When you begin examining different dietary options many will come across fasting and its many types and variations. Well, what happens if you choose to match this philosophy with a carnivore diet? Today we dive into this concept and why it can help or hinder your goals.
Should you fast on carnivore diets? If your intended goals are for overall fat loss then a fast can be a quality strategic approach to ensure you maintain a caloric deficit which leads to continual fat loss. If looking to gain muscle then fasting can be detrimental if you aren't consuming enough calories.
We now understand that choosing to fast to support your dietary goals can be a benefit or possibly a drawback. Let's explain different types of fasting and what other benefits and drawbacks you may encounter when moving forward on a carnivorous diet.
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At the core, fasting is about not consuming food, which is not eating at all for some set time period. This is very much something that has a heavy religious history and many different religions practice some form of fasting.
The belief in fasting is rooted in the cleansing of the body and giving it some time to recuperate. More recently something called autophagy has been found, this is now something being looked into greater detail on its benefits to a longer life.
From a normal layperson's standpoint, autophagy is a core process in your body when food is in short supply. Your body will take and evaluate cells and proteins and when at the end of life it will destroy them to reuse and rebuild newer cells.
The reason why this is very important in today's civilization is that we have a problem with food, it is consumed consistently as there is no scarcity.
This means the process of scavenging old, poorly performing cells that we would typically have to happen when short food doesn't occur as much or as regularly.
This allows poor protein cells to exist far beyond when they could which could quite possibly allow them to mutate and become the bad cells that become the cancers and other issues.
I am very excited about this area as it is very new and is really being investigated in earnest and could yield some amazing stuff in the future.
While intermittent fasting shares the name with traditional fasting it is a different and measured approach to fasting. The goal is that you set a specific window of time where you will consume all your calories, and once this time passes you will only be able to drink water and non-caloric drinks.
The most common way you will hear people reference 16:8 or typically 2 numbers in this fashion. This isn't some specific elite speak but a way to convey they fast for 16 hours and eat in 8 hours (16:8) within a 24-hour window.
This is typically done because it aids in fat loss due to helping you limit your ability to eat foods and additionally making it very difficult to overconsume in the smaller overall eating timeframe.
Benefits to fasting while on a carnivore diet come down to dropping expenses in food costs, helping to keep your wallet fatter.
Additionally, fasting will help you by adding time for your body to utilize the body fat stores for energy when you are exercising or exerting effort outside of mealtimes.
These may seem like a small number of overall benefits but they are super powerful for you in gaining quality results. This is what you are striving for, RESULTS.
There are drawbacks to fasting which can be hunger and managing your day when you don't have a window to eat but are hungry.
Additionally, this can hurt you in social gatherings, as most are at night which is when most are not in their eating windows, this can make you feel awkward at dinner gatherings.
One more downside would be if you are looking to put on muscle and get bigger when you are needing to add more calories it is very detrimental to limit your eating, especially since protein is filling and it may help to have all day to get in enough quality proteins to help build yourself up.
Hopefully, you have a much better understanding of fasting in use with a carnivore diet, it can help you get amazing results in leaning down or when you aim for large fat loss.
You should find a sweet spot and not aim specifically to make the window smaller unless you have a need specifically as the lessening of calories is what will get you weight loss.
This is why intermittent fasting helps so many people, they don't realize that in the shorter eating window that they are eating less overall calories while also giving their body a much longer time to not process food allowing your body fat to be mobilized to help aid in some additional losses.
If you read this far you are amazing! I would love to hear from you in the comments below if I helped you gain knowledge and useful information, additionally I would like to know if I got anything incorrect that you believe should be researched more and updated. As always to get the word out please join our new Carnivore Rx group on Facebook and share this out on social media!
