Firstly, I know how insane that sounds.
Many people reading this may well be Muslim, and let me assure you, this does not work for Sunnah fasts or Ramadan fasts. Because Islamic fasts are specifically designed to make sure that you do feel hunger and thirst. There is no way around the inherent challenge in the pre-dawn to sunset, no food, no water fast.
However, a lot of people these days are into “intermittent fasting” as an incredibly intelligent way to lose a lot of unwanted body fat, quickly and effectively.
The only trouble with intermittent fasting, whichever version of it you try, is this terrible inconvenience that you spend a long time being very hungry and possibly very thirsty.
One of the best known approaches to intermittent fasting was popularised by Dr Michael Mosley, which is essentially “the Sunnah fast”. He doesn’t call it that, but it is basically fasting on Mondays and Thursdays.
The key thing, he explains, and the reason this works for fat loss is that on the fast days, you take in only 500 – 600 calories, which would be the equivalent of one small meal, for example, grilled chicken with vegetables.
But of course, you still have the same problem.
It’s very hard to do, and you’re hungry all day. And if you’re doing it the Sunnah way, you’re thirsty all day too.
If you’re overweight, that can seem too hard or too discouraging. And I want to give you a way to burn fat without burning out or feeling like you have to be a super-hero Muslim all year round.
So, here it is – I’ve encountered a very strange way of doing a type of intermittent fast that gets you roughly the same result, without the inconvenience of hunger and thirst.
Are you ready for it?
Before I tell you, rest assured, in true Mamoon fashion:
This. Is. Weird.
Like, really weird.
I’m not claiming it’s healthy or the best thing to do (but then again, neither is being a fat bloke!).
For the record, I have no credentials whatsoever in nutrition. I literally quit medical school.
Okay, that all being said, here’s how it works:
On your fast day, start the morning by mixing water with half a scoop of whey protein powder.
Make sure you enjoy the taste of the protein powder you choose… because you’re going to be having a lot of it.
About 400ml of water with half a scoop of protein powder will contain roughly 10–12 grams of protein and only 60kcal, and it has a magical effect: you feel completely full for the next couple of hours.
So let’s say you wake up early for the daily grind:
Have your first protein water at 7am instead of breakfast.
Then another at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, and if needed, 9pm.
If you had eight protein waters across the day, you’d consume roughly 480 calories.
No hunger.
No thirst.
Just fat loss.
Now granted, on a day like this you’re not getting much nutrition aside from protein, so you might want to take a multivitamin or something similar.
You can even have black coffee, as long as there’s no sugar or milk in it.
There you have it.
A simple way of fasting for fat loss without the inconvenience of hunger or thirst.
There’s a book that goes into more detail called, “The 1-Day Diet”, that explains essentially the same protocol and recommends trying it every other day for a month if you have a lot of weight to lose. It depends on a lot of factors, but this works FAST. (Pun intended).
I’ve done this myself, and every client I’ve put on it has lost a significant amount of unwanted body fat relatively quickly and easily – about 10kg of fat dropped in a month is not unheard of.
And it’s easy to maintain, because if you find it easy (as I do!) you can do it whenever needed for maintenance, such as once a week, or whenever you want to trim down.
Try it out and let me know what you think.
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