Here at AdMac Fitness we believe in coaching the individual, not the method. But what does that mean?
Essentially we believe that there’s no one right way to train or to eat. People aren’t robots, and different clients will want to approach their health and fitness in different ways. It’s our job as personal trainers to help our clients achieve their health and fitness goals in a way that suits them.
We have a range of tools and approaches we can use to help our clients. We’re not married to one way of eating or one way of training. We’ll use an approach that we believe will work most effectively for our clients. In some cases, that will be calorie counting. In others that might be fasting. For some people it could be a mixture of the two.
We do what works.
This flexibility allows us to work with a lot of people in different ways, and it enables us to build up a data set on the benefits. At this time of year, one of the more powerful reset tools we can use is a 24 hour fast. In this article, we’ll explain why we like the use of a 24 hour fast as a reset.
Why using a 24 hour fast could help you
One of the key aspects of health is effective digestion. When we overwhelm our system with excess - be that food, booze, chemicals or all of the above, we immediately stress our digestive system.
Taking a period of time away from food can help to reduce the ill effects from the excess. By not adding more food for your digestive system to deal with, you allow the ‘clearing’ of the damage you’ve done. There is evidence that taking a short term fasts has benefits regarding hormone levels, reduction in stress biomarkers and the return to normal levels for blood substrates such as insulin and glucose.
Anecdotally, there’s a lot of support for water only fasts of up to 24 hours. This is an accessible amount of fasting time for most, because it’s short enough to be manageable, but long enough to be significant from a health point of view.
There’s also an evidence-based assessment that water only fasts are safe enough to use for the longer term (2 days and longer), so a day long fast is absolutely fine for the vast majority of people.
Dietary re-set
Another benefit of a 24 hour fast is that it can help serve as a dietary reset. If you’ve over-indulged on food, then taking that 24 hours away from food will help to rebalance your diet. It’s a case of simple maths…
If you’re usually consuming 2500 calories and your body burns a similar amount, you have a net balance of zero - all you’ve done is replaced what you’ve burned.
If you don’t consume any calories, your body will still burn the 2500, forcing it to rely on stored energy. It means you’ll have created a 2500 calorie deficit. You’d have done some seriously impressive eating to go 2500 calories over your target, so in one day you’re likely to have corrected a bad day the day before.
This simple dietary reset can help you get back on track after a heavy day, preventing your weight loss journey from being derailed.
When to use fasting, if you’re not using it often
Fasting is a legitimate way to lose weight, but if you want to do it properly then you have to be strategic with it. Fast for a given period of time, or on particular days.
That’s not what we’re doing here though.
In this case, we’re using it as a one-off magic bullet, so to speak. It’s damage repair after a heavy night. If you’re already following a calorie controlled diet, or you’re keeping an eye on your macros then you likely won’t need to throw in a fast… unless of course you’ve blown your calorie targets right out of the water with a massive overindulgence!
Real life happens. We understand that, so we want to give you tools to fix the damage afterwards. If you’ve hit the food or booze hard, a 24 hour water fast will help get you back on track. It’ll give your body a break, allow it to deal with the additional food and booze, then get you back to feeling good!
Let the AdMac Fitness Personal Trainers help you stay healthy!
With personal training studios in South Woodford and Bow, let the best personal trainers in East London help you to look after yourself this winter…
For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
Our locations are…
AdMac Fitness Bow: 153-159 Bow Rd, London E3 2SE
AdMac Fitness South Woodford: Unit 4 Marlborough Business Centre, 96 George Lane, South Woodford, London, E18 1AD