Everything we’ve ever been told seems to be the opposite here. How can fasting not make your body think it is hungry and go into starvation mode? I’m confused.
Fasting. I thought if you didn’t eat ... - Low-Carb High-Fat...
Fasting. I thought if you didn’t eat regularly your body went into starvation mode
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Katarta
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For many millennia or species did not eat every day.
Three meals a day plus snacks are the problem causing obesity.
Your body does not burn much fat until twelve or sixteen hours after you eat - so: do not eat all day.
Most of the things we have been told (particularly but the American and British governments over the last several decades) is contrary to current research.
Maybe this would help you, Katarta?
TheAwfulToadAmbassador
The simple answer is: you're not starving.
Caloric restriction means consistently giving your body less than it needs, ie., starving yourself. "What your body needs" depends a great deal on how good it is at managing the normal ups-and-downs of dietary fuel. Carb-heavy meals, sustained over a long period of time, eventually destroy your body's ability to store and recover energy from bodyfat efficiently, which is why people eating lots of carbs tend to feel ravenously hungry a couple of hours after eating. Their bodies just "don't know" how to access their fat stores (of which they generally have an abundant amount!).
On a low-carb diet, your body recovers its ability to shift large amounts of energy into and out of storage. It's what fat is for. Because it gets so good at it, and because you never actually under-eat on low-carb (you're normally consuming a lot of fuel as fat) you body confidently reduces its fat stores. It knows you're not starving, therefore it doesn't need to maintain a massive quantity of backup.
There are some low-carb protocols for morbidly obese people which involve heavy caloric restriction (down to 800 or even 600kCal/day), but that's done only in the context of very high dietary fat content. It's this that seems to trigger a rapid fat-burning adaptation, so those overweight bodies suddenly have a vast power flow from bodyfat added to their (apparently very low) dietary intake. So, again, they're not starving, just temporarily running on reserves. As bodyfat decreases, dietary calories are increased to maintain that state.
It's actually quite interesting to experience this in its extreme form. A few years back, I stopped eating to see when I would feel hungry. I mean really hungry. It was about midday on day 3. Up until that point, I felt empty, but not in any way weak, unhappy, or desperate for food.
All I know is it works. Before I stopped eating carbs I was always hungry maybe an hour or two after a meal. And I could not go without breakfast, otherwise I would become shaky, sweaty and eat either biscuits bread or crisps, a piece of fruit or carrot stick wouldn’t satisfy me. All that has changed now I can go almost 20 hours before I eat a normal size meal, I don’t do it intentionally, it’s just sometimes I am going out early and don’t feel like eating and then just get caught up in the day. But I never feel as though I want to devour lots of carbs like I used to. I haven’t lost loads of weight but maybe I didn’t have it to lose. What I do know is that I feel no hardship by not eating carbs, I would say I actually feel better. Although I didn’t feel as though there was anything wrong with me, and I had enough blood tests to prove it. I can see a difference in my hair and nails, I guess it must be the full fat diet as opposed to the low fat diet which I followed for years. Finally, although I am not losing weight now I don’t feel I am going to put what I have lost back on because I have changed the food I am eating and it is more than satisfying.