The Fasting Pyramid – Fasting for Men and Women

There is no single way to fast, meaning that the duration of your fast is up to you. And if you do decide that fasting is for you, always start small and gradually build from there. You don’t want to put your body in shock.

Fasting looks different for everyone. We don’t recommend it to all of our clients because even though fasting can produce a multitude of benefits for the mind and body, it is not right for everyone. In fact, if done incorrectly, it can give you the opposite results from what you were looking to achieve.

So before asking how long should you fast, ask this instead – what benefit you are trying to achieve with fasting?

At the clinic, we recommend those who have not tried fasting to start with one fast of 14 hours in a week. When the body doesn’t consume food or calories, it looks for other sources to help generate energy – i.e the glucose present in your body.

Once the glucose is significantly used up, the body’s metabolism changes and the body begins to burn fatty acids from stored fat for energy. Sounds amazing isn’t it?

But here’s a few things to note of before you start fasting.

Stress and Fasting

If you are under a significant amount of stress, it is not recommended for you to fast. Even if you’re regularly keeping the body active and eating a good balanced diet, if stressed (body and mind), fasting could be throwing your entire body off from getting the health results you want.

At the clinic, we work on your adrenals first before working our way up to fasting – we conduct tests to identify underlying symptoms behind sleep irregularities, metabolic syndrome, burnout, anxiety, and a decreased immune response.

If you’re already regularly fasting 24 hours and above

If you’re regularly fasting and would like to reap the benefits of autophagy, deep healing and detoxing, consider the ProLon Fasting Minicking Diet

It helps your body reap the benefits of prolonged fasting (5 days) without having to give up on food and is the only fasting diet that is backed up by decades of scientific research, with pre-clinical and clinical trials conducted at the University of Southern California’s Longevity Institute and Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute, and sponsored by the National Cancer Institutes (NCI) and National Institute on Ageing (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Fasting for women on a regular menstrual cycle – what you need to know

If you are a woman in your reproductive years, you need to map your fast according to your menstrual cycle.

Assuming you have a normal 28 – 35 day cycle, the day you bleed is day 1. There are four variations to women’s menstrual cycle.

From day 1 up up till about day 10 to 12, your body is building estrogen – this is a great time for your body to be in a fasted state and for longer fasts. Reduce the number of fasting days and/or switch to gentler intermittent fasting.

The week before your cycle is the time you need to make the hormone progesterone, so you’d want to focus on eating hormone building foods and avoiding ketosis.

Our hormones like healthy fats, like olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, as well as ample fiber from fruits and vegetables and quality proteins like eggs, fish and meat

Nurture the body instead of adding stress to the body – fasting can be a form of additional stress to the body. You might even want to opt out of intense form or exercises (no marathons, CrossFit e.t.c) and go for other gentle forms of exercise like brisk walking or yoga.

Fasting, especially longer fasts during this time might also make you feel more anxious and create a hormone imbalance. And if progesterone is absent or levels are too low, irregular and heavy menstrual bleeding can occur.

If you haven’t already, use apps such as Clue to help you track your cycles. The more you know what’s happening on the inside, the better your response to taking charge of your health.

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