Lessons from a 24 Hour Fast

I will start this by saying fasting likely isn't for everyone and you should discuss with your doctor prior to trying it. I will also say, from a performance stand point I wouldn’t recommend fasting for athletes. There might be some that can do it, but most of the athletes we have seen have a difficult time getting enough calories already, so restricting periods of eating would make that more difficult with their schedules. For me, this started after my last powerlifting competition. My doctor laid out some guidelines that would help me structure my new nutrition and lifestyle habits to help me get my bodyweight down to a healthy weight. For me, the most tiring part of competing at a high level in powerlifting was eating enough calories on a daily basis to keep my bodyweight over 300lbs. It wasn’t until after I stopped competing that I added up the calories I was taking in to keep my weight up and I realized that it was likely 6,000-9,000 calories a day. Add in a pizza or junk meal and it surely went over 10,000 calories. I had talked with people who would use periods of fasting and they seemed to really find benefit, but it was something I never saw myself doing. After I did my last competition, my doctor emailed me the guidelines he wanted me to follow. Here they were:

Eat two meals a day. I decided this would mean breakfast at noon and dinner between 7-8pm. I wake up around 4am and usually have clients 6am until 10-11am. So this was very easy to adjust to as I hated rushing every morning to eat breakfast.

No snacks. This was harder for me than only taking in two meals. Many people underestimate the number of calories they take in from snacking. 

Those were the only guidelines, no specific meal plan or food elimination diet. I really enjoyed the change of pace and within a couple of months, I noticed my stomach actually felt relaxed for the first time in years. From there, listening to people like Dan John, Andrew Guberman,Peter Attia, and David Sinclair speak about fasting as part of a lifestyle and then dive into longer periods of fasting I became more interested. Essentially, our digestive system has all these processes that need to happen (imagine the healthy bacteria cleaning and proteins being recycled to be more efficient), but our standard diet of three to six meals daily never allows for them to happen. After a year of being pleasantly surprised by results, I decided I would try a 24 hour period and see what happens. Many people will say things like “I like food too much to do that”. What’s funny is when I was eating atlas 6,000 calories a day, people told me they could never eat like that. Everything comes back to discipline and goals. Here’s what I observed.

1. I wasn’t hungry. I started my fast at 8pm on Wednesday and wouldn’t eat again until Thursday at 8pm. I drank a lot of coffee, water, and tea but no calories were taken in all day. I wasn’t even slightly hungry until making burritos for Claire and I around 7:30pm. This has me wondering if our traditional meal schedule is all nonsense and we become hungry out of boredom or scheduled feeding. I was pretty surprised by this. 

2. Energy was very high all day. My energy started high in the morning and seemed to only go up from there. I worked a normal day of training clients and planning for the gym. Went on a long walk and even created a full training program and all the writing for it. No up and downs.

3. My stomach felt better. As the day went on, my stomach felt better each hour. Each hour I went past my normal breakfast time, my stomach felt better. This has me interested to try longer periods of fasting into the 48-72 hour range. 

4. I didn’t over eat. Once we made dinner to break the fast, I was surprised that I only ate my normal size dinner. I didn’t feel the need to binge eat everything in sight. Even more interesting to me, I had no stomach discomfort after eating. 

5. I will add salt next time. I eat a lot of salt in my daily diet because of my activity level. When I went back to eating, I craved saltier foods for the next day. Next time I fast, I will use salt and electrolyte packets in my water to help with that. I never experienced cramping, headaches, or dizziness so my sodium levels weren't low. 

6. Bodyweight went down 6lbs. This is glycogen and sodium dropping. Just an interesting observation. 

Where to? From this I will try an extended period of fasting monthly. I will gradually extend the periods of fast with the goal being to complete a 72 hour fast by the end of the year. I will continue to read studies about the effects of fasting and learn how and when they would be the most beneficial for. Fasting might not be for everyone, but I did lean that our body sending a hungry signal isn’t the worst thing. It’s ok to be hungry periodically. Our life now has so much comfort that we never experience hunger. Your body will adapt to whatever stress (or lack of) you place on it.

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance

www.showtimestrength.com