Hi everyone! I’m starting a 7 day fast this Sunday and was wondering if I could continue my workouts at the gym (weight training) . Is it ok? Or would it be detrimental to my results?. My goal with fasting is mostly weightloss. I’ve been working out consistently and have seen really positive changes but I feel like now a 7 day fast will give me the little push to the next level. The internet seems pretty divided about if it’s ok to exercise while fasting. Wondering if anybody has experience with this. Thanks!!!
Can you weight train or workout during a 7 day fast?
Speaking from my fasting experience (4, 5, 7, 21 & 40 day fasts), experience as a former CPT (Certified Personal Trainer) and my research this is what I’ve come to conclude.
First of all, fasting is a stressful experience for the body. Especially, if your body doesn’t have much experience in using ketones for energy instead of glucose. You don’t want to over stress the body with strenuous workouts. Since I’ve been participating in this online forum from October and in the FB group, I’ve seen numerous people fail because of this.
Whatever fitness level you are at when you enter a prolonged fast is where you will remain. Yes, there is an increase in HGH during a fast; however, muscle building is such a massive energy resource activity that its usually delayed until ReFeed as the body has higher priorities for that energy such as creation of new brain cells to help the organism find a new source of food.
For myself, until my last fast, which was 21 days, I limited myself to 1 to 2 mile daily walks. Primarily to help the lymphatic system and to help the vascular system more speedily adapt to the body changes due to fat loss. For the 21-day, for the 1st 3 weeks I did alternating days of 1 mile walks with a flexibility workout and on the other days a longer 2 mile walk. The final week, I reduced it to daily 1 mile walks due to energy demands caused by detoxification of old toxins from the burning of decades old belly fat. I was able to do the increased exercise level because the prior 30 days I had worked on increasing my body’s flexibility and increasing its walking aerobic capacity.
Hope this helps!
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Thank you so much!!! It makes sense. And congratulations on your journey. I’ve been following it since the beginning of this forum And it’s very inspirational. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and findings with us it’s much appreciated.
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