Depending on your time preference, social commitments, ability, wants, and needs there are numerous fasting protocols to choose from. However, no matter which protocol you choose, there are 5 golden rules you should always follow:

1. Never break your fast with sugar or high-GI foods

2. Always plan your fast

3. Always plan your pre- and post-fasting meal

4. Always drink water

5. Never put yourself in danger

Let's delve a little deeper into these rules.

1. Never break your fast with sugar or high-GI foods

We’ve already discussed the role of insulin in energy storage. Breaking your fast with High-GI foods elicits a sharp insulin response, and should be avoided at all costs.


2. Always plan your fast

As your experience with fasting grows and you begin to develop your intuitiveness, you’ll soon be able to fast with less preparation, but until then, planning your fasting days is key to success. That is, planning how you will go into, and come out of, a fast, and when the fast will take place. 


Scheduling your fasting days ahead of time will also allow you to prepare around your social calendar and commitments, thus increasing your chances of success. Females might wish to plan a fast around their menstrual cycle (more on this later).


3. Always plan your pre- and post-fasting meal

What you eat before and after your fast is essential, not only to your long-term success but the enjoyment of the process and results. One of the main reasons that diets fail is because of the lack of delicious, satiating meals which decreases people’s motivation and satisfaction.


Adding extra fibre and protein to your pre-fast meal and having your post-fast meal planned and/or easily available for when you’re finished is a great way to motivate you through your fasting window.


4. Always drink water

First, many people misinterpret hunger for thirst, so drinking more water than you usually would can help you feel full during your fast and at least eliminate the ‘thirst confused for hunger’ element. Drinking water throughout your fasting window is also important to prevent dehydration, since we get a lot of our water from the foods we eat (especially veggies).


5. Never put yourself in danger

This may seem simple, but many people will put themselves in serious danger while chasing certain fasting goals, especially if they don’t build-up their tolerance to fasting.


If your fast makes you feel sick or faint, break your fast following the guidelines above and start again tomorrow.


Remember, even a few hours of fasting are great for your digestive system, so take the win.
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Your tolerance and ability to go longer without food will increase, but too much stress and worry will only increase your cortisol levels (the stress hormone), which also blunts the fat loss process and can damage your health in the long-term.


Finally, some people simply should not fast. Skipping meals can be dangerous for people with certain conditions, such as those with a history of eating disorders, anxiety around food, or diabetes. People who take medications for blood pressure or heart disease also may be more prone to electrolyte abnormalities from fasting. 


If you'd like to learn more about fasting, which type of fasting method is best for you and how to fast correctly, check out The Fasting Playbook for more.

This is a lengthy blog post, but well worth a read for those of you who are interested in the 'why' you should fast, just as much as the 'how'.

Food is more than an energy source and fasting is more than simply going hungry. Unprocessed foods (‘wholefoods’) nourish our body and mind, deliver energy, and support our digestive and endocrine (hormonal) systems, among others. 

But we consume too much processed food laden with chemicals, preservatives and fillers, and it is - quite literally - killing us. When we eat carbohydrates (and most people eat more than they need to), the pancreas secretes insulin, the ‘storage hormone’, which helps maintain blood glucose levels. 

Insulin’s job is to drive blood glucose (sugar) from our blood into our muscles, fat cells and liver for storage. When we consume carbs in quantities that reflect our energy needs, insulin can do its job, but when we eat too much (so much that it can’t be utilised or stored in our muscles) it’s stored as fat. 

The higher your blood glucose levels, the more insulin is needed to help lower it. But resistance to insulin can build, especially when blood glucose levels are elevated too often, for too long. Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat, and liver don’t respond well to insulin, which causes blood glucose levels to elevate, eventually leading to pre-diabetes, and if uncontrolled, to diabetes and then diabetes-related complications.

Chronically high levels of blood glucose as a result of poorly-controlled diabetes can contribute to heart disease, diabetic retinopathy (a form of diabetic eye disease that can lead to blindness), nephropathy (kidney disease), and neuropathy (a nerve disorder).
It’s important to understand that injected insulin is absolutely necessary for controlling type-1 diabetes, since your body cannot supply its own, but type-2 diabetes can be prevented, controlled and reversed with proper diet and lifestyle; the latter two under medical supervision.

Not all carbohydrates work the same in the body. Highly-processed foods and ‘simple carbs’ like those found in sweets, sodas and even naturally in fruits, trigger a fast ‘spike’ in blood glucose, while others result in a slow and sustained blood glucose (and therefore, insulin) response.

The glycaemic index (GI) addresses these differences by assigning a number to foods that reflects how quickly they increase blood glucose compared to pure glucose (sugar). The GI scale goes from 0 to 100, where pure glucose has the highest GI and is given a value of 100.


Eating low-GI foods can minimise peaks in blood glucose and the insulin response and supports weight-loss and healthy weight. Frequent snacking (especially when these snacks are high-GI and carb-heavy) results in insulin secretion and glucose being stored as fat. Fasting elicits no insulin response, and therefore not only improves your body’s ability to use glucose more effectively, but allows you to tap into stored fat for fuel.


Additionally, glucagon and growth hormone are also increased during fasting. Glucagon is the fat burning hormone, while the growth hormone helps the body repair and grow. Now that glucose isn’t available in the body, it begins tapping into stored fat for fuel. As you increase the duration of your fasts (i.e., the time between meals), your body uses fat and ketones rather than glucose (sugar) as its main fuel source (known as being in a state of ketosis). But this only happens once glycogen stores are depleted.

Fasting for at least 14-hours will get most people into a state of ketosis, especially when coupled with a diet lower in carbohydrates, and rich in fibre, good fats and protein.

If appropriate for you, once you have built-up to responsibly applying prolonged fasting techniques (for periods of 24 to 72-hours), autophagy (the body’s process of replacing old or damaged parts of cells), begins to take place along with anti-aging benefits and increased energy producing capabilities as the body begins to tap into stored fat as energy and repair itself thanks to higher levels of human growth hormone.

From a very young age, we are programmed to have breakfast first thing in the morning, lunch around 12-1pm, and dinner at 7pm. Ghrelin, our hunger hormone (and another storage hormone) increases just before meal and snack-times, cueing us to eat. Have you noticed that your stomach always knows when it’s lunch time?

But, is eating 3 meals and 2 snacks a day really best for you? There is a lot of evidence to suggest this may not be the best approach. In fact, eating 2 meals instead of 6 has been shown to improve metabolism in people with diabetes.

Further, Diabetes UK estimates that around 5 million people will have diabetes by 2025, and it’s easy to see why, with so many of us making poor or misdirected lifestyle choices leading to weight gain year-on-year.

If you'd like to learn more about fasting, which type of fasting method is best for you and how to fast correctly, check out The Fasting Playbook for more.

Fasting is simply the act of abstaining from food for a given period of time. Perhaps most importantly, fasting is a detoxification and optimisation strategy, not a starvation method. 


With the abundance of food and snacks available today, fasting doesn’t happen as naturally as at it used to, but it’s a practice that has existed for centuries. Some examples we’re very familiar with, others not so much. 


Buddhists fast for enlightenment, choosing to fast after their meal at noon; Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan; several Christian denominations fast during certain seasons of the liturgical calendar; and there are plenty of other examples throughout history.


In the Paleolithic era, the Egyptians believed fasting made them mentally stronger, and it’s said they even required the great Pythagoras to fast for 40-days before he could enter one of their schools. 


Hippocrates, widely considered the father of modern medicine, often prescribed and championed the practice of fasting, advising patients: “To eat when you are sick, is to feed your illness.”
Benjamin Franklin quoted: “The best of all medicines is rest and fasting.” 


While Mark Twain stated: “A little starvation (fasting) can really do more for the average sick man than the best medicines and the best doctors.”


Philip Paracelsus, the founder of toxicology, professed: “Fasting is the greatest remedy – the physician within.”


Fasting is a key part of medical history, but unfortunately the practice of fasting for health and healing has been replaced with modern medicines that come with their own list of side-effects. 


Fasting has been shown to be a great way to improve health and digestion; manage your overall food intake; enhance the use of stored fat for fuel; increase mental clarity and energy; and decrease the effects of ageing.

If you'd like to learn more about fasting, which type of fasting method is best for you and how to fast correctly, check out The Fasting Playbook for more.