02\ The Water Fast
WHAT IS IT?
No food, no juice – just water. Some people might water fast for 24 hours once or twice each month, while others advocate doing it for as long as three consecutive days. That’ll slim down your food bills…
HOW DOES IT WORK?
This is the least complicated of all the fasting diets. It’s also one of the most difficult. A popular iteration of water fasting is ‘Eat, stop, eat’, which follows the same framework as on-off diets such as the 5:2 but dials it up a notch. Instead of restricting your calories on fasting days, you take in no calories at all for 24 hours.
For example, you could eat a late breakfast at 10am, then subsist on water until 10am the next day. On the non-fasting days, you simply eat as normal (if your growling stomach permits it). Others advocate fasting for lengthier periods of 48 or even 72 hours, which should really only be attempted under medical supervision.
As with all fasts, the goal is autophagy, the process by which your cells recycle themselves. Fasting will accelerate this activity; theoretically, the bigger your calorie deficit, the more impressive the results. Naturally, you’ll lose weight.
However, you stand to lose other things, too. ‘I don’t know anyone who has completed a prolonged water fast and not seen their training suffer,’ says Rick Miller, principal dietitian at King Edward VII’s Hospital. ‘It’s inevitable that you’ll lose some muscle mass, even if you do see rapid weight loss.’
As for hitting the gym on a diet of H2O, Miller cautions against it. ‘When you’re in a starved state, you’re going to have very low blood glucose, and you’ll potentially be disorientated,’ he says. Add to this a heightened risk of hyponatraemia (water poisoning) due to a lack of salts and electrolytes and you’re better off having breakfast as usual, then crushing a calorie-torching session.
THE DIGESTED TAKE
An empty promise – 1/5