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As intermittent fasting explodes with popularity, more and more people are making the conversion from fasting to fat fasting. Fat fasting involves consuming pure fat during the fasting portion of the day.
The most notable strategy is to add a few tablespoons of butter and MCT oil into your coffee. This protocol has been popularized by quite a few people in the fitness industry and I see more and more people jump on the fat fasting band wagon.
There are a few issues with fat fasting. For one, this completely defeats the purpose of intermittent fasting and in more ways than one. Firstly, one of the huge benefits with intermittent fasting is that it allows you to eat more calories later in the day.
This is what makes getting and staying lean with fasting so effortless. You don’t have to deprive yourself by cutting back on the portions of your meals.
Fat Fasting Makes Creating a Calorie Deficit Challenging
Well so long that you’re throwing a few hundred calories of pure fat into your coffee, you will have less room to work with for your actual meals. What’s worse, butter/oil, on it’s own, does little to promote fullness.
So those calories are going to make maintaining a calorie deficit harder than ever before. Not to mention the fact that butter and oils are extremely low in vitamins and minerals, rendering them a terrible source of nutrition.
Butter/oil is fine to supplement a meal and to enhance taste, but shouldn’t be a big portion of your calorie intake. If you’re going to consume calories in the morning, then go with a 4 egg omelette. You’re looking at roughly the same amount of calories but the omelette is going to be far more filling and nutritious. That being said, your best bet would be to actually fast.
Another issue with fat fasting is that if you’re taking in a few hundred calories with your coffee then you’re missing out on the power of black coffee at blunting your appetite. Let the coffee do it’s job and save the calories for when you actually want them, with your meals.
Fat Fasting and Insulin & Growth Hormone
One of the huge benefits with intermittent fasting is the massive increase in growth hormone that is experienced. Growth hormone is required to shuttle fat cells into the bloodstream allowing you to tap into stored body fat for fuel. Moreover, growth hormone helps retain muscle protein, ensuring you don’t burn muscle tissue during your fasts and during exercise.
Well here’s the thing, dietary fat blunts growth hormone secretion. This is because fat raises somatostatin, which is a growth hormone inhibiting hormone. So by consuming plenty of fat during your fasts, you’re actually negating one of the primary benefits of intermittent fasting, the massive increase in growth hormone secretion.
So with a fat only meal, you will indeed have low levels of insulin (fat doesn’t spike insulin – protein and carbs do), but this doesn’t mean you’ll be able to burn body fat. To maximize fat burning you need to have low insulin levels and elevated growth hormone.
Fat fasting only covers one side of the equation, intermittent fasting handles both sides and creates the perfect storm for mobilizing and burning stored fat cells.
What to do instead?
If you want to use fasting to maximize health and get leaner and stronger than ever before, you must learn to actually fast! That means water, black coffee and tea only. Don’t add butter, MCT oil or coconut oil to your coffee. It will sabotage many of the positive effects of intermittent fasting.
