This is a less common, but common enough excuse to not fast in people at a normal or lean weight.

Weight loss is inevitable when you stop eating. Inevitable, as in it will happen. But it’s not permanent. 

When we fast, we don’t lose any vital organs, limbs, or anything that can’t be regained.

That’s the biggest key to this equation we call fasting. Anything lost CAN BE regained.

When people look to lose weight here, they think, “See, I knew I would just regain all the weight I lost from fasting. So why even do it in the first place.”

Yes, you may. 

But only if you make the same mistakes, you made to gain the fat you lost in the first place. You don’t have to. It’s not a rule or destined to return if you change your lifestyle and behaviors.

“But Don, I’m lean and don’t want to lose muscle.”

Too bad.

You will lose muscle volume eventually when you fast. 

Short, intermittent fasting techniques like what’s popularly called “intermittent fasting” or really, time-restricted eating or delayed onset eating can prevent someone’s build from looking more flat when used.

To say you won’t fast due to the muscle volume changes is like saying you won’t exercise because it significantly raises your blood pressure while you do it.

The truth is, you will not lose a single muscle fiber from fasting. Even prolonged fasting, like I am doing now, 36 days without food, will not cause a decrease in muscle fiber.

Muscle volume will change, it will decrease, and you will “look” flat or less “pumped” in extended fasting. 

You have not lost any muscle—just muscle volume. Muscle is around 80%, and glycogen adds volume and water, which will decrease in extended fasting. But this is a good thing.

The cosmetic look or change in muscle is not permanent if you don’t want it to be.

You can regain muscle volume, and what returns will be higher quality than what was lost. It’s an upgrade in all ways.

Depending on how long your extended fast was, you can even plan a muscle rebuild to restore your muscle volume within days, if not weeks.

You can cycle fasting and muscle rebuilding to gain muscle mass and volume, building it to higher levels than before the extended fast. 

That’s precisely what I have been practicing and planning in my extended fasting challenges and muscle-rebuilding programs, and it works VERY well!

This means you can use rotational fasting as part of your body reconstruction and muscle-building plan and personal program to get leaner and healthier and increase muscle mass and time as you do it.

You just need to know how to do this correctly.

The idea that one must hold onto poorly functioning muscle volume at all costs is wrong. 

The idea that you will permanently lose any muscle volume is a choice, not a guarantee. 

Done well, rotational fasting and muscle-rebuilding concepts are proving to be the best body-reconstructing, reshaping, and functional strength-building strategy I have ever seen or tested.

So, if you are still making excuses not to add fasting to your healthy living and lifestyle, you need to find another one. This one is false.

We can do better!

Dr. Don