Fat Fasting

A Guide to Fat Fasting

A fat fast is a useful method to help you start fasting, get back on track, or to extend your fasts beyond what you are currently able to do. The general idea is to consume a high fat diet for a short time. You won’t need to pair this with fasting just yet. The first thing to do is eat healthy fatty foods when you feel hungry. This can happen at any time of the day and doesn’t need to be within a particular eating window.

I’ve worked with clients who feel like they cannot stop snacking or eating unhealthy processed foods. If they ever binge eat a bag of Cheetos or cake, their thought process is that “tomorrow I will eat 100% clean”. However, these cravings are NOT a reflection of your will power or self-control. It is a reflection on your addiction to processed carbohydrates (which for all intent and purposes our body reacts to like a real addiction). If you have spent the last few years eating constantly throughout the day (even staying within your daily calorie goals), and eating a high percent of carbohydrates, you have taught your body to be heavily reliant on using glycogen as an energy source. Now, if you are able to teach your body to burn its fat stores for energy, you will notice the types of cravings you get will change, and you will also have less cravings and hunger pangs overall, allowing you to put an end to the binge eating cycle. These results can all be achieved through the simple method of fasting. If you have tried fasting in the past and had a horrible experience where you may have felt tired, hungry, cold, low energy, it means your current diet may have contained too much carbohydrates and you will need a slower transition into a fasting lifestyle. Doing a fat fast and only eating healthy fats will allow you to feel more in control of your appetite all while also letting your body switch to learning how to burn fat. The reason we’re doing this is because dietary fat doesn’t affect insulin levels and blood glucose much, therefore, low levels or these will allow your body to switch to fat burning a lot easier.

Fasting for newcomers or experienced individuals becomes a lot more manageable once your body switches over from carbohydrate metabolism to fat metabolism. What makes this transition easier on your body is that it is a shorter change to burn body fat if you’re already using dietary fat for energy, than it is to leap from carbohydrates to body fat. Fat fasting allows your body to reach a fat burning state quickly and with less reactions, such as headaches, cravings, or intense hunger pangs. It’s an especially great tool if you are coming off a very high carbohydrate diet (of breads, pastas, rice, baked goods), experience extreme hunger or intense sugar craving when you fast, or if you are feeling stressed out and fasting seems impossible when it once was easy. Similarly, it is also a great way to prepare for a longer fasting period if you are already accustomed to short fasts. For those wanting to fast for longer, I would recommend doing a “clean” water fast up until the point that you are comfortable, and then including a fat fast between then and your actual end time. Eventually you won’t need the fat fast to reach your goal number of fasting hours!

Fat fasting is an extreme version of the ketogenic diet, which is characterized as high in fat, and very low in carbohydrates. The high fat diet, paired with the monotony of the foods you can eat, helps to suppress your appetite. Have you ever loved a song, but heard it so many times that you no longer want to listen to it? This happens when you eat the same foods repeatedly. It also happens a lot faster when you are eating natural foods. This outcome of feeling full after you eat and not wanting to keep eating throughout the day is what you can achieve with this type of fasting. It is helpful for those who feel that they cannot stop snacking or bingeing on unhealthy foods and want to reset their body and stop the cycle.

When you first begin this type of fasting, you may be eating nonstop, which is totally okay! The fatty foods will make you full and reduce carbohydrate cravings. Over a few days, you’ll find yourself eating less and start fasting naturally. You can do the fat fast as long as you need to and it can be done in between regular fasts as well.

How To Fat Fast

Eat only when you feel hungry.
When you choose to eat, always eat until you feel 80% full.
Avoid dairy, nuts, and seeds to satisfy your hunger because this will encourage snacking behaviour. However, you can use these ingredients as a component of your meal. (i.e. top a salad with nuts and seeds, add cream to your coffee)
Fluids to drink at any time of the day can include bone or vegetable broth, water, pickle juice, tea or coffee.
Eat healthy fats only, avoid hydrogenated and trans-fats

Healthy Fats To Eat

Eggs
Bacon
Salmon
Sardines
Olive oil, coconut oil, MCT oil, avocado oil, macadamia nut oil
Butter
Ghee
Mayo (healthy oil base)
Avocado
Olives
Spices are allowed
Leafy greens cooked in or covered in fat

If you’ve heard of the many benefits of fasting and would like to give it a trial, we offer a free trial program to get you on-track! Every client comes to us with a different set skills and things that need improvement. This is why personalizing your free trial program and coaching you through the plan daily is so important to your success. Fat fasting is something we’d typically use for individuals who are addicted to carbohydrates. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to get in touch with us!