A Beginner’s Guide to Fasting: A Simple 12-Week Protocol

5 simple steps to starting a fasting practice.

Fasting has benefits for nearly everyone.

From weight loss and improved metabolic health, to Alzheimer’s prevention and increased muscle mass, it seems like fasting does it all. However, one should never rush into a fasting practice. In fact, a lack of adequate preparation can do a lot more harm than good.

Here is a straightforward 12-week protocol that will help you ease into a fasting practice in a safe and sustainable way.

Weeks 1–2

The first step is to engage in time-restricted eating (TRE).

TRE lines up our eating schedule with our circadian rhythm, and has numerous health benefits. This is a simple and manageable shift in eating habits, simply by changing when you take your first and last bites of the day.

There are 3 steps to TRE:

1. Reduce your eating window

Figure out an eating schedule that works for you that involves a maximum of a 12-hour feeding window. For example, if you want to eat breakfast at 8 am, make sure you have your last bite of the day by 8 pm.

2. Eat at the same time every day

Figure out when you want to eat breakfast, and eat breakfast at the same time every single day, even on weekends. Similarly, figure out lunch and dinner times that work for you, and stick with these every day.

“If you typically eat breakfast at 8:00am, you’ve set an appointment with your stomach, liver, muscles, pancreas, etc., and they will be ready to process the breakfast at 8:00. This first bite is also one of your clock’s links to the outside world: Breakfast becomes the cue that syncs the internal clock with the outside time. As long as you eat your breakfast at 8:00 (give or take a few minutes), your internal clock will be in sync with the outside world.” — Dr. Satchin Panda

3. Have your last bite at least 2 hours before sleeping

Finish eating and drinking (except water) at least two hours before going to bed. This will give your body enough time to digest and cool down before you go to sleep.

Stick with this protocol for 2 weeks.

Weeks 3–4

In this step, you’ll keep your TRE protocol going, but you’ll move your last meal of the day to 3 hours before going to sleep.

This will help ensure your stomach is empty before going to bed, which will be beneficial for aligning your eating with your circadian rhythm, and ultimately improving your health.

It also starts acclimatizing you to having an empty stomach, but without being too challenging, as you will soon go to sleep.

Stick with this for 2 weeks.

Weeks 5–6

Now we will shorten our eating window to 8–9 hours.

This is what intermittent fasting refers to. You’ll be fasting for 15–16 hours and eating for 8–9 hours. This is where we will see more of the health benefits.

“The optimum eating window is between 8 and 11 hours. This is because the health benefits that you get from eating within a 12 hour window double at 11 hours, and double again at 10, and so on, until you reach an eight-hour window.” — Dr. Satchin Panda

Stick with this for 2 weeks.

It is in this step that you will probably experience a deeper level of hunger than you’re accustomed to. Just know that this is normal. Have some water, keep your mind busy, and it should pass soon.

Weeks 7–11

It is in these weeks that we really start delving into the extended fasts.

Once per week, we will do a 24-hour fast. For most people, fasting from dinner one day to dinner the next day is the easiest. However, you may like to do breakfast to breakfast or lunch to lunch. It doesn’t matter, as long as we’re fasting for a full 24 hours.

You may need to experiment with this and see which protocol your body responds to best.

Again, you’ll likely feel more hungry than you have before, especially around your usual meal times. This will pass and will get easier as your body gets used to fasting and becomes more fat-adapted (able to use fat as fuel).

These 24-hour fasts have benefits further than the shorter, more intermittent style fasts do. Here is where human growth hormone (HGH) increases and cholesterol levels improve, among other benefits.

Stick with this protocol for one month — 16 hour daily fasts with a 24-hour fast once per week.

Week 12

If you’d like to take your fasting practice, you can try a 3 day (72 hour) fast.

While this type of fasting has many benefits, it’s also risky and should be done with medical guidance. Always check with your doctor first.

This type of fast doesn’t need to be done more than once per quarter, as the benefits are long-lasting (up to 6 months!).

Summary

Weeks 1–2

12 hour daily fast — TRE

Weeks 3–4

12 hour daily fast, with 3 hours between the last meal of the day and bedtime

Weeks 5–6

16 hour daily fast

Weeks 7–11

16 hour daily fast with a once per week 24-hour fast

Weeks 12

Once per quarter 3 day fast

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