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Home » How to lose weight safely » What I Learned from Fasting for a Year – Men’s Journal

Once a week I skip food for 36 hours. I finish my last meal around 8 p.m. on Monday night, have nothing but water and sometimes black tea on Tuesday, and break my fast on Wednesday morning around 8 a.m. If that sounds nuts and a little dangerous to you, I get it. That was my own reaction when I first experimented with fasting about a year and a half ago. But since then, I haven't looked back.

I didnt start fasting to lose weight. In fact, as a naturally lean guy with a fast metabolism, skipping meals sounded like a recipe for shriveling away both physically and mentally. But two things happened toward the end of 2015: Dr. Sandrine Thuret of Kings College pointed me to her TED talk about boosting the growth of new brain cells by fasting, and a colleague of mine didnt eat on certain work days because he claimed that it would extend his lifespan. This got my wheels turning to understand the biology behind why this could work and to try it for myself.

The first time I fasted for 36 hours, it was horrible. Through my entire life, any inkling of hunger triggered an instant reaction to grab a snack. It took two weeks to break that instinct. But by the third week, my body started adapting into better using my own fat reserves. Instead of shriveling away, four things happened.

While this was my fasting experience and it works for me, there's plenty ofskepticismassociated with the practice you should consider before jumping in. Don't fast if you're underweight or malnourished. When you break a fast, eat plenty of good, healthy food, since the focus of fasting is changing the timing of eating, not the reduction of calories. Lastly, remember that a lot of your daily water intake comes from food. So if you aren't eating, make sure you're staying hydrated. Fasting can be illuminating but you have to do it safely.

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What I Learned from Fasting for a Year - Men's Journal

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Home » How to lose weight safely » What I Learned from Fasting for a Year – Men’s Journal