Fast. Feast. Repeat. Book Summary - Fast. Feast. Repeat. Book explained in key points

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Fast. Feast. Repeat. summary

Name: Fast. Feast. Repeat.
Rating: 4.5 (430 reviews)
Author: Gin Stephens

Gin Stephens

The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny® Intermittent Fasting

4.5 (430 ratings)

17 mins

Brief summary

Fast Feast Repeat by Gin Stephens is a comprehensive guide to intermittent fasting, providing practical tips and tools for sustainable weight loss.

Topics

Weight Loss

Table of Contents

Fast. Feast. Repeat.
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Discover how fasting can help you lose weight and improve your health.

According to common-sense thinking, food is the same no matter when you eat it. Whether you devour a slice of cake as a midnight snack or eat it right after dinner, a calorie is a calorie – so the net effect on your body is the same. That’s the standard way of thinking – but according to Gin Stephens, it’s all wrong.

The following blinks lay out the argument of Stephens’s book that the timing of your meals can actually have a profound effect on your waistline and your overall health. Delving into a variety of different fasting regimes, as well as the science underpinning weight loss and human health, these blinks explore both the reasons for fasting and the day-to-day fasting tips you’ll need along the way.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why Ramadan is good for Muslims’ hearts;
how to ensure you’re fasting “clean”; and
why your fasting routine should vary from time to time.

When it comes to fat loss, fasting beats dieting hands-down.

People sometimes think that fasting only helps you lose weight because it causes you to eat less. If you don’t eat for half the day, the thinking goes, you’ll probably end up cutting a few calories.

Over time, this undereating adds up – and, eventually, the number on the scale goes down. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Well, maybe – but this line of thinking ignores everything that makes fasting special. Fasting doesn’t work just by helping you to eat less. It works because it triggers some truly remarkable processes in the body.

The key message here is: When it comes to fat loss, fasting beats dieting hands-down.

One of the ways fasting helps you to lose weight is by reducing the amount of insulin circulating in your bloodstream.

Now, insulin is an important hormone; it works in tandem with glucagon to keep your blood-sugar levels in balance when you eat. But it also prevents the breakdown of your body’s reserves of fat.

So when you eat throughout the day, you keep your insulin level high – and you stop your body from tapping into your fat stores. When you fast, on the other hand, you let your insulin level drop – switching your body into fat-burning mode.

But that’s not the only reason fasting is a great weight-loss strategy. When you try to lose weight by adopting a traditional diet, your body’s natural response is to rebel. Why? Well, as far as your body can tell, you’re facing some kind of threat to your food supply.

How does your body respond to that? Simple. It boosts ghrelin, a hormone that makes you hungry, and lowers leptin, which tells you when you’ve eaten enough. In other words, it does its best to make you feel ravenous.

But that’s not all. In order to conserve energy, your body reduces its metabolic rate, or the number of calories it expends to keep you going. So while you’re trying to eat less, your body adapts and starts to require less, undoing all of your hard work.

Fasting, however, is different. Because you draw on your stored fat when you fast, your body doesn’t react as though it’s facing starvation when your food intake drops. Instead, you burn through the fat you’ve accumulated in your body – and avoid the downsides that normal diets promote.

The benefits of fasting go far beyond weight loss.

So fasting can help you lose weight. For many people, that’s reason enough to try it. For others, though, who are more attached to their eating habits, fasting can seem like a drastic change to make just to drop a few pounds.

It’s a fair point. So what can you say to these people? Besides losing weight, are there any good reasons to try intermittent fasting?

There are a number of different ways to start fasting.

So, say you’re a convert. You like the sound of losing weight, living longer, and feeling healthier. You’re on board with fasting. So what comes next?

Well, “intermittent fasting” is a catch-all term, and it’s applied to a lot of eating styles. If you’re serious about incorporating fasting into your life, you’ll need to get a handle on the various patterns and decide which one best suits you and your goals.

There are a few things to avoid if you want to fast “clean.”

The notion of fasting seems pretty straightforward, right? For a certain number of hours, you just avoid eating anything. Could the idea get any simpler?

Well, yes – and there are a few qualifications and conditions that need to be mentioned, too.

To reap the greatest rewards, change your fasting style from time to time.

Once you find a fasting strategy that suits you, it can be tempting to settle into a routine.

After all, fasting isn’t always easy. You’ve got to balance your mealtimes with work commitments, family arrangements, your daily commute and much more. When you eventually find a schedule that works, you may find it all too easy to fasten onto it for good.

Fasting can help you to start eating healthily.

Intermittent fasting is a powerful tool. It’s flexible, relatively simple, and helps you to lose weight and live longer. In short, it sounds like magic – but it’s not.

Although fasting can help you to reduce your weight and improve your health, it can’t defy the laws of nature. If you overeat during your eating window, you’ll put on weight; it doesn’t matter if you’re following 16:8 or OMAD at the time.

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What is Fast. Feast. Repeat. about?

Fast. Feast. Repeat. (2020) takes readers on a whistle-stop tour of the theory and practice of intermittent fasting. Drawing on cutting-edge research and immersion in the culture of the fasting community, Fast. Feast. Repeat. lays out the whys and hows of fasting in gripping detail.

Fast. Feast. Repeat. Review

Fast Feast Repeat (2020) offers a flexible approach to intermittent fasting for sustainable weight loss. Here's why you should read this book:

It provides a comprehensive guide to various fasting methods and schedules.
The book includes practical tips and tools to help readers succeed in their fasting journey.
Readers will learn how to adapt fasting to their individual needs and preferences.

Embrace a healthier lifestyle with Fast Feast Repeat.

Best quote from Fast. Feast. Repeat.

If you are still not sure if something is clean-fast approved, I like to follow this rule of thumb: when in doubt, leave it out.

—Gin Stephens

Who should read Fast. Feast. Repeat.?

Serial dieters trying to lose weight for good
Amateur nutritionists interested in human health
Skeptics who think fasting is just another fad

About the Author

Gin Stephens is a health coach, author, and educator who divides her time between Georgia and South Carolina. She’s been practicing intermittent fasting since 2014 and is the author of the best-selling book Delay, Don’t Deny.

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