The FastDay Forum

I'm interested in this because I water fast on my two fasting days each week. Occasionally I have a coffee and like Witchy Wife I can't do black coffee so I have a splash of milk and half a spoon of sugar. I've been trying to cut it out because of this mysterious (to me anyway) stuff about glycogen, fat burning and ketosis. I thought we had to burn off glycogen before the body started burning fat. I'm also a bit confused about when, if and why we burn muscle. Is there anywhere I can access some information about this, for the layperson? I'm a civil servant, not a doctor, Jim!

[carorees]

Hi redhead

There is a fair bit of confusion about the protein from muscle question among the scientists too!

It is known that there are various mechanisms for sparing your muscles from being broken down for the glucose content of the protein. A little is used to supply the small amount of glucose that your body absolutely has to have, but most is protected. The debate comes over when exactly the protection kicks in. It sends to be after about a day of fasting or so. There is some evidence that the protein that is used before the protection mechanism starts does not come from muscle at all but from your intestine. We are not clear on this.

I think that the amount of glycogen burned before we switch to fat burning may well depend on how fat adapted you are. If your body mostly burns fat due to a low carb diet I expect the mix of glycogen and fat burned will be different from if you usually burn carbs due to a high carb diet. Plus there will be variations between people even if they were eating the same and were the same size etc.

There are lots of websites giving apparently definitive answers to these questions that you could look at but I don't think anyone really knows!

Thanks Caroline. I suppose since it's all a bit complicated/ unknown I'll just keep enjoying the benefits of 5:2 and not worry too much about it. I have a feeling the 5:2 diet's popularity and the great debate and research generated by this forum will precipitate some better information for the future.