How to exercise safely while fasting. 🏂

Hi everyone,

Exercise and a healthy diet should be paramount to all of us and especially when we put our bodies under the stress of working out and fasting. Working out on an empty stomach is a great way to burn off calories so it’s important for our bodies to be well nourished.

Here’s a link to help keep your micronutrient electrolyte levels up During exercise and fasting.

Please see:

healthline.com/health/how-t...

[S11m Volunteer 70lb IF20]

Thanks for the link, Hidden .

You want to avoid dehydration and hypoglycaemia... and salt and mineral deficiency. (But you need a little bit of hypoglycaemia to instigate fat-burning.)

The combination of intensity and duration is important - as you can briefly exercise intensely using your glycogen reserves, and replenish your glycogen from fat after the work-out.

We are all different, and the rate at which we can get energy from our fat reserves is individual (but will improve with experience) this determines the rate at which we can lose weight.

If your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is 2,400 calories, then you need 100 calories per hour to do no exercise, and, according to simple arithmetic, if you eat 1,900 calories a day you would lose a pound a week.

If you are losing weight your glycogen reserves will not be "fully topped up"... so if you exercise intensively all day while fasting you will tend to get hypoglycaemic.

An Apple Watch or other gizmo can tell you how many calories you are burning.

So... if you feel faint exercise less intensely.

It is not good to drive while feeling faint - but driving is not intensive exercise so it should not be a problem... but you should be careful while cycling.

"They" say:

"Do not consume too much salt"

but salt deficiency is common in health-conscious athletes. ...So "They" will squeal if you talk about salt deficiency, and this is why we now have this new word "electrolytes" (which, previously, we only found in batteries!).

[Hidden in reply to S11m]

Thank you S11m and for the extra advice it sounds very interesting and useful, so it's appreciated.

Electrolytes are base salts and sugars so you are right it's funny that we're now taking them as a supplement.

[S11m Volunteer 70lb IF20 in reply to Hidden]

If we eat "a good diet" we do not need mineral and vitamin supplements but, on a longer fast we eat nothing - so we get no minerals or vitamins... so, on medically supervised water-fasts, supplements are used.

We are trying to thrive, and improve our health, and not just survive... so how long can we fast before it would be beneficial to take supplements?

"Supplements" are for topping-up the minerals and vitamins we get in our diet, so the standard one-pill-a-day might be less than ideal.

This is an article about supplements for fasting. They seem confused between autophagy and catabolizing ¿have you ever come across the word? but basically, it says do not worry about deficiencies if you are not fasting for more than two, three or ten days.

siimland.com/the-ultimate-g...

I cannot get this link to work with Safari - but, but it works on Chrome, and I found it by Googling

"Fasting supplements"

I have read Siim Land's free book on Fasting... and it is informative and correct - except for a few minor points like suggesting that we should eat dinner on a 16:8 or 20:4 IF... I normally fast 14:00 to 10:00.

[Hidden in reply to S11m]

I don't take supplements either S11m and rely on my diet.

Electrolytes are given to babies with the runs as they dehydrate easily and apparently binge drinkers claim it cures their hangovers faster and sports people take them as supplements when they're basically sugar and salt.

So I agree its much better to get our nutrition from our diets.

[S11m Volunteer 70lb IF20]

We have short-term energy reserves in our blood and glycogen, and longer-term reserves in our fat, and it is only when we have, to some extent, depleted our blood-sugar and glycogen reserves (and insulin) that we start to burn fat and lose weight.

"Skipping meals" is how we fast... but most people, if they had enough water, could survive for two or three weeks without food - and without consequential long-term medical problems... but, some people might have long-term medical problems, which is why there are contra-indications for longer water-fasts - and a need for medical supervision.

[Stoozie Administrator]

Thanks for this Jerry.

I've been experimenting with fasted state and non-fasted state running to try to observe any differences.

So far my heart rate is lower on the fasted runs, which is good

[Nugger in reply to Stoozie]

My heart rate drops too while fasting but there’s no way I could go running while fasting, 10 min working in the yard & my legs start to ache, Did a 3 day water fast once & actually fainted!

[Stoozie Administrator in reply to Nugger]

I think my fasts are shorter than yours Nugger so hats off to you ive been experimenting with running after 19ish hrs fasted.

Sounds like you are right to be kind to yourself and not overdo it on those days. Wishing you well!

[Hidden in reply to Stoozie]

Hey this does sound good Stoozie so nice one. 😊

[Stoozie Administrator]

PS to follow on from S11m s discussion point, I definitely need more salt after any run above 7/8 miles.