Want to Lose Fat and Maintain Muscle - Fast

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Why periodically giving up food is better than dieting.

How intermittent fasting differs from diet

Intermittent fasting (IF) is the alternation of periods of hunger and eating without restriction. For example, you can eat for eight hours and fast for the next 16, alternate food and fasting days, or eat five days and fast for two.

The main difference between IF and diet is that during the meal periods you can choose whatever you want. Don't cut out your favorite foods, count calories, and measure portions. Also, unlike a low-calorie diet, you do not feel weak, and therefore can easily stick to a meal plan.

Is it possible to lose weight through fasting

It seems that fasting is not the best choice for weight loss. After all, if you drastically reduce the diet, the body will go into a mode of energy conservation, and when it gains access to food, it will begin to strenuously accumulate fat.

This mechanism makes people put on weight after any strict diets, but when it comes to intermittent fasting, it doesn't work.

What happens to the metabolism

The fact is that slowing down the metabolism is not a quick process. It takes at least a few days before your body realizes it's bad times, and intermittent fasting usually lasts no more than 24 hours.

Moreover, in the first 14–36 hours of fasting, metabolism increases by 9%. This is easy to explain if we remember the conditions in which our ancestors lived. Before eating, it was necessary to catch or collect it. How will you run if all processes are slowed down, but there is no energy?

Therefore, before "closing", the body gives you 2-3 days for an energetic search for food, and only then goes into the economy mode.

Since the metabolism is increased, and there is no food coming, it is necessary to spend what was in reserve - to break down fats and use them as fuel.

Where does energy come from if you are hungry

There are two main sources of energy - carbohydrates and fats. They can almost always replace each other. There are carbohydrates - we will turn them into energy, a lot of carbohydrates - we will transfer them to fat in reserve, there are no carbohydrates - we use fat from the reserves. But there are exceptions.

The brain cannot use fats: it only needs glucose from carbohydrates. Since the brain is the most valuable thing we have, during a fast it eats up all the glucose that was stored in the form of glycogen, and then forces the liver to process fatty acids into ketone bodies - an alternative source of energy.

And at this time, the rest of the body strenuously (remember the increased metabolism?) Eats up the fatty acids that it took out of your fat cells.

And this is not just a theory, IF gives good results in practice: three months of fasting every other day, helps to get rid of 3-5, 5 kg of fat.

A low-calorie diet works faster: it helps you lose 1-4% more fat in the same time, but it has one significant drawback: along with fat, you will also lose muscle mass. Unlike long diets, intermittent fasting has little or no effect on muscles.

How fasting affects muscles

Fasting preserves muscle mass 3-4 times better than a low-calorie diet. 2-3 months of intermittent fasting either do not affect muscle mass at all, or slightly reduce it. To understand why this happens, consider the mechanism of muscle breakdown.

Lack of food speeds up autophagy, a process in which a cell donates part of its macromolecules and organelles to obtain building materials for new proteins, nucleic acids, fats and carbohydrates. In times of famine, building materials are used for energy, and muscles slowly melt.

For example, if you reduce the calorie intake by 20%, you will lose 2-3% of muscle mass in four months. And if you cut your diet to 800-1,000 kcal per day, three is enough. But short-term hunger does not trigger this mechanism.

First, the food-free period is too short. The breakdown of muscle protein begins only after 60 hours of fasting, and short-term fasting, as a rule, lasts no more than 24 hours.

Secondly, during hunger, the body increases the production of growth hormone, which contributes to the storage and synthesis of protein and the breakdown of fats. Since you have low insulin and testosterone and lack of nutrients, muscles will not grow, but they will not be lost.

Although muscle volume will not change, with a mild fasting regimen (16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of eating) you can increase your strength and endurance scores. So if you are training not for appearance, but for athletic performance, intermittent fasting will not affect your performance.

Losing weight without losing muscle is not the only plus of intermittent fasting. Most IF fans choose this diet for the health benefits. Read below how fasting affects the brain and other organs, which regimen to choose, and where to start.