Benefits of fasting
Fasting can give your body a reset and clear that backlog of excesses. It is important that you do this safely, as fasting for longer than 24 hours without medical supervision can be dangerous.
Fasting can be a beneficial way to give your body a reset and clear that backlog of excesses. However, it is nuanced and it is important that you do this safely. Over the holidays, I like to implement slightly longer overnight fasts to keep my blood sugar in check (check out what I do in the Pro Tips section).
There are many different types of fasts:
Intermittent fasting where you eat within a certain time window. And under this umbrella, there are many different types - 5:2, 16.8, overnight.
Juice fasting where you only drink juice and give your digestive system a rest
Water fasting where you only consume water - involves a drastic reduction in calories and requires medical supervision.
In my opinion, most people would benefit from having a window in their day with no food. How long that window is and what time of day this window should occur varies depending on your health status.
But first - Why is a window without food helpful?
1) It allows the gut to rest and this activates something called the Migratory Motor Complex which is a fancy way of saying "getting the gut moving" - think of it as the street sweeper that moves our gut along and cleans it out - very important and often impaired in conditions like SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth).
2) It allows your blood sugar and insulin to return to a normal level - this is beneficial for our metabolic health and can help some people lose weight - particularly if you have insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, leptin resistance (insulin is a fat storage hormone - a constantly high insulin level signals your body to store fat).
However, here are 3 caveats to consider:
Studies have shown if you consume most of your food earlier on in the day, your blood sugar response is more stable throughout the day vs if you consumed food later in the day.1 For this reason, I always eat breakfast, and if I was to skip a meal - it'll usually be dinner. There has also been suggestions that skipping breakfast may be associated with a higher risk of gallstones in women. Everyone is different, and this may not apply to you - but this is what the data currently shows.2