THIS Is When FAT BURNING STARTS With Intermittent Fasting!

Hello Health Champions. Today we're going to  answer the question of when does fat burning  

start during intermittent fasting when do we  really start burning belly fat and body fat  

during an intermittent fast and if you look it up  you're going to get an answer something like after  

6 to 12 hours but we want to understand more  about what's going on so that makes some kind  

of sense because what they're thinking is that's  when you're moving from a fed state to a fasted  

state in the fed state you're still processing  through all the foods that you just ate but when  

you're fasted now you kind of passed beyond that  and living on things that your body has stored  

and when we do a fasting blood test then they  recommend that you fast at least 12 hours so you  

can have worked through all of the previous meals  and they're not going to affect what's on that  

blood test we want to know the baseline levels of  things like glucose triglycerides and Insulin but  

in terms of answering when fat burning starts  it's not quite that simple because in reality  

your fat burning never stops your body always  burns a mixture of fuel but the question is if  

you're interested in burning belly fat or body  fat then obviously you want to know at what  

point under which circumstances and conditions  does the fat become the dominant fuel source  

so fat is something we burn a lot of we typically  are going to rely on 50 to 95 percent of our  

energy supply from fat and then someone's going to  say well you know that's not me because I only eat  

10% fat I'm on a low-fat high carb diet I only eat  about 10% so that 50 doesn't apply and we're going  

to talk about why it still applies to you because  carbs turn to fat but not the other way around  

and then someone says also about glucose which  typically you're going to burn 5 to 50 percent  

and someone says no no I eat a lot more than that  I eat 65% carbs so I eat a lot higher and again  

you're not going to burn all of those 65 as  carbohydrate a lot of them are going to get  

turned into fat before you use them and when  it comes to protein we are burning anywhere  

from one to twenty percent fat and that could  go up a little bit if you're doing some extreme  

ridiculous diet like eating only rabbit which  is extremely lean or if you're only eating like  

lean chicken breast that could go up but it would  be a very unhealthy situation so for most people  

eating some amount of carbohydrate or fat then  protein is probably going to be in that range  

now normal blood glucose what does that mean  how much glucose is actually floating around  

because that's the first thing we're going  to use okay and 100 milligrams per deciliter  

is a normal amount I like it to be a little lower  like 85 which I talk a lot about on my blood work  

course but just to keep the math simple we'll  keep it call it a hundred and then most people  

have the average size person will have about five  liters of blood which is 50 deciliters or about  

one and a half gallons so now we multiply the 100  milligrams times 50 deciliters and we end up with  

a number of 5 grams that's one teaspoon of sugar  we're talking about eating hundreds of grams of  

fat or carbs but at any one time you have five  grams floating around in your bloodstream and if  

if we're really really strict about it it's even  less than that because if this is a blood vessel  

and we have red blood cells floating around in  here and then the glucose is floating in between  

now we had five grams total in the liquid portion  but about 40 percent of your blood is not liquid  

it cells it's red blood cells it's particles so we  have to subtract the 40 percent that is red blood  

cells which means we end up with roughly three  grams of sugar floating around at any given time  

in your bloodstream and that's all there is but  keep in mind this is a fasting level of glucose  

and if we eat something then that's going to go up  but how does the dynamic work there so let's add  

some breakfast to this and then we're going to add  a low-fat high carb breakfast because that is what  

we're told to eat the ADA the AMA the USDA all  those government agencies these all those medical  

associations they tell us this is what we should  eat because carbohydrates are the preferred fuel  

that it's super important if we want energy to  eat lots of carbohydrates I'm going to talk about  

why that's a fallacy so we have some skim milk we  have some corn flakes we have some toast with Jam  

we have a glass of orange juice and we have coffee  and we're very moderate we just take one teaspoon  

of sugar in that coffee so we add all this up and  it's a hundred and one grams of carbohydrate so  

what happens now is that anything that we eat  so here is the digestive tract and we just put  

a hundred and one grams in about let's say 15  minutes we put 101 grams of carbohydrate into the  

bloodstream and this is now going to be passing  into the blood and eventually out of the blood  

but what would happen if the body didn't have a  really fast way of processing this if this 101  

grams went into the bloodstream before the body  could do anything about it if the body didn't have  

an efficient way of dealing with this what would  happen and the answer is that we just increased  

the sugar the blood sugar 35 fold so if the body  didn't process and get rid of the sugar really  

fast we would end up with a blood sugar of 3400  milligrams per deciliter and this of course is a  

hypothetical example because this is never going  to happen but we need to understand the magnitude  

of these things that normally we have three grams  and a typical breakfast would add 101 grams so if  

the body didn't have a fast and efficient way then  this is what would happen and that extreme level  

of blood sugar would be life-threatening pretty  much anything over 600 is going to result in  

coma and death if it's allowed to go on for any  length of time so the body has a lot of safety  

mechanisms in place to deal with it so make sure  that it never gets to that point one thing is to  

increase insulin and get the glucose into the  cells another one is to use the glucose first  

to make sure that whenever glucose is plentiful  that we use it first to keep it from building  

up and we can also convert this glucose into fat  that'll get rid of some of it and a very important  

mechanism is through the kidney so whenever we  have over 180 milligrams per deciliter that's  

called a renal threshold so anything below that  the kidney is going to reabsorb glucose because  

it's a precious resource calories energy resources  the body is going to try to reabsorb them but when  

it gets over 180 that's just way too high and  we're going to start spilling glucose into the  

urine as a safety mechanism it's kind of like a  pressure boiler or something it has a safety valve  

so it doesn't explode so when glucose is too high  then it starts spilling through the kidney and now  

with all of these safety measures we make  sure that that glucose never gets to those  

levels but here's the interesting thing so  because of those safety mechanisms because  

the body uses the glucose first and do all these  different things to get rid of it this is often  

misinterpreted as to mean that glucose is the  preferred fuel it's the most important fuel no  

it's the one we have to burn first whenever it's  present so let's think about it this way also if  

you're standing in your kitchen and you're doing  some dishes and you're kind of relaxing and then  

you look over and there's a fire the toaster just  caught fire in your cabinets on fire then are you  

going to stand there and continue washing dishes  or you're going to do something about the fire so  

to think that glucose is the preferred fuel  is the same as saying I prefer to put out the  

fire before continuing with the dishes all right  whenever it's an emergency that's what we deal  

with first it does not mean that that's an ideal  situation now don't get me wrong this does not  

mean that carbohydrates are evil it does not  mean that everyone in the world needs to eat  

zero or extremely low carbohydrate all it means  is that there's something going on that the body  

has to respond to quickly and most people eat too  much carbohydrate it does not mean everyone needs  

to be zero but also it means most people should  not be 50 60 70 percent of their calories from  

carbohydrate because then over time you're going  to break this intricate system we're designed to  

deal with it to some degree short term but not  excess all the time and when we're talking about  

processing and getting rid of this carbohydrate  out of the bloodstream where does it go  

so there's a few different places first of all  we can use it which would mean about 50 calories  

per hour from carbohydrate because we're always  burning some fat as well and if we eat a hundred  

grams of carbohydrate that's 400 calories and  we can use about 50 calories per hour that means  

probably somewhere around eight hours is the time  it would take just to process through that meal  

and we don't have that kind of time so using it is  available but it's not going to be what happens to  

most of it then we can store it and that's going  to be a significant portion but the storage is  

limited so if we were absolutely starving then  we could store a lot of this as glycogen but  

if we are on a frequent meal High carbohydrate  plan then there's going to be very very limited  

storage space because our glycan region stores are  typically going to be full so the next step then  

the next option is to turn it into fat and store  it as fat because that is basically unlimited so  

now we take the carbohydrates we turn it into  fat and then we can retrieve some of that and  

this is why we will always burn more fat than we  will carbohydrate typically unless we just had  

a high carbohydrate only meal so what about the  other fuels well it turns out fat is the preferred  

Fuel and there's many many reasons for that it  burns very clean and steady it provides a stable  

source of energy it doesn't fluctuate it doesn't  create blood sugar swings or insulin spikes or any  

of that and there is no conversion needed once we  have the fat that's how the body likes to store it  

that's how the body likes to retrieve the energy  from it it is already fat okay glucose and protein  

can turn into fat fat does not turn into glucose  or protein it only happens one way because that  

is how the body wants to store it that is how the  body wants to use it and protein can become a fuel  

but it's not supposed to so when you eat protein  the purpose of that is to become tissue you're  

supposed to build muscles and Bone and skin and  hair and things like that with it building blocks  

the body parts and only when there is excess of  protein do we turn it into energy and so protein  

does not become a fuel for the most part unless  we are just out of all the other kinds of fuels  

so if you're on an extreme long-term starvation  where people are close when they're losing half of  

their body mass or more and they're close to death  then the body absolutely will start to use protein  

but it's kind of like a last resort and during  fasting and starvation your body will increase  

the amount of growth hormone and growth hormone is  muscle sparing so that you preserve your muscles  

and you use up the fat first now let's look at  some of this fat burning so if we take a few  

different examples and we're going to look at the  fed state which is where you have just eaten we're  

going to look at the next stage when you're  processed through your previous meal and now  

you're starting to rely on glycogen and then after  the glycogen has kind of gone low and the body is  

starting to rely more on gluconeogenesis so in the  beginning in the fed state we're going to probably  

be using around 50 or a little bit more than 50  percent of energy from carbohydrates and then  

roughly the same but probably a little bit  less of fat assuming that this is some fast  

carbohydrates that need to get out quickly and  then what's going to happen so here we have the  

fed state we use some glucose we turn some of  the glucose into glycogen and we turn some of  

the glucose into fat for later use so that's  the fed state now we're in the next state and  

now we're going to be starting to use glycogen so  now the carbohydrates use gradually starts going  

down because there is less of it we haven't eaten  any recently and as the carbohydrates go down the  

body starts looking for another fuel source  and now fat consumption fat burning increases  

and as the glycogen goes down we gradually start  using more fat until the glycogen is kind of not  

necessarily out but it's so low in that the body  is really starting to use more fat to look for  

that alternate fuel source so now at this point  the fat calories the fat burning is probably going  

to be more than the carbs and again this is not  a Line in the Sand but probably that might happen  

somewhere around 12 to 16 hours so from that point  on then we increase the fat and we decrease the  

carbohydrates so again we don't know depends on  what you ate depends on the metabolism depends on  

how stubborn your body is but probably somewhere  around those lines and now let's take the same  

scenario but if we're on low carb so now we would  be at the same situation we'd have a Fed State we  

have a glycogen and a gluconeogenesis because  even if you're eating low carb your body is  

still building up some glycogen it's still relying  some on carbohydrate the only difference is that  

because you're consuming so few carbs you're going  to be at a much much lower level to start with and  

your fat burning is already going to be at a much  higher level because remember when you eat high  

carbs a lot of those carbs turn into fat when  you eat high fat none of those fats get turned  

into carbs so when you eat low carb high fat those  are pretty much the ratios that your body already  

Burns there's no conversion required so then as  you use up some glycogen as you work through your  

last meal this can be a very very slight increase  in fat burning and there's going to be a very very  

slight decrease in carbohydrate burning because  again you already had a lot of fat you didn't  

have very many carbs so it's not going to change  much and then we kind of continue out of more of  

a steady state after that so in a low carb high  fat diet then you're already burning fat but I  

think here's the question that you really want to  ask and get answered is when does it switch from  

burning dietary fat to burning body fat because  that's the whole point of this we're trying to  

burn the body fat and the belly fat and whenever  you eat then you're still providing calories and  

resources to the body the beauty of the low carb  high fat diet is that you get more satisfied you  

can eat fewer meals and you don't get all these  blood sugar swings and Insulin spikes so you get  

a much more stable energy supplies and that  reduces hunger over time but you still have  

to burn through that last meal before the body has  any reason to go after the body fat and when might  

that happen well depends on how often you eat  how big the meals are but let's say you're eating  

twice a day then maybe after eight hours maybe six  to eight hours something like that and now let's  

compare that with fasting like if we went more  than 24 to 36 hours then what does it look like  

and it's not going to be all that different but  there's a few things that we want to understand  

so first of all there's no fed State there's no  glycogen State because you're not eating so now  

you're in a steady state so now your carbohydrates  are going to be at a very low level a steady state  

level and the fat is also going to be at a very  stable level and if you've gone more than 24 to 36  

hours and you're fat adapted you're probably going  to be using about 95 percent of your calories  

from fat and about five percent from carbohydrates  so again we call that a steady state when there is  

no new food coming in and your body has gone long  enough that it kind of established the Baseline of  

where it wants to be and it could take a little  more than 24 to 36 it might be three four days  

into it that you find that really steady state  but again it's not very different from from this  

it's only going to be a few percent off from a low  carb diet and now we're getting all the fat from  

the body because that last meal has been processed  through long ago and we're also getting all the  

glucose from the body so the gluconeogenesis that  we're talking about here at the end for the other  

categories that's ongoing in long-term fasting or  fasting over 24 30 six hours and gluconeogenesis  

means that the body is making glucose from a  non-glucose source and there's basically two  

places to get that that's from glycerol glycerin  so when we're talking about fat the way the body  

stores fat is as triglycerides that means that  there's three fatty acids connected to a glycerol  

backbone and this glycerol backbone has three  carbons that we can put two of those glycerols  

together and make a glucose so that provides about  five percent of the energy so even if we're just  

eating pure body fat you're burning pure body  fat off the body you're still relying on about  

you're producing about five percent carbohydrate  from that glycerol and the rest from fat and the  

other source of glucose from a non-glucose source  would be be protein but like we talked about the  

body really doesn't want to break down protein  because you need those muscles even if you've  

been starving or fasting for a while you need  those muscles to go out and find more food so  

the body spares that by increasing the levels of  growth hormone of human growth hormone so that  

and they go up massively they go up like five six  seven eight hundred percent so that we make sure  

that we don't use that protein for fuel until it's  an extreme emergency when we're totally out of fat  

and carbohydrates then the protein becomes the  last resort and what about belly fat how do you  

burn belly fat as opposed to other body fat well  the answer is you can't because the body makes no  

difference in the location as far as where you're  burning it however there is some difference in  

terms of how we make body fat and where we put it  because you've noticed some people have all their  

weight on their hips some people have it all on  the belly some people have it a little bit all  

over and that depends on hormones and the hormones  that tend to put on more belly fat is cortisol and  

Insulin so we can't do much about how we're taking  it off that's going to happen more uniformly but  

if we can affect the factors the hormones that put  it on then we can burn body fat from all over and  

we can put less belly fat on where it tends to  accumulate so the factors that matter is stress  

stress creates cortisol cortisol raises blood  sugar blood sugar stimulates insulin and therefore  

stress is the factor that we want to reduce there  and then we also of course want to reduce insulin  

so what's the big deal with insulin well insulin  is the hormone that helps move the glucose from  

the blood into the cell whatever we can't use in  the moment gets either stored which is limited or  

converted to Fat which is unlimited so already  there insulin is promoting fat storage but it  

also directly promotes lipogenesis meaning  the formation of fat primarily from glucose  

and it directly prevents the breaking down the  burning of fat so this is why when insulin is  

high chronically when we're insulin resistant then  it takes a long long time before the body starts  

burning fat and rather than if you're really  insulin resistant then the body is going to resist  

this curve going up it's going to keep that fat  in the stores and it's rather going to tell you  

to go eat more food and this is why on a high  carb and an insulin resistance situation that  

it takes so much willpower because we just  can't get to that fat the body is resisting  

burning that fat but once we get fat adapted the  body is already burning fat so it's much easier  

plus with the low carb we're not triggering the  insulin so much and as the insulin drops we get  

more control of our appetite and the most powerful  way to reduce insulin is longer fasting especially  

if we need to break a plateau like some of the  people on low carb here they might be burning fat  

but their insulin is still kind of stubborn  and they never get quite to where they want  

to be and that's where a longer fast can be very  powerful to break the plateau and it is even much  

more powerful than keto because when you're not  putting any energy in the body is really forced  

to start going after those fat stores so when we  ask this question when does fat burning start with  

intermittent fasting it's not a great question  we kind of ask some better questions and one  

would be when does most of the energy come from  burning fat and like we've talked about here it  

depends on how much carbs you eat if you eat tons  of carb it's going to take a while before the body  

switches to fat burning if you're on a low carb  diet then your body is already burning more fat  

so the simplest answer there is that it'll burn  more fat when you eat less carbs and that's the  

whole point of a low carb diet but I think what  people really want to understand and know is when  

does the fat come from the body when we're burning  fat we want it to come off of the body and then  

the answer is when we create a calorie deficit  and of course that's going to depend on how well  

we can control hunger because if we're insulin  resistant we eat a bunch of starch we're going  

to be hungry all the time and when we cut back  on the carbs there's certain things that happen  

to create a calorie deficit because we control  hunger and appetite better so the first thing is  

to stabilize blood glucose and low carb high fat  will do that we're not going to have these blood  

sugar roller coasters and that's one of the most  important things for stable energy stable mood  

stable appetite is to stabilize blood glucose  and not only is insulin going to stabilize it's  

also going to drop over time sometimes we have to  do some longer fasting to break through plateaus  

with that insulin and one more thing that's going  to help is to eat real food the more processed  

foods we eat even if it's low carb high fat the  more processed it is the less nutrients the more  

we're going to have a tendency to overeat so you  eat meat and non-starchy vegetables and leafy  

greens and then you eat quality fats until you're  full and over time that will take care of the vast  

majority of the this and then you add a little  bit longer fasting to that and a lot of people are  

afraid of fasting they've heard how important it  is to eat that you get your energy from food and  

so forth But realize your body has ways to dealing  with this and it is actually a really good idea  

to go without food sometimes for a while and it  is actually a whole lot easier than most people  

think and one thing you have to realize is that  hunger is a habit you're probably not going to  

get as hungry as you think but even so it's just  hunger it's just a habit you're gonna get hungry  

around the times that you've trained your body to  eat and it will remind you with hunger and say hey  

it's breakfast time hey it's lunch time hey it's  dinner time but if you ignore it it will go away  

really quickly and the keys to doing it even  more successfully is to make sure that you get  

add plenty of fluids and to understand that fluids  and electrolytes go together so if you're losing  

electrolytes and you're drinking tons of fluids  you might just wash out even more electrolytes  

because electrolytes bind the fluids so you  have to take them together and once people go  

from fasting without to fasting with electrolytes  many report a dramatic difference in how easy it  

is and if you want to try some electrolytes for  fasting I created a product just for that it's  

called euLyte and I did it because I couldn't find  anything out there that was safe that didn't have  

sugar or artificial sweetener or artificial colors  or things like that so that's number one is that  

it's safe but I also wanted a little bit more than  what was out there on any other product so this  

is basically a four in one product where you're  getting the electrolytes in a balanced ratio you  

get trace minerals and you also get a couple of  things for tissue healing and metabolic and blood  

sugar support so you could go to euvexia.com or  you can just click the link below and it's made  

so that you could take a little bit for ongoing  supplementation or you can just do a little bit  

more intense during a fast and if you enjoyed  this video You're Gonna Love that one if you  

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