Hi LindaA, loving hearing your experiences about the health benefits of fasting.
Pleased to report my weight stayed the same after I ended my 48hr Fast last week,then went down again the following day.
I am convinced of the health benefits of fasting but have been mulling over the difference between fasting (halting of digestion process to allow health giving repair activity to perform) and starvation diet (unhealthy lack of calorie intake).
Fasting experts say that fasting does not incur muscle breakdown or a huge lowering of the metabolism but a starvation diet does. So can a 16/8 BDS800 diet be classed as fasting or should it be classed as a starvation diet (i.e. a restricted diet of substantially reduced calories)? If one merely restricts intake of food for a few hours each day eg 16/8, or substantially lowers the calories consumed, but spreads those fewer calories out over the day as on the 5:2 diet, does one get the true benefits of fasting, or is there weight loss just because of the fewer calories are being ingested but no real long term health benefits?
Jason Fung (https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-physiology-part-ii/) outlines the transition from the fed state to the fasted state as follows:
1. Fed state
2.The post-absorptive phase – 6-24 hours after beginning fasting.
3.Gluconeogenesis – 24 hours to 2 days
4.Ketosis – 2-3 days after beginning fasting
5.Protein conservation phase – >5 days.
So it could be said that fasts of 5 days + are required for the real health benefits to occur.
Having said all of that, if a person follows a very low carb (<20g/day) diet for a prolonged period of time in a fed state, then it might be said that the phases of post-absorption, gluconeogenesis and ketosis are passed through without the need for fasting (albeit over a longer period of time) which I guess is the theory behind the BSD800. The protein conservation phase is I think academic because the body will never spend time trying to break down muscle mass whilst there are plentiful fat stores available which are far easier to access. And it turns out that the diet given to the participants of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was that expected to typify the diets of people in Europe during the latter stages of the war: potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, bread and macaroni (all of which are high carb, high GI, little or no protein or good fats) so no wonder their low calorie diet was found to cause health issues over a prolonged (24 week) period of time.
So I think I get from all of this that it the QUALITY of calories ingested that determine whether a starvation (low cal) diet is unhealthy or not, they can’t all be lumped under a single heading. However, for the true health benefits of fasting to occur, it seems to me that a reasonably prolonged period of time without digestion occurring (eg 24hrs) is required, even with the body being in true ketosis.
For myself I shall continue to follow the guidelines of 16/8 as it restricts calorie intake more easily and may allow a small amount of daily ‘non-digestion’ time but will incorporate longer 24hr+ fasts (no calorie consumption at all) to start to pick up the true health benefits.