Don’t Fuel the Tank that is Spilling
Imagine you fuel a tank that is already spilling. Constant eating is like fuelling that tank.
Glucose and fat are the body’s main sources of energy. Only when glucose is not available the body adjusts by using fats without any detrimental health effects when the body is trained to do so.
Your body is like a pantry. Your front shelf items are the glucose from your food. If you keep using them and replacing them constantly, you never get a chance to use your stocked items at the back: your glycogen (second row) and your fat store (back row).
Fasting is the gradual shift of burning glucose to burning fat. You progressively use up all the items in the pantry, from front to back shelves, before restocking.
Most tissues in the body are able to use fatty acids directly as fuel. Only the brain and red blood cells require glucose in advanced fasting state. At that stage, most of the body is fuelled by fat, not sugar.
It’s good news because the body is able to store large amounts of fat, but only a small amount of glucose.
When you train your body to regularly renew the full content of the pantry, it goes smoothly from using glucose to using fat to produce energy. This is called metabolic flexibility. You are not relying on constant eating to feel energised.
Metabolic flexibility has many advantages:
– Your body becomes more energy efficient. Your burn fat
– You feel more energetic
– You promote muscle building
– You save money. You buy less food and supplements
– You save time. You do less cooking and cleaning up.
Will you lose weight? Well, if you don’t eat, you will definitely lose weight. There are nearly no circumstances where it will not work.
Is it healthy? The surprising answer is that fasting is extremely healthy when introduced slowly. There are a huge number of incredible benefits to fasting – read above and add benefits from obesity, diabetes, cancer prevention and even anti-ageing effects.
