Let’s continue talking about fasting. I receive many questions from patients about :

“Can fasting cause muscle wasting” OR

“How can you fast and workout at the same time?”

The answer is: “no fasting doesn’t cause muscle wasting, and yes you can (and should) work out during fasting for added benefits.”

Let me explain.

Fasting causes HGH (human growth hormone) to increase!

In our bodies our body, HGH peaks during puberty and decreases as we age. HGH increases lean muscle mass and then decreases the fat mass. Skin thickness even improves. As we age, HGH decreases and so does our lean muscle mass. Fat mass increases at HGH levels decline. Skin becomes thinner.

HGH has an opposite effect on insulin. Whereas insulin prevents breakdown of fat and causes storage of glucose (blood sugar), HGH does the complete opposite: It increases the availability of glucose (blood sugar) in the bloodstream and allows our body to burn fat as fuel, meaning that we lose fat.

So why not just give HGH “injections” as a hormone instead of fasting. Does it make sense since it’s also anti-aging turning back the clock and making us look and feel younger?

Not so fast! Taking exogenous (injected) HGH has dangerous side effects. HGH increases blood sugars which is dangerous especially in diabetes and pre-diabetes.

HGH also increases fluid retention, blood pressure, the risk for heart disease and cancer.

Knowing that we can’t administer HGH without taking on a lot of unwanted risks, it makes sense to employ techniques which raise HGH levels naturally which is healthy and does not carry the same risk by simply FASTING!

When we fast, the HGH production significantly increases. When we fast AND workout HGH levels really spike. This is the reason elite athletes tend to promote training while fasting to increase muscle mass. Using this knowledge, we are able to increase our lean muscle mass, decrease our fat mass, and increases elasticity of our skin! Now this is truly ANTI-AGING!