I'm paraphrasing the following based on what I've read the past month or two from various intermittent fasting sources, mostly websites, so I don't think I'm violating any book or whatever...
They finally have machines that can accurately measure metabolism and fat/glucose mobilization (where the energy is coming from when it's not coming from food immediately eaten) and the newest research available says that genetically we are pretty much the same as our hunter/gatherer ancestors from a million years ago. When you go without food for 1-3 days, you're metabolic rate increases and your body releases body fat in the form of free fatty acids at an increased rate and it is theorized that the reason for this is so that the hunter/gatherer can have more energy to go out and hunt and gather. After day 3 the metabolic rate returns to normal (maybe getting ready for a famine) and after about day 9 (without food) metabolic rate decreases. This decrease at this time is in the neighborhood of 200 calories a day less than "normal." Normal would be the metabolic rate from day 4-8. At this point the studies that I read about stopped measuring because they got what they were looking for and starving test subjects any longer would just be rude :) Test subjects did not lose muscle other than the water lost when glycogen stores were depleted. Protein was not synthesized for energy. Would they have lost muscle after day 9? Who cares. No one is going to fast for this long unless you're Ghandi. The point is the "sweet spot" of fasted fat loss is within the first 3 days. No one I know is going to go 3 days without food anyway so muscle loss is nothing to worry about. I've also read that your body fat can be turned into muscle during fasting if you lift weights but I don't care to talk about that because it's extremely hard to believe and don't care to debate and on top of it I'll probably never do it anyway. Fast-5 is awesome. Even skipping a day here or there would be awesome too, if I feel like it.
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