When does fasting actually begin?


(Lana Porter) #1

I was watching a YouTube video that states that you shouldn’t start counting the time for a fast after you finish your last bite of food. The reasoning is your body is still digesting & doing what it does. The person on this video states (I guess depending on what you ate) you need to start counting the time for your fast a couple hours or more after you stopped eating. I’ve always starting counting time when I stop eating so if I finish my dinner at 7:00 pm, my 24 hour fast is over at 7:00 pm the next day. Have I been doing it wrong?


(Jane) #2

That’s getting pretty damn picky. I start my Vora app timer after my last meal. The data is only for you so count however you want!


(Lana Porter) #3

Thanks Janie. I was hoping I hadn’t been doing it wrong & not getting all the benefits I thought I was.


(Norma Laming) #4

That’s interesting, because some people talk about loading up with food before a fast, which has always seemed to me not to be really fasting. I find that if I eat a lot then I’m just not hungry for ages, but I’m not convinced that that counts as fasting.


(David Brown) #5

If I remember correctly it’s something like “You are classed as fasting when the food you have eaten is no longer providing your body with metabolic nutrition”

It’s getting very picky to go down this road though. But there would be a difference if someones last meal was a huge pizza vs half a chicken breast and some veg.


(Jane) #6

Fasting is personal and not a competition so you can define it the way it benefits YOU since that is who you are doing it for.

Some people extend their fasts with bone broth or a splash of HWC in their coffee. The fasting police would be screeching you broke your fast, but if it helps you fast another day the benefits greatly outweigh eating because “you already broke your fast anyway”.

I fast for autophagy so I do not load up on a big meal before I start my fast because that prolongs the time to get to that state - I just eat my normal keto meal for dinner and start my fasting timer.

You can’t measure autophagy or when you have completely digested your last meal so I don’t concern myself with either. I have watched my loose skin tighten up gradually over time so I am getting the results I am after - and that is the most important metric. Not technically how many hours I fasted or did not fast.


(Karim Wassef) #7

Why does it matter?

If you eat simple sugar, it will be picked up in 30mins. If you eat fiber, it can ferment for three days. Count any way that makes sense to you and be consistent.


(Lana Porter) #8

Thanks everyone. I want to make sure I get the biggest bang for my fasting buck and I wasn’t sure if this was something everybody just knew but I had somehow missed out on. I’ll keep on keeping on as normal.


#9

For simple sanity’s sake I count from my last meal. If you plan to go for 48-60 hours plus then the benefits will come regardless of your egg timers.


(Robert C) #10

I think fasting starts when you do not eat a meal you normally would have. Fasting is defined as abstaining from food.

If you normally eat breakfast at 6 AM but you have decided to fast for a few days - then at 9 AM you have fasted for 3 hours (i.e. it has been three hours since you consciously abstained from eating).


(Alec) #11

Fasting is about intake, not digestion. Start counting the minute you put your fork down. :joy:


(bulkbiker) #12

So you should completely ignore the 10 hours fasted since dinner? Sounds like a very odd way of looking at fasting…


(Jane) #13

Seems odd to me also. I don’t have a normal eating schedule. If I am not hungry I don’t eat or eat later so would be confusing for me

I know Dr Fung doesn’t count it way because he considers skipping a day of eating as a 36-hr fast, not 24.


(Robert C) #14

Yes I think that time should be ignored.
You did not “abstain” from anything while you were sleeping.
If you count the fasting time from when you last ate - it would always add up your non-eating time:
Dinner 6-6:30 PM - fast for 11.5 hours
Breakfast 6-6:30 AM - fast for 6 hours
Lunch 12:30 - 1 PM - fast for 5 hours to your regular 6 PM dinner
Regular 3 meal day is counted as 22.5 hours of fasting - that seems odd.


(Robert C) #15

Actually, in this case, I think Dr. Fung is counting it the same way.

He is not counting the first 12 hours (when you normally wouldn’t eat anyway) and saying “not eating for a day” actually means you need to eat dinner, skip a day and then eat breakfast - which is 36 hours (a 24 hour fast plus the 12 hours prior to the fast that you do not count because you wouldn’t have eaten anyway).


#16

fast2

/fast/
well technically you started fasting when you stopped eating or drinking by this definition…

verb

gerund or present participle: fasting

  1. abstain from all or some kinds of food or drink, especially as a religious observance.

synonyms: abstain from food, refrain from eating, deny oneself food, go without food, go hungry, eat nothing, starve oneself;

go on hunger strike

“the ministry instructed people to fast, pray, and read scripture”


(Robert C) #17

I think it depends on how you read the definition.

Fast - a verb - to abstain from eating could mean that the fasting start time is when you are not eating. But, it could mean when you first abstain from eating.

A person that is fasting and their non-fasting friend have dinner together at 6 PM.

The next morning (when each would normally have breakfast together at 6 AM) the person that is fasting abstains from breakfast while the friend does eat breakfast.

Up until 6 AM neither the person that is fasting nor the person that is not fasting has received any unusual fasting benefits. When the person that is fasting skips breakfast - then something is happening benefiting the person that is fasting versus the non-fasting friend.

Also, review the synonyms

I do not think any of these would describe (even remotely) either of the people in the example above UNTIL at least after 6 AM (when someone finally abstained from something).


(bulkbiker) #18

Well I abstained from eating anything for the simple reason that I was asleep… looking at it in your way I can only fast for 16 hour a day if I eat nothing because I’m asleep for 8 hours!
Weird…


(Doug) #19

I see at least 3 levels:

1.) As soon as one quits eating.

2.) As per @RobC :slightly_smiling_face: - when one does not eat, when they normally would have.

3.) When the digesting of food is substantially done, and the processes that are so beneficial for many of us are underway. Giving it a fairly wide window - some hours for the stomach to empty (3 - 7), then further time for the small intestine to empty. Food does not usually go through it like a plug - things are still very liquid and gradually the small intestine empties into the large intestine. If things go fairly fast, then after ~3 hours the small intestine will be half empty, with the discharge trailing off from there. Depending on what one eats, after an overall time of 10 - 14 hours, most should have gone into the large intestine.

Then there is the ‘post-absorptive phase,’ as Dr Fung calls it. I’m not sure of everything that occurs during this time, but obviously once stuff quits going from the small intestine into the blood stream and liver, etc., substantial changes will occur. Blood sugar should be declining along with insulin secretion. Eventually, the body will be using up stored glycogen, and glucagon should be rising while insulin falls further. Coming from eating ketogenically should mean less stored glycogen, increasing the speed at which the glycogen stores are consumed. The nutrient sensors mTOR and AMPK should be getting involved as glycogen gets depleted, beginning to ramp up autopahgy.

I see all the above being in place toward the end of the first 24 hours after eating. Most of the gains for autophagy still lie in the future, as does a good bit of declining blood sugar and insulin, but somewhere in there (16 - 24 hours?) I’d say the body is really in a fasted state.

Especially in the context of longer fasts, this makes sense to me since a good bit of the first 24 hours is consumed just getting to what is really a fasted state - comparative deprivation that the body has substantially responded to. Eat a huge meal, don’t feel hungry for a long time, then eat after 24 hours - did one really “fast for a whole day”? Yes, if we start counting right away after eating, and for simplicity’s sake I always do it that way. But not as far as really being in a fasted state, and if one sleeps at night, then going from the evening of one day, all through the next, until at least breakfast on the morning of the third day - that truly gives us a whole day in the fasted state.


(Robert C) #20

What I am talking about is determination of the start time.

If you start fasting by not eating breakfast on Monday and then eat again by having breakfast on Tuesday - you have fasted for a day (24 hours). Not just removing sleep time generally once an EF has started.