinion, the 16 hour fast is the bare minimum if you want to know how to fast properly to lose weight. Some people might say that a 14 hour fast also works. Maybe, if you’re just starting out. But you’ll most likely get slower results.

But again, there are levels to this. It’s better than nothing. But if you want to see results, the 16 hour fast is your bare minimum. And ideally, you’re only eating two meals within your 8 hour eating window.

At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. If you eat 6 meals a day, and you go down to 3, you’re probably gonna lose weight. If you go down to two, you’re going to lose even more weight.

But again, it has to fat your schedule and your lifestyle.

3. How To Fast Properly To Lose Weight – Be flexible with it.

The good thing about intermittent fasting is the flexibility it gives you. If you get invited out to a kids party and there’s cake but it’s not time to break your fast yet, feel free to enjoy yourself. You can always adjust your eating window.

Now, I want to build on that idea of flexibility in that there’s this thing called life happens. You have weddings, birthdays, celebrations, thanksgiving, Christmas, your dog’s birthday, and so on.

The good thing about intermittent fasting is that it’s okay when those things come about. It’s okay to have a “cheat meal” here and there. Especially if you plan for it.

This concept actually goes with our genetic programming. Our Paleolithic ancestors would come across a tree with honey and they most likely ate the entire thing.

I believe in the 90/10 rule when it comes to achieving long term sustainable results. 90% of the time, you’re sticking to the program, you’re not eating like an asshole.

Then 10% of the time, when “life” happens, you’re okay. You can enjoy yourself guilt free. You can eat the honey.

Having that type of flexibility increase adherence drastically. The best diet is the one you can stick to. The best intermittent fasting schedule is the one you can follow. That’s how to to fast properly to lose weight.

If you’re following a diet that doesn’t allow for life events to happen, you’re doing it wrong.

Is it better to fast 7 days a week? Absolutely. Will you still get results if you fasted for 6 days and had a cheat meal with the other one day? You bet.

Just remember that you’re one good meal away from being back on track.

4. Stick to a zero tolerance policy when you fast.

This should be obvious if you want to know how to fast properly to lose weight.

You cannot eat anything during your fast. Period.

The whole point of fasting is to burn your own body fat for energy. So when you consume calories, your body has to process it. And if you’re processing those calories, you’re not burning your own fat.

And then I always get asked these questions Can I drink this, or can I drink that during a fast? Can I drink diet coke or gatorade zero? Somebody asked me the other day if they can vape. The answer is, no.

I’m going to give you three things you’re allowed to drink. Water or fizzy water, coffee, and tea. I guess that’s four. That’s it. You can put a tiny splash of heavy cream in your coffee and it’s not going to be the end of the world. But that’s it.

The 4 things that I just mentioned have little to no calories and it doesn’t interfere with your fast. It doesn’t trigger an insulin response. Because once you trigger an insulin response, you’ve just broken your fast.

Again, the whole point of intermittent fasting is taking a break from eating and drinking liquid calories, it’s not a matter of finding out what you can get away with. That defeats the purpose.

That’s another thing that I want to mention is that some “experts” out there push artificial sweeteners during a fast and I’m not really a big fan of it.

Because a lot of people are severely addicted to sugar. Trust me, I know because I used to be one of those people.

If somebody wants to make a major lifestyle change, you need to put that person in  the best position possible to succeed. Think about it this way.

Giving someone artificial sweeteners is like telling a recovering alcoholic that it’s okay to drink just a little bit. How do you drink that’s going to go?

5. Pair it intermittent fasting with a diet that moderates your insulin levels.

Moderating your insulin levels should be one of your main goals if you want to lose weight because insulin is what controls your body weight.

And intermittent fasting is one of the best ways to achieve that because every time you eat, your insulin goes up. Which means the opposite is also true. If you don’t eat, your insulin stays stable.

But you can’t fast forever. You still have to eat. So it only makes sense to pair it with a diet that also moderates your insulin levels.

The two best diets that’s been shown to do that are the Paleo Diet and the Ketogenic Diet.

And I don’t even like putting labels on diets because it always spark the never ending debate on which diet is superior over the other.

The best way to settle this is through science. Not the school of bro science. Real science. We have to go back in time to prove this. We evolved 2.5 million years ago. And we’re still genetically identical to our Paleolithic ancestors.

So it’s all about modelling what we eat to the original human diet because that’s how our genes evolved. And if we go back into history, we evolved to eat plants and animals. I know vegans and vegetarians will hate me for saying that. But it’s the truth.

Any anthropologist will tell you that the growth of the human brain is directly attributed to humans developing tools and discovering fire. We were then able to access bone marrow and organ meats which is the most nutrient dense part of the animal. And that’s key.

That’s how I want you to think about your food choices. So how about we just say you want to revolve your diet around plants and animals. And you want to eat whole, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods.

Paleo man didn’t have access to pop tarts. He didn’t drink protein shakes. He also didn’t eat deep fried fast food.

And they were naturally lean and strong. They didn’t suffer from modern diseases of civilization like obesity, diabetes, cancer, or cardiovascular disease.

Again, it’s all about pairing intermittent fasting with a diet that moderates your insulin levels. The best way to do that is by modelling what we eat as close to the original human diet as possible.

6. Ride the hunger wave.

Are you going to get hungry when you fast? Absolutely.

It’s perfectly normal. If you’ve never fasted before, you are literally going against a lifetime of bad eating habits.

So ride the wave. You’re not going to die. Hunger pangs usually only last about 20 minutes. Then it goes away.

Whenever you feel this sensation, it’s a great time to drink coffee or tea because they’re great appetite suppressants

7. How To Fast Properly To Lose Weight – Make supportive lifestyle choices.

First, let’s talk about exercise. And some people are probably rolling their eyes right now because they hate going to the gym. Then don’t. And we don’t need to get into a discussion about what the best workout is for fat loss because it’s almost a moot point if you don’t get your diet right.

80% of your body composition is determined by your diet. Exercise only plays a supporting role so you still

If your baseline is you haven’t worked out in years and your only form of physical activity is walking to the fridge. Then the best workout that you could do is to just start moving your body more.

Your goal is to go for a 10 minute walk every day and build on that. Then you want to work towards getting 10,000 steps. Do you know what I mean? Again, there are levels to this.

You cannot go through life and expect to be healthy if you don’t do some form of exercise. If you do cardio for example, that strengthens your heart and your heart can pump more blood in your body.

If you do resistance training, it improves your mitochondrial density. Your body builds more lean muscle mass and you get stronger bones which are very important markers when it comes to lifespan.

Building lean muscle mass also improves your insulin sensitivity. It also increases your metabolism. And if you’re trying to lose weight, having an efficient metabolism is one of the best things you can do.

That’s why it’s important to pair intermittent fasting with exercise. And yes, you can exercise while you’re fasting. There’s actually a lot of research out there that fasted training helps you burn even more fat because as you become more insulin sensitive and you can tap into your almost unlimited fat stores and burn it for energy.

8.Make sure you’re getting adequate sleep every night.

This should be a dead giveaway but getting a quality 7-8 hours of sleep every night is extremely important when it comes to maintaining your overall health.

I could give you the best diet and the best workouts on the planet. But if you don’t get your sleep right, it’s not going to work. Not getting enough sleep messes up with important hormones in your body.

All you need to know about this is the less you sleep, the more you weigh. The people who don’t get adequate sleep tend to die early. I’ve literally never met anyone who complained about getting a good night’s sleep.

9. Manage stress.

Chronically high stress levels is a secret killer when it comes to your weight loss progress. Because chronic stress leads to elevated cortisol levels. Chronically elevated cortisol then results in chronically elevated insulin levels.

As I mentioned earlier, high insulin levels blocks fat burning. And I don’t even need to explain that last part about stress. Stress eating is a big problem for a lot of people.

10.Give it some time.

Rome was not built in a day. It didn’t take you days or weeks to put on the weight you’re trying to lose. It took you months. Which means it’s probably going to take the same amount of time to lose it.

Intermittent is the most powerful method of weight loss but you have to give it some time to work it’s magic.

That is how to fast properly to lose weight.

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!

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