The Potential to Lose Weight While Fasting

The number one thing people are concerned by when they discover the depth of detoxing and fasting I like to go is the weight loss aspect. More often than not this isn't an inquiry into its effectiveness to burn fat and lose weight, but rather a concern with me losing too much weight and having to burn muscle mass for energy. Usually I am met with something along the lines of "aren't you scared you're going to lose muscle mass?", which is a valid and totally justifiable reaction. At one point I believed I needed to force feed myself 4,000 calories a day and eat 5 times a day in order to maintain my muscle mass and build more muscle, and this was without a doubt one of my biggest concerns when I first started fasting years ago. My belief system was causing me to naively believe if I fasted or wasn't stuffing my face with calories every day that all of the time and effort I put into my body as far as aesthetics and muscle mass goes would be for nothing and I would lose all of it rapidly. 

Luckily, our bodies are much more intelligent than we have been lead to believe. Not only have I discovered that my body actually needs far less food intake than I previously believed in order to maintain and gain lean muscle mass, but I also discovered that I do not need to eat as frequently. I have thrived on periods of eating 1000-1500 calories a day while eating only one meal a day. I did not lose weight or muscle mass and actually felt like I had more energy and clarity. I was also able to maintain workout frequency and difficulty. This goes against everything we believe about calories in vs. calories out and the bodies' need for constant input, but stick with me and I'll later share the bodies' mechanisms for countering the decrease in calories. 

To answer the question; yes I have lost weight in the last 4 weeks of this detox. Roughly 8-10lbs and counting.  Am I concerned? Not the slightest.

Why am I not concerned?

For starters, I no longer desire to be as big as possible. The dream of being as big as possible died years ago and along with that died the desire to make everything in my life based around gaining more weight and muscle. I rather be healthy, mobile, and primed for longevity over being as big and strong as possible. I recognized that at my biggest and strongest moments I may have looked great and loved the strength, but in reality I was limited in my flexibility, athletic ability, and was consistently experiencing more pain.

Usually 2-3 days into a fast and not consuming any carbs or sugars, your body begins depleting all of its glycogen and makes the shift over to burning fat and ketones as energy. Naturally with the loss of glycogen you will also be retaining less water within the body because water is stored in the glycogen within our muscles. Regardless of how much water you consume this will still be happening with the depletion of glycogen and your inability to store more water. After the initial depletion of glycogen/glucose and weight loss from water, your body strategically shifts over to ketosis and burns fat long before it ever needs to tap into your muscle mass. This is another reason I am not concerned with the inevitable weight loss while fasting. These vehicles were built for periods of fasting and periods of feasting. They strategically store fat on the body to be used as fuel. Everyone has an efficient amount of fat already within them to sustain an extended fast. In ketosis we have enough energy to last us plenty of time to complete a fast. 1lb of fat is roughly 3500 calories of energy. Majority of humans have 20-50lbs of fat being stored in their bodies which means they can sustain fasting 20-50 days on the current fat in their body while expending 3500 calories a day. An example of this would be the average American male over 25 weighing 180lbs at 28% body fat: this individual would have 50lbs of fat to utilize as energy, granting him plenty of energy and fuel to go without eating food for a long period of time. 

If I am being completely straight forward, I am sure I have lost a bit of muscle mass over the last 4 weeks. Mainly because I have limited my workouts and any movement or exercise I did was minimal in order to utilize my energy for detoxing and healing. Even so, I am confident the muscle loss was minimal, and any perceived loss in size and muscle is actually just from not having glycogen and water being retained in the muscles. Similar to how creatine, which aids in water retention, quickly has you looking bigger and fuller, so will glycogen as soon as I consume carbs.

One of the biggest reasons I am not concerned about potentially losing muscle mass is because our bodies have counter measures for periods of fasting. Not only does the body go into a total healing phase, but it also has a massive impact on our hormones. During a period of fasting your hormones will temporarily decrease, but during the refeed phase your hormones will drastically spike. Often times leading to a 300%+ spike in testosterone, along with a higher production of HGH and IGF-1. All three of these have a direct impact on your ability to build muscle. I am confident that any minor loss in muscle mass can be quickly restored when getting back into my usual workout routine with a testosterone level that is naturally 3 times what it was before the fast. The interesting thing about this is you definitely do not need to do a 4 week detox to experience the hormonal benefits, you can actually utilize shorter fasting periods like 24 hours at a time to experience this spikes in hormone production more frequently. 

I may have lost a bit of muscle mass and temporarily lowered my hormone production, but the benefits I receive from fasting far out weigh any downsides. Fasting is one of the most overlooked tools for hormone balancing, increasing testosterone, and building lean muscle mass while simultaneously decreasing fat in the body and giving the body an opportunity to rest, heal, and cleanse.