Angus Barbieri was born in Scotland in 1939 and when he was 27 years old in the 1960’s he had reached a whopping 456 lbs, so he was a pretty big boy and he knew it, so he decided that he was going to experiment with some medically supervised fasting.
Initially he was only going to do short term fasting because at the time the medical community believed that short term fasts were better than long term fasts, but he wanted to continue rolling with the longer term strategy because quote, ‘he adapted so well and he was eager to reach his goal weight.’
He only consumed vitamins, electrolytes and zero calorie beverages like tea, coffee, sparkling water and apparently he occasionally added small amounts of milk and/or sugar towards the end of the 382 day fast to his tea and coffee…so zero food and essentially zero calories.
Over the 382 days he went from 456 lbs to 180 lbs, so he lost a total of 276 lbs!!
But…how is Angus in any way relevant to you!?
We are so inundated with food 24/7 nowadays that I wanted to share this story with you because we’ve flipped the coin…
Some folks are legitimately afraid to miss or skip a single meal…this Angus dude skipped 1,146 consecutive meals.
He clearly had more than enough energy on his body via body fat, so he actually wasn’t physiology starving because his body and brain were being fueled by his stored energy.
This is actually how fat loss works in a nutshell. We consume less energy than we’re using throughout the day and our bodies tap into stored energy to fill that ‘fuel gap’ for our daily activities and when I say stored energy I just mean body fat.
In my opinion…it’s a very good sign if you can skip a meal here and there and not have it ruin your day, sour your mood or have you feel like shit.
If you can’t go 4, 5, 6, 7 hours without having to eat I’ll be honest, that’s not a great sign for your metabolic health…in fact, it’s a sign of poor blood sugar management and poor fuel access because your body should be good at tapping into its own stores of energy.
For example, if you forget your lunch one day or a work meeting runs over and you can’t eat at your regularly scheduled time and it seriously throws you off, you may want to start purposefully implementing some fasting here and there because your body is so reliant on frequent feedings that if you don’t have access to food you’re screwed from not only a physical standpoint, but most likely from a mental and emotional angle as well…did someone say hangry!? ;)
Being able to go for longer periods of time without food is actually a sign of health and I’m not even talking about a day, I’m talking 6-8 hours…when was the last time other than when you were sleeping that you went 8 hours without consuming any sort of calories via food or drink?
If you remember, how did you feel? Maybe you felt great, then keep doing what you’re doing because this article isn’t for you, but if it really impacted you in a negative way, it could be highly beneficial for you to skip a meal here and there for a few reasons…
First off, improving your blood sugar management so that you’re not a victim to those big swings in energy, inability to focus, brain fog etc.
Secondly, I can’t even tell you how powerful it is to feel more freedom around food and I’ll give you a personal example…
Years ago when I ate constantly, during my meals I would always be thinking about the next snack or meal or whatever I was going to eat next, which would likely be in 2-3 hours max…
When your body is managing fuel more effectively (some folks call this metabolic flexibility) there is SO much more freedom around food in general and specifically your food decisions, but let’s get more specific…
Let’s say that you’re going to a work conference and it starts early in the morning and the schedule says ‘breakfast provided’ so you don’t eat beforehand, but then when you get to the event there are only super high calorie unhealthful options and you’re working on shifting your eating habits for the better meaning, none of the options are the right fit for you…
What do you do?
Do you just eat a croissant or a bagel with cream cheese because you can’t fathom the idea of foregoing breakfast or do you just enjoy some coffee or tea and wait for lunch?
Being able to skip a meal and feel totally fine from a physical, mental and emotional standpoint is especially important in a situation like this because you don’t feel the need to just eat something even though it’s a poor option…instead you look at what you have available and think, ‘well I thought that there would be some eggs, omelettes, maybe yogurt with fruit or something like that but there isn’t, so I’ll guess I’ll just sit this one out.’
In the case of just skipping the meal vs. feeling like you ‘have to’ get something down no matter what are two completely different paradigms.
The person that’s able to go without food for a little longer has so much more food freedom and I can tell you from personal experience, it’s an absolute game-changer!
Other situations like flying are especially relevant because let’s be honest, airplane food sucks…so instead perhaps ya eat a solid meal beforehand or you just do a bit of fasting on travel days. Personally, I usually fast while travelling because it’s convenient and like mentioned, options are usually just terrible in general in both airports and on planes.
Another example could be if you happen to wake up late one day or you need to wake up extra early for some reason, it’s so freeing to not feel like you ‘have to’ eat something.
Remember Angus, he went over a year without food so you can skip a meal because you’ve got more than enough fuel on your body via body fat (we all do) to carry you for a meal. Truthfully, everyone listening to this episode could probably go weeks, potentially even months without eating and still be alive…you’d definitely be lighter though!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not recommending that you go weeks or months without food, I’m not even recommending days…I’m just saying that skipping a meal or even a couple in the big scheme of things is nothing. No one has ever starved or became obese overnight, this stuff takes time because if it didn’t, we humans wouldn’t be here today…we’re so much more resilient than we give ourselves credit for.
So, how can you implement this?
You can start by simply skipping one meal per week…that’s it!
Most often folks find it easiest to skip breakfast, but any meals works! Ya never know, it might not actually be that bad…you may even feel better, there’s only one way to find out!
Now if the thought of skipping an entire meal is kinda scary, skip a snack and if the thought of skipping a snack is scary…go without food in a situation that you’d normally feel the need to eat so for example…perhaps you take snacks every time you go on a hike, next time skip the snack and go with water.
A lot of folks tend to think that they need highly processed fruit bars and things like trail mix while doing activities out of pure habit…
Fortunately, you don’t need to consume calories every time you burn them, so taking food with you on a hike especially if it’s only an hour or two is just not necessary. If your blood sugar crashes every time you do a little bit of activity without food…something is off because we’re designed to be able to go periods of time without ingesting calories, which is exactly why we store body fat…body fat is just like the gas tank in your car.
A quick note on hunger, hunger comes in waves so what you’ll likely notice is that you may feel a hunger sensation come on and then 10-15 minutes later voila it’s gone and likely won’t return for at least an hour so…then you may get another hunger sensation for 10ish minutes and again it’ll go subside.
Meaning, when you skip a meal you don’t feel constant hunger until the next time you eat…it comes in small waves and the longer you go without food the larger those waves get, however it’s a gradual process.
If this whole fasting concept feels a little bit daunting feel free to start small, start with a meal per week or even just a snack and if that goes well…try two the following week. You can practice this, build up your tolerance and assuming that you don’t make up for all of the calories in other meals throughout your day you’re even going to lose some fat!
This is exactly how I implement fasting protocols with my 1-on-1 nutritional coaching clients that are interested in giving it a shot, we start small and work our way up!
