Fasting for Beginners

FASTINGGUT HEALTHMETABOLISMMICROBIOMENUTRITIONRECOVERY

Nov 22

Article by Stefan Burns - Updated November 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter! Stefan Burns YouTube

I have done my best to make this a complete guide on fasting for beginners. As part of a 10 year gut health journey to great gut health I have researched extensively into the gastrointestinal system, cellular biology, and human health, and I found through experimentation that fasting was incredibly effective in healing my gut, improving my digestion, and resetting my microbiome to work with me instead of against me. My complete advice on this subject of gut health and fasting is the Holistic Gut Health Guide. For everyone new to discovering fasting and gut health mindfulness, you will get started on the right foot with a foundation of good information with the guide below. Everything that I have written on fasting I have tried, and research fills in the rest in regards to disease states such as obesity and diabetes, the full reference list is at the end.

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Fasting: Abstaining from food or drink

Water fasting is not consuming any food or caloric beverages, and dry fasting is not consuming any liquids. Dry fasting can be done in different ways, and as it removes the vital resource of water, it is not for beginners and won’t be discussed in this article. Everything written below is for water fasting.

Fasting helps with (1):

Digestive upset and gut health problems
Weight-loss and excess body fat
Autoimmune issues and active infections
Metabolic conditions like diabetes
Neurodegenerative problems along with mental fatigue and brain fog

Fasting is able to help with most heath problems because of how it reduces inflammation throughout the body through the activation of autophagy. There are many possible reasons you have heard of fasting and why you may find it of interest, and it’s beyond the scope of this beginners guide to explore every avenue. Instead we will look at how fasting benefits health by examining some of the universal health actions it promotes, discuss the most popular applications for fasting, and cover the important considerations that need to be made with fasting.

This most common reason people find initial interest in fasting is for losing body fat. Since fasting removes all caloric inputs and forces the body to metabolize body fat, fasting is an effective weight loss technique. Cyclical weight loss is typically not healthy, and a better way to consider fasting than as a weight-loss tool is as a metabolism-enhancing tool. A number on a scale is not as important as a healthy metabolism. Typically having a healthy metabolism means you’re at your perfect body fat percentage and weight, as fat loss and having a healthy body composition is causative from metabolism, but misalignment between the two can occur at times and therefore this is an important mindset distinction to make if seeking best long term success.

Fasting for Metabolic Health

Metabolism: The near infinite number of life-sustaining reactions that occur within the body cellularly every second

Having a healthy metabolism means you have all the normal components needed to complete all the metabolic reactions required for optimal health every day. The largest component of metabolism comes down to human thermodynamics, but there are other pieces that are useful, like using herbs which contain compounds that beneficially facilitate and stabilize chemical reactions throughout various parts of the body.

Fasting is so useful for improving metabolic health because it changes genetic expression. Activating the regenerative state of autophagy requires the stimulation of those parts of your DNA that govern the process, and as DNA expression changes so to does cellular protein production. Mitochondrial function improves, and in the first two days of fasting you often experience an energy surge as the body’s energetic burden from digestion has been lifted. As the gut regenerates, future periods of food consumption will yield greater metabolic resources through improved digestion, the result being better metabolism and being in a better fat burning environment. More energy, resources, and healthy connective tissues means more activity and greater NEAT (2).

Fasting for Weight Loss

Approximately 75% of adults aged 20 and over are overweight or obese. The obesity rate for this age group in the USA is 40% (3). For anyone in either of these categories, the most effective way to improve metabolic function. which is the primary object over simply weighing less, is to improve body composition. Shedding body fat and increasing lean body mass (muscle) does this most effectively. Fasting reduces body fat percentage quickly and can be done safely with proper knowledge and experience, and with proper refeeding and exercise afterwards, fasting has no discernable effect on lean body mass in my experience. Lean body mass have even been shown to improve with repeated bouts of a calorie restricted “fasting mimicking” diet (4).

Let’s say you have twenty pounds (10 kg) to lose. An effective way to lose that weight in order to improve metabolic health and overall wellness is to complete a 48 hour fast once a week, with a 2 meal a day intermittent fasting schedule in-between. This is a 5:2 schedule:

Five days 16 hour intermittent fasting with a daily eight hour eating window
Two days of fasting (i.e. a 48 hour fast)

That weight could also be lost rapidly in a few weeks or a months time if a good diet is eaten and an overall caloric deficit is maintained. That weight could also be lost over time though not as quickly with a daily intermittent fasting or one meal a day (OMAD) schedule. The most rapid way to lose weight is to not eat for 3+ days, and many people who are overweight or obese are successful in multiday/seven day/10+ day fasts. More important than losing excess body fat once is keeping it off, and thus I think it better to take shorter more frequent fasts while improving diet quality in-between than it is to do a mega-long fast and then possibly binge afterwards, which is just another form of yo-yo dieting but riskier.

Croatia, 2021. I was swimming a lot and practicing yoga. Diet of rice, beans, tofu, eggs, and abundant fruits and vegetables. Occasional intermittent fasting as guided by intuition and gut health.

How to Activate Brown Fat

There are two main types of fat in the body. White fat is metabolically inactive, and these stores of calories do not activate easily. Brown fat is metabolically active and generates body heat. White fat is long term calorie storage and can accumulate to dangerous levels that increase risk of disease and all-cause mortality (5). Brown fat on the other hand has active energy in-flows and out-flows. Cold therapy activates and increases brown fat, and having a greater brown fat percentage is correlated with improved metabolic health (6), better heat regulation, and less energy volatility.

As the phytochemicals of herbs like flavonoids have metabolism boosting effects, it’s possible that the metabolism of these plant compounds by the liver and/or microbiome also stimulates brown fat creation and usage, most likely due to selective DNA activation.

Fasting also stimulates brown fat simply because it is advantageous. Brown fat can be activated for energy needs faster than white fat, and a healthy metabolism can shift between carbohydrate metabolism to brown fat metabolism to white fat metabolism (if any exist) with few interruptions in-between. As body composition and metabolism improves, the body is better able to manage its energy requirements and white fat is selectively reduced in favor of keeping a tighter budget in brown fat and if physically training, bigger muscles which can store greater amounts of glycogen.

Eating a higher-fat diet in-between fasts composed of unoxidized fats, primarily monounsaturated fats like you receive from olive oil and avocados, will broadly improve fat metabolism and therefore brown fat activation.

Fasting for Diabetes

Diabetes: Dysfunctional glucose processing and utilization which causing excess blood sugar

As fasting improves blood glucose utilization, it can be useful for those with diabetes, but care should be taken to avoid dangerous moments of too high or too low blood sugar. If you have diabetes please consult with a health practitioner knowledgeable in fasting before scheduling any long fasts. There are two types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2.

Type 1 Diabetes: An autoimmune condition where insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed by the bodies immune system. About 10% of people who have diabetes have Type 1. Often diagnosed in children and young adults.

Type 2 Diabetes: The body doesn’t make enough insulin and/or the body’s cells don’t respond normally to insulin. Type 2 diabetes occurs most often in middle-aged and older people.

Diabetes and its mismanagement once developed has serious consequences, being stressful much of the body, including the heart, kidneys, and nervous system. As fasting helps with autoimmune conditions and also the normalization of pancreatic function and blood glucose levels, fasting can help type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

If performed safely and with many safety fallbacks, like having food always available on hand, fasting can be useful for diabetics to improve their condition and overall health. By clearing the digestive system of food, or at least by spacing the time out between meals more, fasting relieves stress on the pancreas and allows for insulin levels and blood glucose sensitivity to normalize back to optimal. For those with diabetes, intermittent fasting can reduce insulin requirements and aid in weight loss (7).

If you begin to notice increased energy volatility characterized by too low or too high blood sugar levels, fasting is an effective way to reset the functioning of the pancreas. Insulin is the main anabolic hormone of the human body, and it’s only produced by the pancreas, but this only accounts for about 1% of pancreatic functioning. The other duties of the pancreas that make up 99% of its purpose is secreting pancreatic juice and digestive enzymes into the first part of the small intestine known as the duodenum, which neutralizes stomach acid and aids in the breakdown of food and it’s digestion. And its fasting’s digestion improving effect which is really quite amazing.

Not eating to eat better, who would have thought?

Fasting for Gut Health

There are many ways to relieve stress on the digestive system, from adopting a liquid diet to removing intolerant foods from the diet via an elimination diet. There is no question though that the simplest and most effective way to reduce digestive stress and inflammation is to simply not eat. The epithelial layer of the digestive system regenerates about 20% per day, and this rate is increased even further when the regular stress of digesting food is alleviated via fasting.

That’s right, it is stressful to eat! Eating and digesting requires the production and secretion of many different chemicals from a bunch of organs like the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. The immune system has to be active to ensure nothing unwanted penetrates through the gut-blood barrier into the blood stream. Digestion requires energy, which is why eating a big meal often induces sleepiness, but the reason we do it is because if we eat nutritious foods we get more out of digestion than we put into it. Fundamentally that’s how life exists.

For some people this isn’t the case though, either because their diet is such a poor nutrient quality that the body puts more into digestion than it receives out of it, or the body does its best to digest food but other issues are causing malabsorption of nutrients, like diarrhea, damaged/destroyed villi, or poorly functional glands which fail to release adequate enzymes and biles vital to proper digestion. An “easy” fix for these problems is to fast.

Evolutionarily it’s in our physiology to fast, it’s another “default mode network” the body that has developed over millions of years of evolution. In fact the body wants you to fast every now and then, it’s the most efficient way to active autophagy, the cellular process that repairs and regenerates the tissues of the body. Fasting also changes the composition of the microbiome quickly, an important aspect of proper thorough food digestion. If you fast off a meal for a day or two, your microbiome will be better at digesting those particular foods than they were when you first ate them.

The most obvious effect that fasting has though is that it reduces inflammation in the gut.

Fasting for Gut Inflammation

The role of the digestive system is to take food, which is made up of animal, plant, or fungal cells which contain complex macronutrients like starches, long-chain fatty acids, and protein chains, and break everything down into the smallest most usable and absorbable compounds. Food is often first broken down and made easier to digest through cooking, and chewing mechanically breaks food down into smaller components. From there stomach acid and digestive enzymes erode and break apart the molecular bonds of food, transporters are utilized to facilitate certain chemical reactions, and as you can imagine the digestive system becomes a very busy environment chemically. Within the chaos of digestion there is an order, but there is no avoiding the inflammation created from the digestive process.

When you are in good health, the inflammation created during digestion is easily mitigated and is no cause for concern, but if a health imbalance exists, then gut-based inflammation can tip the body over into a state of over-stress, which isn’t good over the long term. You may be interesting in fasting as a way to heal the gastrointestinal system and reduce gut inflammation, and fasting is very effective in achieving these objectives. All of chapter 8 of the Holistic Gut Health Guide is how fasting is useful for gut health.

Fasting is one of the best ways to repair the gut because the absence of food activates widespread autophagy.

Autophagy: Body’s cellular recycling system that processes the reusing of old and damaged cell parts

The necessary inflammation of the gut causes the cells of the digestive system to experience rapid turnover, with intestinal digestive linings experiencing about a 20% daily turnover rate. By strongly activating autophagy, fasting increases the digestive systems regenerative systems and cellular resources are better recycled and reused, which places less of a resource drain on metabolism.

It takes time for food to transit through the digestive system, and food spreads out in the digestive system after eating, so the longer the fast and the more time is allowed for food to completely clear out and pass, the more effective the anti-inflammatory and regenerative effects of fasting.

Drinking zero-calorie herbal teas aid greatly in the inflammation-reducing and gut healing fasting process. Well-known and safe herbs like chamomile and dandelion contain abundant antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial flavonoids and other phytochemicals, and drinking a 1:1 ratio chamomile flower and dandelion root tea throughout a fast and on normal eating days improves digestion, quells excess gut inflammation, and helps shift the microbiome towards symbiosis and away from destructive pathogenesis. Endotoxin-producing pathogens can be a large potential source of gut inflammation, and fasting helps to limit their presence in the digestive system.

Herbal Teas and Fasting for Gut Health

Fasting for Microbiome Reset

The microorganisms that live in the human digestive system have a very short life-cycle and cannot survive nutrient deprivation as long you can. By removing food from the system, fasting influences the composition of the microbiome.

Most of the microbiome lives in the large intestine, which food begins to reach at about 6+ hours of digestion. Food is then further digested by the microbiome and body in the large intestine for 24-36 hours typically. To change the composition and diversity of the microbiome in a substantial way with fasting, a complete emptying of the large intestine and a subsequent zero-digestion period are required, which necessitates a longer 48+ hour fast.

Still it’s been found that short fasts, like the 16 to 20 hour fasts common to intermittent fasting can also favorably shift the microbiome over time (8), especially when paired with favorable dietary changes like the consumption of more fiber. Intermittent fasting also helps the body achieve better circadian rhythm through modification of the gut microbiome (9).

There are two main strategies for improving the gut microbiome, and the first is to diversify the microbiome with more symbiotic microbes and to support their growth, and the second is to select against and reduce pathogenic microbe populations. Most effective is to pair both strategies together, and if this is done then it’s possible to shift the microbiome towards greater symbiosis in a significant way quite quickly, and fasting does this effectively especially when paired with certain herbal remedies which you can learn more about with the article on the other side of this button.

How to Restore a Healthy Microbiome

Fasting for Parasite Removal

Fasting is an effective way to reduce and eliminate parasites from the gastrointestinal system as it removes their primary food source which is what you eat, while instead you draw from your fat reserves. If parasites are a serious problem, only a very long fast 7+ day fast will completely eliminate them, so fasting is best paired with a parasite removal protocol.

This can be accomplished in a number of ways. You can fast for a period of time, say 2 days, and then in-between each fast you run an herbal parasite cleanse. If you’re overall healthy and wanting to make a faster more dramatic change, then you can fast and take the anti-parasite herbs at the same time. For both options, I recommend drinking herbal tea throughout the fasting and feeding periods as it will help regenerate the gut, favorably improve the microbiome, improve energy metabolism, and beneficially activate the immune system. A perfect tea for this would be a 1:1:1 ratio blend of chamomile flowers, dandelion root, and peppermint leaves.

The stronger anti-parasite herbs are oregano (specifically oregano oil), clove, black walnut hull, and wormwood. A good premixed supplement I used before which worked great was SCRAM, and I followed those dosing instructions while also taking oregano oil twice a day. To learn more about parasites and parasite removal, you can read my following article.

How to Best Remove Parasites

Fasting for Immune Health

Beyond weight loss and gut health, fasting has been shown to have powerful effects on the immune system. The majority of immune system activity is centered around the gut, as vigilant defense against pathogens and unwanted compounds from entering into the blood stream is needed. When the immune defense requirements of the gastrointestinal system decrease due to less food transiting through (which also means less microbial growth at that moment), the immune system is able to regenerate, recharge, and reset its functions.

Case reports abound from medically supervised fasting clinics of people who have seen complete remission of an autoimmune disease by undergoing long multi-day water fasts (10), usually exceeding two weeks in length. Autoimmune diseases are characterized by the immune system mistakenly attacking parts of the body, and this destructive cellular behavior has the potential to be eliminated and the immune system reset towards normal function through fasting.

Severe calorie restriction (50% and greater) and fasting changes immune function by altering the distribution of immune cells throughout the body, with memory T-cells for example accumulating in bone marrow as a protective mechanism (11). The adaptive immune system enhances survival in the face of infection because it allows the host to rapidly respond to and control infections as they arise. Immunological memory enhances this protective ability especially if new infections are the same or similar in nature to infections previously experienced.

Fasting in effect regenerates the immune system to a more youthful state that is better at fighting pathogens and cancer and less likely to turn on healthy cells of the body.

One reason appetite typically decreases during a cold, flu, or covid is because of the immune-boosting effect that calorie restriction and fasting has. By activating autophagy, the body is better able to fight infections and repair the cellular damage caused by them.

Fasts of different lengths have different effects on the immune system, so if you are interested in fasting to improve immune health, I recommend starting with intermittent fasting, and then trying OMAD, and then trying a 2-3 day fast, making careful self-observations during each fast of how you feel and how your symptoms improve (if you have any).

If you have a serious autoimmune condition and want to try a longer water fast to help with the condition, contact a fasting clinic near you and consult with your health practitioner.

The Simplest Types of Fasting

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is the most popular type of fasting, typically scheduled as sixteen hours of fasting followed by an open eight hour feeding window (16:8). This ratio of fasting to feeding can be shortened to and 12:12 ratio or lengthened to a 20:4 ratio, with the longer intermittent fasts taking the body deeper into autophagy.

It’s easier to maintain caloric balance or even a caloric surplus with intermittent fasting than it is with multi-day fasts. Intermittent fasting is useful for athletes who want to improve their insulin sensitivity, hormone profiles, and improve their digestion, all while still increasing in strength, stamina, and possibly lean body mass.

Intermittent fasting is the easiest form for fasting to do for the average person, and overtime it can dramatically transform one’s health.

Intermittent fasting is most effective done consistently day after day, and the daily increase in autophagy intermittent fasting stimulates as compared to a normal 3-4 meals & snacks a day eating schedule is helpful for healing the gut, reducing inflammation throughout the body, and improving energy metabolism.

OMAD Fasting (One Meal a Day)

Fasting for twenty-four hours is also known as one meal a day or OMAD fasting. The most common type of OMAD fasting is eating dinner every night, though it’s not uncommon to do breakfast or lunch OMAD. OMAD is similar to intermittent fasting in that food is still eaten every day, and OMAD is typically done consecutively or for a certain number of days per week.

Since OMAD takes the body deeper into a fasted state of autophagy across twenty-four hours than intermittent fasting, it’s a good way to begin experimenting with longer fasts and to examine one’s relationship with eating behaviors. Physiological hunger is quite different than a psychological food craving, and if struggling to make healthy dietary choices, consistent OMAD fasting is a great way to reset psychological eating behaviors and patterns.

The gut-brain axis is beneficially altered with OMAD and each fast will have you become better at identifying when you’re truly physically hungry or when you simply have a psychological food craving.

48 Hour Fasting

Fasting for longer than 24 hours reduces the body’s glucose sugars stored in muscle cells and the liver, and around the 48 hour mark is usually when all the stored glucose is depleted in the body which forces the body to shift into ketosis.

Ketosis: Metabolic process that converts fatty acids into energy molecules known as ketones.

The brain runs exclusively on simple sugars, or if those are not available, ketones. When carbohydrates are in short supply, either from fasting or from eating a high-fat ketogenic diet, the body begins producing ketones to keep all the metabolic systems running smoothly. Some people with neurodegenerative diseases see a massive reduction in symptoms and their disease state when their brain runs on ketones instead of simple sugars.

Just as fasting is another default mode network for the body, switching from sugar metabolism to ketone metabolism is another metabolic state change that can be used to improve health and diagnose health issues. A 48-hour fast is useful because it takes the body deep into autophagy, deeper than most people have ever gone in their lives except maybe during a bad illness like the flu (hint hint a protective mechanism from widespread viral inflammation and damage). Forty eight hours of fasting really provides the digestive system time to rest and regenerate by greatly reducing stress and takes the body to the edge of or into ketosis.

A 48-hour fast is short enough to be easily completed by most people without serious health issues as long as they have the willpower. a 2 day fast doesn’t require too much planning, and it’s also long enough to bring about noticeable differences in digestion, energy, and weight. Undergoing a 48 hour fast allows for valuable health observations to be made on digestion, metabolism, mental health, and more.

3 Day Fasting

A longer 72-hour fast will take the body fully into ketosis and the autophagy healing effects are even stronger than they are for shorter fasts. It’s recommended to break a 72 hour fast with a small fat-heavy meal, like a mixed green salad with avocado, as this reduces the shock of reintroducing food to the digestive system while also keeping fat metabolism high and ketosis activated. If a fast that has induced ketosis is broken this way, you have a choice with subsequent meals to stay in ketosis or revert back to carbohydrate metabolism.

Your experience may vary, but I have found through personal experience that I don’t need to concern myself greatly with electrolytes during a 48 hour fast, but that electrolytes becomes more important with a 72 hour fast.

Fasting and Electrolytes

Electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, phosphate, and bicarbonates are required for the basic functions of life like transmitting nerve signals and keeping cells electrically neutral. We derive electrolytes from our our food and drinks, and high or low electrolyte imbalances are health disruptive and can be life-threatening (12).

By removing all food from the metabolic equation, fasting changes electrolyte inflows, outflows, and overall ion balances in the body. For intermittent or OMAD fasting, there is generally little need to concern oneself with electrolytes as food containing electrolytes is still consumed daily. Making sure you acquire sufficient electrolytes and in the right ratios is important during longer fast.

I have fasted many times for 48 hours without taking any electrolytes with zero problems, so “wiggle room” exists. Your experience may vary, and it is better to do the following if fasting for greater than 24 hours:

Add a pinch of sea salt to the water you drink. Sea salt contains an abundant assortment of salts and ions, like potassium (K) and magnesium (Mg), whereas land-derived table salt contains just sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) ions.
Drinking herbal teas throughout a fast will provide the body a natural and varied assortment of electrolytes. Dandelion root is especially good for this as it contains abundant micronutrients (13)

Pre-made electrolyte fasting mixes exist, often called snake juice, and can be useful if used properly, but I urge caution in using them because they are often dosed incorrectly which results in symptoms like cramps and sudden diarrhea (as you’ll hear from the “never trust a fart” fasting crowd). Gross but worth knowing if you’re going to try fasting so you can avoid that embarrassing situation.

Breaking a Fast (refeeding)

I’ll conclude this fasting for beginners guide with how to break a fast, otherwise known as the refeed.

Fasting is amazing and incredibly healing if done safely and intelligently, and at some point every fast must come to an end. When it becomes more healthy to eat than to continue fasting is the hard limit.

The meals you eat before and after a fast have a dramatic effect on the ease and quality of the fast undertaken. For example, fasting off of a highly processed cheeseburger will be a much lesser experience with greater food cravings, energy volatility, and reduced cellular regeneration, than fasting off a meal consisting of vegetables, pulses (beans, lentils, etc), and a whole grain like rice. Fasting off of cake would be even worse! As it takes about 8-12 hours for food to reach the large intestine, and food can remain there for processing by the body and microbiome for 36-72 hours, the content and quality of the food eaten before a fast has a big impact on how easy a fast is.

A healthy microbiome is able to metabolize indigestible fiber and phytochemicals like flavonoids into short-chain fatty acids and beneficial secondary metabolites respectively. Fasts up to 72 hours in length does not eliminate all resource acquisition from the digestive system, it just encourages complete and thorough digestion of the remaining food while simultaneously shifting towards greater and greater activation of body fat for pure energetic needs.

A meal high in fiber and beneficial plant phytochemicals will beneficially remodel the microbiome towards symbiosis throughout the course of the fast, and then refeeding after the fast further effects the course of development of the microbiome. The final meal before a fast should consist of organic whole foods with an emphasis on vegetables, and the meal breaking a fast should consist of much the same.

For example with a 48 hour fast following this advice ensures that energy levels remain relatively stable during the fast, electrolytes are not in short supply, the microbiome shifts favorably towards greater symbiosis, and that food cravings are avoided.

This may be TMI, but I’ve personally experienced during 48 to 72 hour fasts that the last meal I eat is able to be processed down and absorbed to almost nothing if you have a healthy microbiome and the meal eaten was of a high quality. What this means is that instead of a having a bowel movement of normal volume from that meal, you may experience a much smaller bowel movement, or it’s possible that it doesn’t occur at all because your digestive system work together over the course of 2-3 days to absorb everything. Yes this is possible and really reshapes your understanding of how much food you really need to eat daily, and how many nutrients are wasted everyday, via the typical diet an eating schedule.

Get Fasting

Life has evolved to be adaptable to periods of nutrient scarcity, and fasting is not only useful but necessary from time to time. Optimal heath and longevity requires there to be a balance between anabolism (growth) and catabolism (repair). Over consumption of processed foods in addition to deleterious modern lifestyle factors has led to many of the health problems of the present day.

Fasting is an elegant solution to many of the health problems common today and it’s as old as time. Fasting allows you to experience a greater range of what’s possible biologically: from digestion efficiency improvements, to better metabolism, an enhanced immune system, and improved cognitive function.

Developing an intuition around knowing when to feed and when to fast is an important part of the heath journey and will help you to achieve your best wellness. I hope you find fasting as useful as I have, it has helped me tremendously in improving my gut health, once was my biggest health concern but now I navigate it with ease, and anytime I have the rare gut heath flareup the first thing I do is to begin fasting, whether its just an intermittent fast or I discover a 48 hour fast is needed or a longer period of OMAD fasting is beneficial. Once you have completed a few fasts for each of the primary methods 16 to 72 hours in length, fasting becomes a reliable tool you can use at any time to improve your health so long as it serves you and can be done safely.

I have written a lot more on fasting on this website, you can view the other articles here, or read chapter 8 of the Holistic Gut Health Guide.