I heard people say fasting for 3 days each fast helps achieve the quickest/best weight loss. Now I wonder whether 3 days or 7 days is the better solution for my goal. What do y’all recommend? Thank you so much & stay focused <3
I think it’s basically the consistency that matters the most. It adds up over time so as long as you’re eating in a calorie deficit and fasting you will lose weight. You can go 7 days but then overeat and you’ll lose progress but maybe at 3 days then eat for 1 then go back to 3 is more sustainable for some. For me I usually go anywhere from 36-72 and have been able to lose weight pretty fast. I’m down 40 lbs since January 3rd
I mean this has a lot to with self control coming off fasts but the fastest way to hit your goal is to just fast till you get there. Is it the best? Probably not but it’s the fastest. Figure out what you can handle and use that
I was 315 and now 234 still got more to lose but it seems like OMAD in the morning under 1200 calories is ideal for weight loss. Stick to keto to avoid cravings and hunger pain and just try to walk 15k steps a day
I think the biggest key to success with fat loss while intermittent fasting is eating a low carb diet when you do eat, or at least be reasonable with carb intake. The issue with any fast is that there will be a period of your fast where you are burning off the glucose and glycogen in your body, and during that time you won’t really be burning much in the way of bodyfat. By keeping your carbohydrate/glucose stores low, you should transition to fat burning faster and stay in it longer before breaking the fast. As for length of fast, obviously the longer fast will have you in deep ketosis just burning fat for fuel the longest, however it needs to be sustainable when you cycle back to eating.
Weight loss rate at Day 5 is as high as it will ever be per this study
I’d expect that fasting any period greater than 2 days will require more than one “reset” day during which some of your water weight will return. I’m hopeful that I won’t see a need to progress beyond 5 days at any point, but am perfectly content at 2.
Fasting follows roughly the same logic as CICO when it comes to weight loss. If you’re not putting any energy to your body and are still burning energy (by being alive) you’re losing weight. There aren’t any magic numbers and weight loss should be roughly linear with reference to time. eg if you normally lose a half pound a day fasting (~1,750 calories burnt) you’ll lose 3.5 pounds fasting a week.
Tldr less (or no) breaks between fasting days = less energy consumption with reference to normal habits = lose weight faster
Edit: I’ll add more math for anyone still confused or skeptical. Let’s say you have 2 periods of 3 day fasts with a day break in between and your total energy expenditure is 2,000 calories a day
(0 calories consumed - 2,000 calories used from your body) x 3 = 6,000 calories burned from your body in a 3 day period
Break day eaten: 2,000 calories consumed - 2,000 calories used = net 0 calories (no weight loss or gain)
Another 6,000 calories burned for the other 3 day fast
6,000 + 6,000 = 12,000 calories burned for the above scenario. Roughly 3.43 pounds of weight loss.
Compare this to a 7 day fast, where it’s just (0 calories consumed - 2,000 calories burned) x 7 = 14,000 calories burned. Roughly 4 pounds of weight loss.
Note that the total daily energy expenditure will be higher the taller and heavier you are (more organic matter) making your weight loss more severe on each fasting day relative to someone smaller.
