FASTING VS STARVING
FASTING VS STARVING
You mean you’re fasting again? Don’t you mean you’re starving yourself? Um….no. I mean I am fasting.
I’m asked all the time the differences between fasting and starving yourself. Honestly, both are states of abstaining from food. The main differences would be how long you are without food and the purpose you’re abstaining from the food in the first place. It’s all about control. I use intermittent fasting almost daily. I’ve fasted religiously for Ramadan. I’ve also fasted for longer periods for cleansing, deep detoxing, and a cellular reset. Fasting is usually safe for everyone and is often even recommended by a doctor whether it be for a procedure or for a heart condition. Check with your doctor if you’re not otherwise a healthy person before beginning any fasting.
Starving yourself is different in that it becomes harmful when calories are restricted for longer periods of time. A sustained caloric deficit is not good for the body or the brain, and when the body becomes so thin that it doesn’t have any more fat stores, the body will begin to eat away at itself; breaking down the tissue from its own tissue like first the muscles, the organs, then the heart, etc. This does not happen with fasting.
Benefits of Fasting
The benefits of intermittent fasting are many. It includes better blood sugar, lower blood pressure, clearer mind, increased insulin sensitivity, cell repair, reduced inflammation, and gut repair. This is called autophagy. Autophagy means to eat thyself. It’s detoxifying and clears out infections, cellular debris, and even cancerous cells! When cancerous cells die, this is called apoptosis.
To put things very simply, it gives rest to the digestive tract, it cleans out our blood on a cellular level, and opens the cell doors that allows us to become fat burners, not sugar burners. This is very important for anyone with a fat belly (or are insulin resistant, prediabetic, or type 2 diabetic). Especially as we age, eating the Standard American Diet is not healthy and in fact, causes many health problems.
Dr. Annette Bosworth, M.D. is an excellent teacher for fasting and the ketogenic diet and quite frankly, she says it the best as to why we fast. She writes;
1. Improve the way your body listens to insulin.
2. Clean out more pockets of stored sugar in your liver and muscle cells (glycogen).
3. Surge hormones like growth hormone.
4. Trigger autophagy during the fast.
What Our Bodies Use for Fuel
The fact of the matter is, our bodies only use two fuel sources for energy; glucose and ketone bodies. Every time we eat, our body begins to break down our foods, separating the sugars and carbs, proteins and fats. This also means insulin is turned on in the pancreas waiting to process the foods. Glucose then gets stored in the liver and muscles in the chemical form called glycogen. Fat gets stored in fat cells, otherwise known as adipose tissue. Before your body burns any stored fat, it will burn through all the glycogen in your muscles and liver. When you don’t have any calories going in, as in when fasting, our body will begin to eat up all the stored fat to meet our nutritional needs. This is really good news! This is the true form of fat loss!
The ketogenic body will burn ketones as its fuel. Glucose burns hot and fast, providing the body’s cells with the quickest source of ATP, or energy while ketones gives that slow burn. Achieving the fuel from ketone bodies requires being on the ketogenic diet, for the most part. It takes the body longer to get into autophagy when it has been running on glucose, compared to when the body is fat-adapted and running on ketones. However, we also produce some of these ketone bodies when we go without eating for a period of time, like when we are fasting or sleeping. This is why eating a healthy ketogenic diet works great with intermittent fasting.
Myths About Fasting and Sugars
You were always told, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Am I right? I know I always was. I was always a breakfast person anyway, before I started fasting, but my kids were not. I thought I was being a bad mom because I couldn’t get them to eat breakfast before school. The key with fasting through breakfast is that you don’t have your eating window continue on in the evening, especially after it gets dark. Studies do show that our bodies do better when we eat during sunlight hours. I believe this is primarily because of the circadian rhythms in our bodies that work in tandem with the sun and the moon cycles. So, keep your eating window in the earlier part of the day.
Is fasting even good for you? Fasting is incredibly good for you! From better cognition to a healthier heart to a trimmer body, the benefits are numerous!
Sugar can’t be that bad for you. It comes from a plant, doesn’t it? Sugar cane comes from a plant; however, this staple has been so overly processed that it no longer contains any of the beneficial enzymes in it. Unless you’re referring to all the chemicalized sugars. There are well over 60 different names and types of sugars used as ingredients in our foods. Sugar is glucose and our bodies do not understand the difference between the sources of sugar. Fruit can raise insulin levels just as eating a piece of candy can simply because of the high fructose sugar it contains. Our liver simply does not like it. Lastly, sugar is not as benign as we are told. It is everywhere and in everything! We simply eat too much of it!
Fasting is a new fad diet craze. Fasting has literally been around for thousands of years. Many religious groups use it, like Christians during lent, Jesus fasted, Moses fasted, Muslims fast for Ramadan, and Buddhist Monks also fast regularly. Think of the cavemen and pioneers. It was feast and then famine where fasting naturally took place.
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-body-use-body-fat-as-an-energy-source-when-fasting-in-ketosis
https://www.livestrong.com/article/1006259-differences-between-fasting-starving/