Should you be fasting?

Fasting has become a mainstream word of recent, “oh, I’m current on a 16 hour fast”. What this basically means is they have skipped breakfast…

Fasting = period of time where you do not consume food.

I have 2 questions I would like to answer surrounding fasting:

1. If I am fasting will that help with losing weight?

This all depends on whether or not you are in a deficit with your calories or not. So, lets use Sue as an example, Sue needs 2000Kcals per day to maintain her weight. She has 1000Kcals in her breakfast and coffee, she then fasts until her dinner where she has another 1000Kcals. Is Sue going to lose weight? No.

Now let us look at Julie, she also needs 2000Kcals per day to maintain her weight. She has 800Kcals in the morning, fasts until dinner and then has another 900Kcals. This puts Julie in a 300Kcal deficit. Will Julie lose weight? Yes.

2. Why would you fast?

The only reason you would perhaps fast is because you have been instructed to by a medical professional (e.g. surgery, nil to mouth) or simply because it fits into your day to day life better. A popular reason to why is purely because of work, if you are back to back with meetings all morning and you know you will not have time to sit down to eat you can just extend the period in between meals.

This would work if you wanted to lose weight (calorie deficit), maintain weight or gain size (calorie surplus) as long as you hit your calorie goal it does not matter. If you were saving £2000 per month, would it matter if you deposited it to your ISA all at once, or in 3 separate transactions? – No, it is all still there.

So, should you be fasting? That all depends on your lifestyle.

Is fasting detrimental? No.

Is fasting necessary? No.