Top Fasting Tips for Weight Loss

Hey everyone, I wanted to create a post because I feel like I have seen a bunch of posts recently from people who have started fasting to lose weight and are struggling with either not losing any weight, or plateauing very quickly. I have been fasting since 2012 back when I first saw Micheal Mosley's documentary on fasting and his 5:2 diet. Over the years, I have changed my fasting and eating many times to try to find what works best for me. I have had children, injuries, surgery etc and fasting is always what works to keep me fit and healthy. Despite continuing with this WOE for nearly 10 years now, I find I'm still always learning new things and I love sharing tips with people and continuing to strive for better health and fitness. Here are the things that I have learned that I think might help someone starting out or anybody out there who may be struggling. I will also include some resources (books, podcasts etc) at the end. 1. It's not all about calories. Calories, in a sense, are important of course because you can't lose weight if you are consuming an excess amount of calories, but our bodies are not a static environment, like an engine or something. Our metabolic rate can fluctuate and different foods have different effects on our metabolism. Our gut health also affects our metabolism, but at this stage, we are not even really sure how or why exactly. What is clear is that **what** you eat matters as much, if not more, than how many calories you are eating. The other thing about calories is that it is impossible to track them 100% accurately. The information we have about the number of calories in a piece of chicken or fish or broccoli is based on a sample tested in a lab once, but that's not to say that every single piece of chicken or fish or any other food is always going to have exactly the same amount of calories. And packaged food is worse since companies have about a 20% leeway in terms of accuracy, and who exactly is testing to see if the calories are actually what it says on the package? So track calories if it helps you make better choices and maintain some sense of proportionality with your eating, but also understand that no matter how careful you think you are being, you are never going to be 100% accurate with calories. Our bodies are actually designed to maintain an energy balance naturally, but only when we eat whole foods. It seems some foods are almost designed to override what would otherwise be our natural hunger and satiety cues so that's something to consider as well. 2. Fasting can work with any "diet" but there are certain foods that are just not healthy and will probably hinder weight loss, at least for some people it seems (myself included). At a minimum, try eliminating (or at least reducing as much as possible) all highly processed foods as well as white flour, sugar and refined vegetable oils. There is some pretty compelling research to suggest that the more packaged and processed food a person eats, the higher their risk of almost all chronic diseases, and we are just scratching the surface on this research. And just from purely a vanity perspective, you will find it easier to lose weight and keep it off if you are eating more whole, unrefined, unprocessed, unpackaged food than if you are eating a lot of refined processed foods and just counting calories. Just try it. 3. Consider different fasting protocols. Only skipping breakfast might work for some people, but for others, it's not enough to lose much weight and is probably better suited to maintain weight loss. I found the best fasting protocols for weight loss for me anyway were 3x24hours per week or 2x36 hours per week. A 24 hour fast is essentially skipping breakfast and lunch and only having dinner (at the same time as you ate dinner the previous day). 36 hours is not eating for one entire day, so going from dinner on Monday to breakfast on Wednesday for example. If this feels daunting to you, you can work up to it. It does get easier and once you do it a couple of times, you realise it's actually easier than you thought. 4. When it's time to eat, sit down and eat proper meals that centre around a good source of protein. I'm a fan of animal sources of protein myself, but if you prefer plant sources, make sure they are whole food plant sources, like soy, beans, lentils etc and make sure you are getting a good variety of them. Pair your protein with good sources of fat and plenty of vegetables. Try to avoid snacking and grazing between meals (which you shouldn't need to do because your meals should be keeping you full. If they are not, look at what you are eating). 5. If you need to ask "will this break my fast" 9 times out of 10, the answer is probably yes. Fasting means not consuming calories. There are fasting-mimicking diets and things like fat fasting which may work so that could be an option for those struggling to fast, and sure sometimes people get away with a bit of this or that during their fasting window. But if you're struggling, maybe that could be something holding you back. 6. Exercise is important, and yes you can exercise while fasting. If weight loss is your goal (and if we're honest, when we talk about weight loss, we're actually talking fat loss because that's what we all really want am I right?), then the best exercise to do are things that will build and strengthen muscle. Cardio is fine if you enjoy it, but if you're only doing it because you think it's the best way to burn calories and lose fat, then step away from the elliptical and pick up some weights. Increasing your muscle mass increases your basal metabolic rate so you will burn more fat even at rest. Building strong muscles is also just better for your health and longevity. I am personally someone who hates cardio, but I used to force myself to do it because that's what we're told is good for us. I never got the results I wanted and I just hated every minute of it. Now I do zero cardio, only resistance training (in my case, I do reformer and ballet so you don't even just have to do just free weights, lots of options out there) and I get much better results. So if you're someone who just loves going for a run, then run all you want, but if you're like me and you're only doing cardio because you think you "have to" know that it's not true. The final tip I have is keep learning! Here are some of my favourite resources that relate to fasting and diet / weight loss. * Dr Fung's books: The Obesity Code, The Complete Guide to Fasting and the Diabetes Code if you have diabetes or a family history of diabetes. * The Fasting Method podcast which is actually run by two colleagues of Dr Fung's * Dr Lustig's books Fat Chance and Metabolical (also his lecture on sugar which you can find on YouTube) * Gary Taubes books: Good Calories, Bad Calories, Why We Get Fat, The Case Against Sugar, The Case for Keto * Some episodes of The Sapien Podcast and Peak Human Podcast which include some of the above authors and many other great guests that talk about fasting and diet. Sorry for the LONG post but I felt like I was repeating myself when responding to other people's posts so here is everything I think I know. I hope some people find it helpful. If anybody has any other great tips, I would love to hear them!