Overnight fasting for weight loss – How long is long enough?

A recent scientific study looks to back up what I have seen from clients I have worked with personally for the last 20 years and with those that have purchased Four week fat loss.

It is one of the corner stones of four week fat loss.

In the study one group of mice a high fat high calorie diet and was forced to fast for 16 hours and another group the same diet with no fasting. The group that had the overnight fast remained lean rather than getting fat. There are a number of possible reasons for this, that I wont go into now. You can read the article here if you want more info.

Let’s look at the practicalities, going without food for 16 hours may sound a long time, in effect it only means eating your last meal of the day at 6PM and not eating again until 10am the next morning.

The light bulbs will be going off for clients of four week fat loss as this is pretty close to what we recommend, I advocate your first feed at 9 am after some exercise.

In the study the mice were fed a ‘bad diet’ because it was high in fat and high in calories, however they were still nearly as healthy as a control group that was fed a normal mouse diet.

Let’s face it if you are going to be eating and snacking in the evening Its highly likely that it is going to be treat type food if you are already overweight. The likes of biscuits, crisps, chocolate, ice cream and alcohol are the most common foods eaten later at night by overweight people.

My advice is that if you want to lose weight then try this out for a few weeks 16 hours is probably not a magic length of time so ŷou don’t have to wait until 10 am to eat but the longer you can go for up to that point the better off you are likely to be.

If you combine this overnight fasting process with better quality food and additional exercise like we do in Four Week Fat Loss then you are onto a winner!