Water fasting strikes me as an inefficient way to do what you want to do. Sure, obviously, if you keep on getting no calories, eventually the body is going to burn fat, but paradoxically it prefers to burn protein from the muscles first (!) and the only way to stop that is with sufficiently intense exercise of the muscles, i.e., weight lifting, while trying to lose fat.
I don’t think this is correct. What actually happens (AFAIU) is that your body burns a proportion of muscle and a proportion of fat. The muscle it burns is necessary to maintain a protein intake. This is the logic behind a “protein-sparing modified fast”.
The problem is that I don’t really want to do a protein sparing modified fast if I can, because it’s just way easier for me to stop eating completely than it is to eat a small amount of food every day. I may attempt to switch if it becomes unbearable, but we’ll see.
and the only way to stop that is with sufficiently intense exercise of the muscles, i.e., weight lifting, while trying to lose fat.
Weight lifting during a water fast will not help, even if it were practical; you will damage your muscles, but instead of being repaired your body will just clean up the damaged proteins and use them in the rest of the body. This would accelerate any muscle loss.
It definitely is easier to stop eating completely! A water fast trades convenience against a significant risk of permanent damage (e.g., never regaining all the muscle you lost) or death.
Are there any references you can give me about the permanent damage? I would attempt to move to a protein sparing modified fast if so. Doesn’t need to be NIH links; would just like to see what you’ve read/watched.
But the usual purpose of the fasting-mimicking diet is not fat loss. (It is autophagy.) It’s low on protein. So maybe that last URL is irrelevant to you.
Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you. You seem to have the potential to contribute to the desperate fight to save the world from AI, so I want you as healthy as possible.
I agree! I was using the obvious unsuitability of strength training during a water fast as an argument against the water fast relative to the other ways to burn fat. (Weight lifting plus eating enough protein often enough is better at preserving muscle mass during an attempt to lose fat than eating enough protein often enough without the weight lifting.)
I don’t think this is correct. What actually happens (AFAIU) is that your body burns a proportion of muscle and a proportion of fat. The muscle it burns is necessary to maintain a protein intake. This is the logic behind a “protein-sparing modified fast”.
The problem is that I don’t really want to do a protein sparing modified fast if I can, because it’s just way easier for me to stop eating completely than it is to eat a small amount of food every day. I may attempt to switch if it becomes unbearable, but we’ll see.
Weight lifting during a water fast will not help, even if it were practical; you will damage your muscles, but instead of being repaired your body will just clean up the damaged proteins and use them in the rest of the body. This would accelerate any muscle loss.
It definitely is easier to stop eating completely! A water fast trades convenience against a significant risk of permanent damage (e.g., never regaining all the muscle you lost) or death.
Are there any references you can give me about the permanent damage? I would attempt to move to a protein sparing modified fast if so. Doesn’t need to be NIH links; would just like to see what you’ve read/watched.
According to my notes, what got me to resolve to avoid water fasting is the first .66 of this next interview with longevity researcher Valter Longo:
https://thedoctorskitchen.com/podcasts/62-fasting-and-medicine-with-prof-valter-longo
You can avoid the 90-second ads on that page by using yt-dlp to download the interview audio.
The next paragraph in my notes is the next URL, which describes what I replaced water fasts with, namely the fasting-mimicking diet.
https://kahn642.medium.com/265fc68f8e19
But the usual purpose of the fasting-mimicking diet is not fat loss. (It is autophagy.) It’s low on protein. So maybe that last URL is irrelevant to you.
Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you. You seem to have the potential to contribute to the desperate fight to save the world from AI, so I want you as healthy as possible.
I agree! I was using the obvious unsuitability of strength training during a water fast as an argument against the water fast relative to the other ways to burn fat. (Weight lifting plus eating enough protein often enough is better at preserving muscle mass during an attempt to lose fat than eating enough protein often enough without the weight lifting.)