Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by Fasting Planet
There’s no doubt that fasting can be very beneficial to your health, but one of the chief reasons people do it is to lose weight. It makes sense that by consuming fewer calories during a fast (if any at all), that the pounds would come off. Still, you’d like more quantifiable information before starting your first intermittent fast. Namely, how many calories do you burn while fasting?
According to YouTube channel Siim Land, the more muscular you are, the more calories you can burn during intermittent fasting. Even a single pound of muscle can torch 50 calories while up to five pounds will burn 250 calories each day. Compare that to a pound of fat, where your body burns only five calories. If you increase that to five pounds of fat, you torch only 20 calories each day.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the ways your body functions when intermittent fasting and why you can burn the number of calories you do. We’ll even tell you how to possibly increase your calorie burning capacity. If you’re thinking of starting your first intermittent fast, you’re not going to want to miss this!
How Many Calories Do You Burn While Fasting?
Okay, so here’s the main question on the mind of everyone who’s thinking of doing an intermittent fast for the first time. If you want to lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit where what you consume is less than what your body uses for energy. Just how many calories does that take?
Well, it depends. Your body’s basal metabolic rate and total body expenditure both come into play in determining how many calories your body will burn, as does the food you consume. In fact, Siim Land notes that your basal metabolic rate may influence calories burned by as much as 60 to 75 percent, your total body expenditure by 15 to 30 percent, and the thermic effect of food by about 10 percent.
That brings us back to the question, how many calories will you burn while fasting? As we said in the intro, muscle burns more calories than fat. Therefore, the more muscular you are, the more calories you may burn. That’s even when you’re resting, and it’s all due to having a higher basal metabolic rate.
Going back to the info we shared before, a single pound of muscle can burn up to 50 calories. It’s only five calories for a single pound of fat, so already that’s a 45-calorie difference.
If you increase that muscle mass to five pounds, you’re looking at burning about 250 calories each day when fasting. With five pounds of fat, the daily calorie burning amounts to about 20 calories. That’s again quite a significant difference!
Why Do You Burn Calories While Fasting?
When you start an intermittent fast, what do you have to trigger within your body to begin torching fat? It’s a process known as lipolysis. With lipolysis, your body undergoes hydrolysis, which begins breaking down and hydrolyzing lipids and fats. The fatty acids that are left over by this process may be unsaturated or saturated.
Your body’s mitochondria can take these fatty acids and make adenosine triphosphate or ATP from them. ATP is a type of molecule that contains energy. We use ATP molecules with literally everything we do, even if we’re not fasting.
Exercising and fasting are two primary times in which lipolysis will occur. Those are also two instances in which you will burn the most calories, says Siim Land.
How to Increase Calories Burned While Fasting
Alright, so you’ve tried an intermittent fast or two and you haven’t noticed a significant amount of weight loss. This is almost deterring you from doing another one. Weren’t you supposed to torch calories at a crazy rate? Is there anything you can do to increase the number of calories you burn during an intermittent fast?
Siim Land advocates for gaining muscle. This isn’t something you’d do while fasting, of course, because you’re either restricting the calories you consume or not eating at all. Instead, before you begin your next fast, you want to commit to a few months of building muscle.
How do you do that? Through exercise, supplements, and the right diet, you can transform your body into a more muscular one. In the gym or at home, you want to focus on weightlifting, gradually increasing the weight you lift.
Your diet also matters. Now, for a while, you’re going to increase how many calories you consume, eating as many as 2,500 calories to maybe more than 4,000 calories a day depending on your body size and weight. This may seem counterproductive to losing weight, but you’re not just eating anything here. You want to focus on foods like the following:
- Beets
- Apple cider vinegar (yes, that means drinking it, but it’s good for you, as it could lead to a 34-percent increase in insulin sensitivity)
- Chicken breast
- Pork tenderloin
- Buckwheat
- Almonds
- Freshwater algae (it contains 60 to 70 percent protein depending on the kind you eat)
- Quinoa
- Broccoli
- Oysters
- Cottage cheese
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Lean beef
- Tuna
- Kidney beans
- Turkey breast
- Garlic (which could reduce cortisol levels while boosting testosterone)
- Greek yogurt
- Pineapple
- Soybeans
- Salmon
- Whole eggs
Does Intermittent Fasting Negatively Impact Your Metabolism?
Siim Land mentions a good point in his video. Through skipping meals, such as during intermittent fasting, there’s the belief that you could hurt your metabolism in the end, slowing it. As you may know, those with sluggish metabolisms often have a more difficult time losing weight compared to someone with a faster metabolism.
Is this what you’re in for if you begin intermittent fasting? It could be. Siim Land says your total body expenditure can end up dropping if you also lessen non-exercise activity thermogenesis during your fast.
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis refers to anything you do that’s not exercising. From going shopping to gardening, raking up the yard, walking your dog, mowing the lawn, or ascending a flight of stairs, these are all examples of non-exercise activity thermogenesis. There are countless other examples as well.
When you don’t have as much energy because you’re eating less, you may unintentionally do less in your life. This reduces your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. By continuing this behavior, yes, it’s possible you could end up slowing down your metabolism. However, being aware of what you’re doing is half the battle here.
You won’t have as much energy as usual while fasting, and you shouldn’t ever force yourself, but do try to engage in more non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Conclusion
The answer to the question of how many calories you burn while fasting is not as cut and dried as one may think. It all depends on whether your body has more fat or muscle, as the latter can burn calories at a faster rate.
If you’ve fasted before and not lost as much weight as anticipated, we highly recommend you begin incorporating resistance training and weightlifting into your exercise routine. You should also eat the nutritious foods we listed above. This will help you pack on more muscle, which may make your intermittent fasts more effective in meeting your weight loss goals. Best of luck!