Actually every piece of medical evidence I found, and I do mean medical research and not articles, said something about how metabolism increases and peaked after about 16hrs and burned off more fat than eating every 2-3hrs does (by comparison not in the same study). This is just proving the body’s natural ability to break down it’s own fat stores in the absence of food but the muscle sparing effect was more than shocking.
The very notion that the body will hoard fat is ludicrous, because I can tell you from experience with short term fasting and bodybuilding,and I do mean religiously lifting weights and not that infomercial crap, the only thing that happens during the first 24hrs is you’ll burn through glycogen and lose about 2-4lbs of water which causes your muscles to deflate and fat to hang a little looser. But the very minute you start eating carbohydrates again you go through what is known as “reseeding syndrome” where the body switches over from burning fat for fuel to burning glucose from food again. This will make you a little tired but the immediate effect is that muscles refill with glycogen and water and you look a little more shredded until about 24hrs later, mostly due to carbs and insulin storing more water 1g carbs= ~4g water.
Now I’ve been experimenting with 24-30hr fasts and 12-16hr fasts for a little over 2 weeks now in combination with bodybuilding and a very healthy and careful measured out diet. The only negative side effects I have to report are that you have to carefully plan out the meal you break the fast with and give yourself time to shake of the “itis”. Usually I do something like 40g protein and 30g carbs an hour before my workout but I can workout fasted if I take 10-20g BCAAs or 20-40g protein, the only difference is that I can rest less when I take carbs before hand. The fat burning doesn’t stop either, you can feel how loose the fat until you take in between 100-200g carbs or more.
I’m not going to argue anything about miraculous cures from fasting since I don’t know anything, and he who knows nothing doubts nothing. However, my dad works works for a company that treats some early stages of aggressive cancer using some kind of ultrasonic equipment, injections, and high doses of vitamins, and he told me about people seeing tumors shrinking and disappearing in some after fasting for months. I don’t know much more about it so I can’t say for sure. All I can do is try myself, observe, and report. If having improved erections and seeing a little more of my abs each day is a lasting sign then I’ll be sure to tweak it and make it work for me.
Bpel: 8", Bpeg: 6", Mbeg: 5.75", Meg: 5.5", Aheg: 5.25", Heg: 4.5" - 11/18/11
Bpel: 8", Bpeg: 6", Mbeg: 5.875", Meg: 5.63", Aheg: 5.38", Heg: 4.75" - 5/18/12
Bpel:+1/4", Bpeg:6", Mbeg: 5.875", Meg:+1/16", Aheg: +1/16", Heg: +1/16" - 6/18/12