Can fasting make you slimmer and healthier?

It seems so many people these days are doing fasting diets and claim that the benefits go beyond just getting ripped. on what is really happening here.

Fasting diets are when you go without food for long periods of time or leave long gaps between meals. For about a year, I have been intermittent fasting, where I eat two meals between 12pm - 8pm. In this post, I explore whether denying myself an extra plate in the morning of poached eggs, was for good reason.


In our gut, enzymes break down the food we eat which ends up in our bloodstream. Carbohydrates are broken down quickly into sugar which our cells use for energy. If it is not all used, we store the excess as fat in the fat cells. Sugar can only enter our cells with a hormone made in the pancreas, insulin. Sugar is brought into the fat cells and kept there by insulin.

Between meals, specifically the periods when we are not eating, our insulin levels go down and our fat cells release the stored sugar as energy. With intermittent fasting, the main idea is to let the insulin levels go down far enough and for long enough so that we start to burn off the stored fat.

A review of intermittent fasting recently published in New England Journal of Medicine says timing makes a big difference. Fasting triggers many cellular functions. The researchers analyzed many studies and found that simple fasting boosts metabolism, lowers blood sugar, lessens inflammation, and clears out toxins and damaged cells which effectively enhances brain functions. A circadian rhythm fasting approach, where meals are restricted to an 8 to 10-hour period of the daytime was found to be effective. Well that is comforting for me to hear! But of course, you need to think about what works for you. I have to stress that the decision to change your eating needs to be informed.

Krista Varady from the University of Illinois, Chicago who has run thousands of weight loss tests, confirms that people DO lose weight fasting. Funnily enough though, she says it is not primarily because fasting changes your body’s reaction to food. Yes, you can see changes to your metabolism like a transition from burning sugar to burning fat, but that is not the main reason you’re losing weight. It is simple, if you are not eating for a big chunk of the day, then, you are not going to be consuming as many calories. SPOILER: eating less = weight loss.

If you are not convinced, several randomised studies (like Krista Varady’s ) prove just this, showing fasting had no significant difference on weight loss compared to daily calorie restriction. If there was something special about fasting, you’d expect the results would show just that but they didn’t!

There are many studies that show there are potential life-span extending effects of fasting but these are limited only to animal studies. Sure, it makes a bit of sense that intermittent fasting could help you live longer given the impact on the metabolism. But, there needs to be studies involving humans for us to understand if the talk about delaying ageing is possible.

We know our diet plays a huge part in maintaining our health. But could it impact our ability to fight cancer?

Well, many types of cancer love sugar, in a way, they may use it as their food supply. Valter Longo, a professor in ageing at the University of Southern California says that fasting cuts off this food supply and weakens the cancer. Then, when you add traditional medicine like chemotherapy, the chances of destroying the cancer cells rises tremendously because, as he states, the cancer cells are confused by being in a new environment (without sugar).

A cautionary note is that fasting can make someone feel weaker and become malnourished – so I wouldn’t trust fasting to be the saving grace with fighting off cancer.

Is it a wonder diet or a wonder why your friends are on it diet? There are some interesting points here and plenty more for researchers to still confirm. For me, fasting has worked in the sense that I see consistency in maintaining my weight and I still feel strong. So really, the extra morning eggs probably aren’t necessary.