How much muscle mass can you lose during water fasting?
Most people in the water fasting community have no inkling on how much musculus mass it's actually possible to lose during a water fast.
At best, they tin tell you that our bodies are very efficient at preserving our muscle mass during a water fast. But I accept yet to meet anyone who knows the exact numbers.
In this article, I have relied on modern scientific discipline to put an end to this confusion. If you read it all the way through, you will sympathize how much muscle mass you lot can look to lose during a h2o fast (depending on how long yous intend to fast).
But start, I desire to quickly explain why we lose muscle mass during water fasting in the first place.
Why do we lose muscle mass during h2o fasting?
Some animals, like bears during winter hibernation, can survive without food for a very long time. And the amazing matter is, they can practise it without whatsoever detectable loss of muscle mass [1].
Humans, on the other hand, we tend to lose a lot of musculus mass during starvation. Roughly put, that's because our brains crave some special "brain fuel" to survive [ii].
Because we're not eating any nutrient during a water fast, our bodies have no choice only to beginning burning away some of our "structural poly peptide" (to go along powering our hyper-intelligent encephalon).
Those structural proteins are the very basic edifice blocks of your muscles, which means you're bound to destroy some of your muscle mass during a water fast.
Explaining all this in great detail would be beyond the scope of this article. So let's just accept a look at how much of those structural protein y'all can expect to lose during a water fast.
The daily loss of structural protein on a h2o fast
In ane starvation written report [3], they measured the corporeality of poly peptide obese people lost during a 21-day water fast.
I've adapted the information from that study into this daily protein loss chart:
You lot can come across that on the 1st twenty-four hours of the water fast (the first bar on the left), the loss of structural protein was the highest (69 grams).
By the stop of the 21-day fast (the final bar on the right), the loss of structural proteins was reduced by nearly fourscore% (to fifteen grams).
This shows that our bodies can adapt to starvation extremely well. In order to keep yous alive as long as possible, your body keeps slowing downwards the destruction of your vital body mass.
Just ultimately, you'll lose much more muscle mass than this modest amount of structural poly peptide.
Why?
Because your muscle tissue is actually made of only well-nigh 20% of poly peptide, while the rest of it is water [4].
The total loss of muscle mass on a 21-twenty-four hours h2o fast
Here's another chart I've created based on that 21-mean solar day starvation study:
This chart shows the full vital body mass you tin expect to lose (in pounds), depending on how long you plan on fasting.
If yous plan to fast for half dozen days (bottom axis), the chart can tell you that you could be losing a little over 6 pounds of your vital torso mass (left centrality).
If you program on doing a 13-twenty-four hour period h2o fast, you could lose a piddling over ten pounds of your vital body mass and a 21-solar day h2o fast could gear up y'all back past total 13 pounds of vital trunk mass.
While this nautical chart can tell y'all how much vital body mass you tin wait to lose during a water fast, information technology tin can't tell you lot how much total weight you can look to get rid of.
Peradventure you lot already picked upwards on this, but I am no longer talking about musculus mass.
Instead, I keep talking about your "vital body mass", so allow me apace explicate the divergence between the two.
You lot lose much more than just your musculus mass
When it comes to understanding your final weight loss results after a water fast, things tin hands get a flake confusing.
Only have a await at all the different kinds of weight you lot'll end up losing if you decide to do a water fast.
At the highest level, you lot will be losing your body fat mass and your lean body mass (also called non-fatty, or fat-free torso mass).
The lean body mass you lose will include some of your sodium and glycogen bound water weight, and some of your vital body mass.
And finally, the vital torso mass you lot lose volition include more than simply your muscle mass.
Because some of those protein, the basic building blocks of your vital body mass, will too come from your vital organ tissue [5].
And what'due south the biggest problem when it comes to destroying the bones building blocks of both your muscles and vital organs?
Call back, the about important muscle and vital organ in your torso that could suffer because of this, is your heart.
I won't become into more detail here, but you tin read all about the wellness dangers of water fasting here).
At present, let's look at some of the things you can practice to avoid losing your vital body mass while fasting.
How to prevent the loss of musculus mass during fasting?
The most obvious solution to avert the destruction of your vital body mass is non to do a fast in the first identify. If you were because doing a water fast for weight loss, you can just get with any of the countless less restrictive diets out there.
But make certain to do your research, because not all weight loss diets are designed to protect your vital body mass.
Just if you lot're still interested in going through with a h2o fast, at least consider looking into intermittent fasting, alternate day fasting, or fifty-fifty muscle sparing fasting equally safer alternatives to water fasting.
Muscle sparing fasting, for one, tin really be done without whatever solid food and can requite you that "pure" feeling of fasting (while still helping y'all avoid that unnecessary destruction of your vital body mass).
My goal for this commodity was to assist you understand water fasting is no fairy tale. Knowing that you could actually destroy upwardly to 13 pounds of muscle mass AND vital organ tissue (on a 21-day water fast), you lot're hopefully going to at to the lowest degree consider the alternatives.
Now, I want to ask a minor favor of you lot. If y'all know admittedly anyone who has ever washed, or has at least considered doing a h2o fast, delight share this article with them.
Don't do it for me, or even for yourself. Exercise it for them and for their prophylactic.
Featured photograph credit: Pixabay – 926663 via pixabay.com
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/389060/how-much-muscle-mass-can-you-lose-during-a-water-fast
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