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episode #61

Is There a Best Time to Fast?

September 3, 2021 in Podcast

Intro

There are many variations to fasting and it’s all about finding the time that works best with your schedule. There is no right or wrong fasting time but more importantly it’s about finding times that you can do consistently. As you move forward in your fasting journey here are a few tips… Hunger waves will come and go (be patient and take your mind off of fasting by staying busy) If you are doing a longer fast pick a day that you are busy, out of the house and/or traveling. Only tell supportive people regarding your fasting regimen Here is a quick summary of the popular variations which I have included in this guide for you to choose from: 16/8 This involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 12–8 p.m. Then you fast for 16 hours in between. This method takes advantage of the overnight fast. You can also adjust your window depending on your schedule for the day and when you eat your most important meals. This method should be very doable for long term sustainability. 20/4 Perhaps after a month or two of doing 16/8, you can sprinkle in some days of fasting for 20 hours and eating within a 4-hour window. It is good to keep the body guessing in order to make you more metabolically flexible. This 4-hour window could be one big meal or two small ones. This way of eating could also be used on a daily basis if 16/8 wasn’t achieving your body/health goals. OMAD This could be a transition from 16/8 or 20/4 which would consist of one meal a day which could be at any hour of the day (ex. Dinner to dinner). Sometimes individuals don’t like to squeeze all their calories in a 1-2 hour time frame and I would just make sure you do not eat too late and close to bedtime. I would say this is geared for weight loss and probably not for someone who is looking to gain muscle. This is not for everyone but could be great for sedentary people who want to lose weight. If you’re not working out at all or do it only a few times a week then you don’t really need to eat more often either. OMAD is not ideal if you’re an older person or trying to build muscle/mass. The elderly should eat more often (16/8) because it’s harder for them to maintain muscle. Alternate Day Fasting (36 hour fast): This involves fasting for approximately 36 hours. For example, if you eat dinner on day 1, you would fast for all of day 2 and not eat again until breakfast on day 3. For some people, this might be a bit extreme but if you have plateaued in your weight loss journey perhaps adding in a few 36-hour fasts would help. Also, I recommend fasting on days when you have a busy schedule and aren’t sitting at home. Drinking water with minerals is highly recommended too. If you love the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast, we’d love for you to subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes. Until next time!

0 (1s): Hello, and welcome to the get lean and eat clean podcast. My name is Brian grin. I'm a certified health coach, trainer and author. And this podcast is for middle-aged men and women looking to optimize their health and get their bodies back to what it once was 10 to 15 years ago. I will give you simple, actionable items to get long-term sustainable results. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. 1 (32s): All right. Welcome to the get lean eat clean podcast. My name is Brian grin. I hope you had a great weekend father's day weekend. Enter the U S open. What a finish it was. So I'm excited to talk to you about this next topic. This is a question that comes up quite a bit with a lot of clients is they want to know, well, what are the best times to fast and with the best times to eat. And I really say there's really not a right or wrong. I think there's all these fast and variations that are out there. Part of it's just a marketing thing and whether it's right or wrong, I think it depends on the individual and their goals and what they're looking to do. 1 (1m 12s): And I'll, as I share with you some different fasting variations, I'll also share with you what I do and how, how, how my fasting times is sort of evolved over the years. Cause I've been doing it for a while now and yeah, hopefully that'll help get you started if you haven't gotten started or maybe if you've been doing it for awhile and you'll come up with a few more, I don't know, a few more ideas, few more fasting and feasting times, but I will say there's really no right or wrong. The only rule I abide by is you don't want to eat right when you get up and you really don't want to eat right before bed, you know, right before bed, your body's getting ready to go to sleep. 1 (1m 54s): You don't need to deal with digestion. And you know, you could get indigestion if you eat too close to, to bedtime. And then when you get up, you know, this is your cortisol levels will rise. And I think it's best to get up and even go for a walk and give yourself some time to get into the day before you eat. So those would be, I say the two main rules. Other than that, the main thing is, is you're just trying to restrict your feasting times and not eat all day and snack five, six times a day, because as we know, and if you listen to any of my podcasts, the last last one was regarding snacking. 1 (2m 37s): The last one was a two times ago. I don't know. They tend, they tend to blend together after a while, but I did talk about how we want to avoid snacking. So either way, let me give you a few tips before moving forward on the variations of fasting hunger, hunger waves will come and go. And I always tell people this, you gotta be patient it's. You want to sort of take your mind off and staying busy. I think staying busy is probably the number one tip. If you're just getting into fasting and you know, if you're doing a longer, fast, maybe could be a day when you're out of the house. I think that would help. I think a lot of us are working at home now. It makes it a little more difficult because you're around the kitchen. But if you can just stay in your office and not go by the kitchen, that would probably be easiest. 1 (3m 22s): But you know, you sort of want to trick the mind. And you know, one thing too is when you're normally used to eating, let's say you're used to eating at noon. I would, I would have an activity at that time, maybe book a conference call or, you know, do a yoga class because what you'll find is you'll do that hour yoga class. You might have some hunger waves during that yoga class, but when you get out, you'll be like, whoa, you know, they should go, right. And this might take a little bit time to get used to, but I used to do this sometimes when I just, you know, when you're used to eating at a certain time and you wanted to sort of trick the mind and body and stay busy, you know, do some type of class or maybe have a call for business. 1 (4m 3s): But that can really help also regarding fasting only tell supportive people. There's people who hear about fast and they think it's like this sort of crazy thing. And it's really not. It's actually pretty normal. It's evolutionary. And it's been going on for awhile and tons of religions as well. So yeah, I would only tell people who are supportive and if they're not supportive, then you know, that's their problem. So let me go through some popular variations that we've heard out in the media and out out and about 16, eight is probably the most popular one. This is something that I ease people into when they do either the 21 day fasting challenge, or even as a client, sometimes we'll work our way into a 16 eight. 1 (4m 45s): And what that means is that your daily aiding period is eight hours. This could be like typically between noon and eight, you know, to, to close out your eating window at eight is maybe a slightly late, you know, I go to bed at 10. So I try to get done. My eating window is done by seven. I'd say at the latest, but you know, starting out if you want to do 12, 12 and eight, maybe have, you can have three meals within that eight hour window where you could have two meals. I just interviewed Brad Kearns. I highly recommend you listening to the last podcast. If you haven't tons of great tips, especially for, for anybody, but for, you know, a 50 plus athlete, you know, he's like one of the top track and fields, 50 senior athletes out in the states and even in the world. 1 (5m 31s): So highly recommend Brad current's interview, but he just came out with a book with mark Sisson regarding two meals a day. Well, within this eight hour window of eating, you could two hours, two meals a day would be a perfect fit. It would be a perfect fit. So that's a great place to start. Definitely. The next variation you hear sometimes is 24. And I know it's very creative name instead of 16, eight it's 20 well, 20 hours of fasting, which might seem intimidating when you just say it out loud, but you're going to take advantage of your overnight fast of your overnight sleeping time. Cause we all fast to some degree, right when we're sleeping and then you're going to have a four hour eating window. 1 (6m 14s): Now our reading, eating window, I wouldn't recommend eating three meals within that four hour eating window I would recommend and two meals and just space them out. And you know, you could do one big meal, but I think it's good to sort of break it up a little bit, especially if you're going to consume a decent amount of protein, which I highly recommend, especially if you're really active and you know, aging, as we all are, I think two meals will be easier to digest. And I just think it's probably the best way to go about doing a 24 window 20 slash four window. Now, the next one I'm gonna tell you about is OMAD and there's a whole community out there regarding one meal a day, and some of you are thinking, why would someone just have one meal a day? 1 (6m 59s): Well, I do this. Sometimes I do this. I've actually been leaning more towards this a little bit. Yeah. I feel like in the summer when it's just like 90 degrees and humid, like, and I got a bunch to do during the day, like, I don't want, like, I dunno eating sometimes can weigh me down. Even if I eat something healthy, you can just feel it. I think you really become in tune with like your hunger hormones and just how your body reacts to certain foods. Once you get into fasting, but I'll have a light lunch or like mid time meal. That could be two, three o'clock. But sometimes if I'm busy, I'll just have one meal at the end of the day and it's perfectly fine. I'll try to pack in a decent amount of protein. 1 (7m 39s): Like I mentioned, you know, I would say that this is, is that something you want to jump to? This is something you want to work towards fasting for, you know, over six years now. And yeah, I've E I've worked my way into this. This is the, you know, I, this is normal for me, but if you're, if you're, you know, maybe 50 plus year old and, you know, trying to build muscle or build, even put on some mass, one meal a day might not be the best way to go. I would just start with 16 eight and see how it fits into your schedule. But if you've been doing it for a while and you need sort of a change of pace. Yeah, I li I like it. A lot of times, I I've been enjoying doing this and having just one really solid meal. 1 (8m 24s): Another, another variation is alternate day fasting. So this involves just fasting for approximately about 36 hours, because what you're going to do is you dinner one day, then you'd fast until the all day too. And then you're not going to eat until like breakfast on day three. So, you know, for some people, this might seem a bit extreme. I would recommend this for people who, you know, maybe, maybe they've hit a plateau and they need to just mix it up every once in a while. I like to do a longer, fast every so often a day or two or three, I've done three before, but you know, I don't recommend doing this all the time. I don't recommend a three-day fast all the time, but if you want to do alternate day fasting, yeah, I'd give it a go. 1 (9m 9s): I mean, you know, the day that you're fasting, I would just recommend having a busy day, you know, keeping yourself out and about, and then drinking, obviously plenty of water with minerals, maybe put some sea salt in there, some quality Redmond, sea salt. I recommend as well, want to get, keep those, to keep the minerals on the higher side, as opposed to, you know, just having water in itself. So, you know, nothing wrong with drinking water, but if you could have like some type of mineral water or sparkling water helps as well. So those are the variations. If you have questions about it, feel free to comment. Let me know what variation you do. I'd love to know you can comment on YouTube or when I post this to social media, but either way you got 16, eight, you got 24, yeah, one meal a day, you got alternate day fasting. 1 (9m 59s): I'd say it would depend on your goals. And it would depend on where you're at. And the fasting process starts slow. You know, like I talk about actually in the 21 day fasting challenge and in my journal is, you know, start just by pushing back for breakfast one hour and then do that for, you know, maybe three, four days until you get used to that and then push it a little bit more. So these are all ways to just sort of trick yourself and your body. You know, we're all sort of, we've all been told by marketing and by food companies that we need to eat all the time and you really don't. And once you get into this, you're going to just find this new freedom that you have more flexibility, and you can get a lot more done during the day. So let me know if you have any questions. 1 (10m 40s): I hope you enjoy my micro podcasts. I have some great interviews coming up on Friday and yeah, thanks so much for listening and talk to you next time. Hey, get lean equally nation. Are you a man between the ages of 40 and 60 years old looking to lose inches around your waist have significantly more energy throughout the day and gain muscle all while minimizing the risk of injuries? Well, I'm looking for three to five people to work one-on-one with in my fat burner blueprint signature program, which I've developed by utilizing my 15 years experience in the health and fitness space. This program is designed specifically for those committed, to making serious progress towards their health goals. 1 (11m 23s): Over the next six months, we will focus on sleep stress, nutrition, meal, timing, and building lean muscle. If this sounds like a fit for you, email me@bryanatbriangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. That's brian@briangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. 0 (11m 48s): Thanks for listening to the get lean eat clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine. And I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member. That's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.

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