Legend has it that fasting or skipping meals will suppress your metabolism and cause you to store fat and burn muscle. This is a myth; in fact, science shows that short-term fasting (up to 48 hours) increases fat metabolism while protecting lean muscle.
Humans evolved as hunters during the ice ages. They ate only when the hunt succeeded and fasted otherwise. In the nineteenth century, native hunter-gatherers typically ate meals only once or twice daily. Although they often fasted more than 18 hours between meals, they had lean, muscular bodies and superior fitness.
At any point in time your body is either fed or fasting. When fed, it burns fuels derived from food; only when fasting does it burn body fat.
To burn fat, you must have normal blood sugar and low blood insulin. Meals can raise blood sugar well above 120 mg/dL (the diabetic level) and insulin will rise to control it; this stops your cells from burning fat. Fasting lowers both sugar and insulin to healthy levels that allow rapid fat metabolism.
Fasting dramatically increases growth hormone levels, which increases fat burning, stimulates muscle growth, and rejuvenates tissues. At the end of a 24-hour fast, you will have a slightly elevated metabolic rate due to increased adrenaline levels. In prehistoric times, this adrenaline helped your ancestors have energy to go hunting on an empty stomach.
If the human metabolism went awry upon missing a meal or fasting a day, we would never have survived the ice ages. Evolution built you to thrive on brief high intensity activity, infrequent feeding, and intermittent fasting. You can have a lean, fit future by incorporating ancestral practices like intermittent fasting into your lifestyle.
Comments
You can add increased level of autophagy to the advantages of short term fasting. It helps the body cells getting rid of unwanted and unneeded proteins.
"When fed, it burns fuels derived from food; only when fasting does it burn body fat. " - how can you explain than the success of the traditional bodybuilding diet 6-8 meals a day?
Wood:
1) They burn fat when not eating, i.e. at night, between their last feeding one day and their first feeding the next day; and
2) Their meals are so small relative to their caloric requirements that they leave the fed state before their next "feed", but only for a short period of time. E.G. they eat every three hours, very small meals (relative to energy needs), so they might be in the fed state for 1-2.5 hours, then burning fat for 0.5-2 hours.
Research has proven there is no advantage to 6 meals over 3. Frequent feeding is just a hassle, there is no benefit and recent studies suggest it is undesirable for glucose control and fat loss.
Example: http://www.e-spenjournal.org/article/S1751-4991%2810%2900054-5/abstract
Showed that 6 meals high carb produced undesirable high glucose levels, and 6 high protein meals was not superior to 3.
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