Easy Guide To Intermittent Fasting | Intermittent Fasting Weight Loss | Jason Fung

[00:00] Hi I'm Dr. Jason Fung. Today I'm going to go over a practical guide to fasting everything you need to know to get started. And let's go.

[00:15] First of all, what is fasting? Fasting is simply any period of time that you're not eating and you have to understand that this is normal. Part of the day we're going to be eating.

[00:27] That's when we're going to take in calories and we're going to store some of those calories because we are taking in more calories than we can use. So your body can start as body fat or as sugar. When you don't eat, when you're fasting, that's a signal to take those

[00:42] calories out of storage and to use it for energy. And our body has the ability to do that there's nothing unusual about it. That's why you don't die in your sleep every single night. And this is just normal. You need to balance feeding and fasting. Part of the day you're

[00:58] going to store calories part of the day you're going to burn calories. If you don't keep them in balance, if you store in calories all the time, you might gain a lot of weight. And this is normal. That's why we have the word break fast or breakfast. So people who say

[01:15] oh, I don't support fasting, fasting is bad for you. Well, then they must support the fact that you're supposed to be eating all the time. But if you're eating all the time, when is your body supposed to burn those calories? You're not giving your body a chance to do it.

[01:30] That's all we're talking about. And it's been done for thousands of years. There are fasting traditions that have gone back thousands of years. We know it's safe. We know it can be done well safely. And in many cases, too great benefit. The other important thing to understand is

[01:46] that fasting is voluntary. You're always in charge of the process. Starvation is not voluntary. You don't have food. You don't know where it's coming from. Fasting is a voluntary abstinence

[02:00] of food for whatever reason. Whether it's part of the daily schedule, whether for health, religious, spiritual or other purposes is fine. If you don't like what's happening, you can always stop and you can eat. So it is normal. Keep that in mind. So how are you going to fast?

[02:17] Fasting is just any period you're not eating. But you can still drink fluids classically faster water only. But there's many variations that you can use. In fact, you can take a lot of fluids,

[02:29] such as green teas, herbal teas or coffee without sweeteners or sugar or cream. And they have no calories. So they're not really going to break your fast because they have no energy. Your

[02:42] body is still going to need to use some of those calories. You can also use things that do have a few calories, which is not a true fast, something like bone broth, for example, or a little bit of cream in your coffee. And that's generally okay because the amount is so small that yes, you'll store a few

[02:59] calories for a few minutes. But then you'll go right back to burning them so you don't have to worry about that. Why should you fast? There's actually a number of very good reasons why you should fast.

[03:12] One is that it creates a structure to your eating day. A lot of us don't know how to eat anymore. In the 1960s, 1970s, it was very easy. You ate breakfast, you ate lunch, you ate dinner,

[03:25] and that's it. You didn't eat in your car, you didn't eat at the movie theaters, you didn't eat anywhere else. If you wanted to snack, your mom would say no, you're going to ruin your dinner. If you wanted to bedtime snack, your mom would say no, you should eat more at dinner. There were just

[03:40] periods of time that you eat. Now, people are confused. They think they can eat anytime they want, and they can, as often as they want, and it won't make any difference. The truth is that it does. If you

[03:53] eat more frequently, it's a lot easier to eat more. If you're eating when you're not hungry, well, there's a good chance you're going to be eating foods that you shouldn't be eating. Second, it builds dietary consistency. If you're eating the same one or two or three meals, day and day

[04:11] out, giving yourself that good period of fasting, well, you're going to be consistent and consistency is the key to getting results. But even more important, consistency builds habits. If you get into

[04:27] habits, you don't need will power. And that's so important. Think about brushing your teeth. You don't have to will yourself to brush your teeth. It's such a habit that you just naturally do it. Well, if you build that habit of having specified meal times and specified fasting times,

[04:45] it's not going to be hard anymore because it's ingrained. Number four, it's a very easy way to control your eating. What you're doing is you're counting the hours that you're allowed to eat the number

[05:01] of meal times that you have rather than calories because counting calories is notoriously inaccurate. You don't know how many calories are in that steak you ate or that salad because it depends on the

[05:14] dressing. It depends on what they put in the dressing. It depends on what sauce they use on the meat or the fish. You have no idea. So whenever they look at studies, people really have zero idea how many

[05:26] calories are. So how can you count them to be successful? It's virtually impossible. And number five, it's a very traditional way of eating. It's ingrained in our very language. And the simplest rule of

[05:40] weight loss don't eat all the time. Give yourself a break from eating so that you can burn those calories which is simply food energy. Body fat is just a store of that food energy. It's not

[05:55] there for looks. It's a source of calories food energy. So give your body a chance to use it up. So here's a very simple fasting protocol. Just start with a 12 to 14 hour fasting period. That just

[06:08] means cutting out bedtime snacks and make sure that you cut out the snacks in between meals as well. If you finish dinner time, for example, at 6pm and you were to eat breakfast at 8am,

[06:22] that's a 14 hour period of fasting. That's a good way to let your body get into that fasted state. And this was the way that people ate in the 1970s. And they stayed relatively thin without

[06:35] obsessing about what they were eating because they were looking at the times that they were eating. Then what you can do is gradually lengthen that out if you want to. If you have more weight to lose,

[06:48] then you can gradually lengthen it out to 16 hours or 20 hours. And you can also build it into certain days of the week. For example, if every Monday, you know you're going to be really busy at work, maybe

[07:01] you're going to work right through breakfast and only have a 16 hour, have a 8 hour feeding window and 16 hour fasting window at that time. I'm going to give you a few tips to get started. First,

[07:15] ride the hunger waves. Expect that you will be hungry. When you start anything new, your body needs to adjust. So if you start increasing your fasting period, you're going to be hungry because your

[07:29] body is expecting to eat and you're not eating. Well, that's normal. But keep in mind that the hunger does not persist. All the studies of hunger show that when you don't eat, your body will feed itself

[07:45] through the body fat or the stored calories and the hunger will go away. Then we've all experienced this when you miss breakfast. For example, yes, your hungry at first, but then eventually your hunger

[07:57] goes away. It doesn't keep building and building. Let it go over you like a wave. Just ignore it. And that takes me to my number one tip, which is that you need to stay busy. And that's how you're

[08:11] going to take your mind off of it. So there's lots of things that you can do. You can take a bubble bath. You can listen to music. You can call your parents. You can do some dusting. You can organize your room. You can do some spring cleaning. Exercise is a great way to take your mind off of things

[08:28] because as you start exercising, all the blood goes to your muscles and you stop thinking about it. And especially things exercises that are like games, like tennis. You get so engrossed in it that you forget that you didn't eat. And your body isn't actually going to reduce that hunger. So try

[08:45] playing a game of pick up basketball or tennis or badminton or ping pong or something during that time that you would normally eat. There are certain things that are important to not do.

[08:58] Social media is probably a big one of them because there's a lot of food. A lot of times when you go on TV also, there's a lot of advertisements. And you don't want to be reminded of food when

[09:10] you're fasting. It's just not a good idea. Grocery shopping is also something that's very difficult to do because you're going to tend to want to buy things. And then you're going to be reminded. Cooking, going to a mall where there's lots of food courts, for example. And there's smells of

[09:26] the food court. Those are probably not a good thing. Also, parties are very difficult because oftentimes there's food. And so those are things that are best not to do during fasting. And the good

[09:38] thing about fasting is totally flexible. You can arrange it to do yourself. You have to expect a few things when you start fasting so that you can take care of those problems. For example, headaches

[09:51] and dizziness can happen. And taking a little bit of salt is often very beneficial because of people do get sometimes a little bit dehydrated when they start fasting. Constipation can happen as

[10:03] well as diarrhea. And you can use some laxatives, for example, if you have constipation or bulking agents such as psyllium husk, you may find changes in your blood glucose. You may

[10:16] find changes in your energy. In fact, people tend to get more energy so that sometimes they even get insomnia. And what you want to do is just make sure that you're relaxing before bedtime. And finally, the biggest three fasting mistakes. One is triggers. So oftentimes, we get hungry because

[10:36] we're triggered. Whether it's the smells of the food or socializing or the situation, it's the environment that puts us in danger of breaking the fast. Number two is doing it alone. Everything is

[10:51] easier when you do it with somebody. So try to find somebody that will support you. Somebody can talk to about it. Somebody who has experience. And number one, avoid overeating. Once you finish

[11:03] your fast, remember, you're trying to feed your body through the calories that you've already stored. Whether it's glucose, you're going to take that and feed yourself with your blood glucose. And therefore, you might improve your type 2 diabetes. Or you might feed yourself through your

[11:19] body fast, and you're going to be able to lose fast. But if you then eat a lot when you start eating again, well, you're going to undo a lot of the good that you just did. So remember avoid overeating.

[11:32] Just try and forget about the fast that you did. And eat that next meal as normally as possible. It's a mistake we've all made. So if it happens, don't worry about it. Just try to do better next time.

[11:44] Hopefully you've enjoyed this video and learned something. That's a practical guide to fasting. In 10 minutes, everything you need to know. Thanks for watching.