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Is it bad if I stop fasting over the weekend?

Is it bad if I stop fasting over the weekend?

Fasting is one the most popular ways to lose weight and improve your health. 

Rather than telling you what you can and can’t eat, fasting only restricts the hours you’re allowed to eat. This makes fasting much easier to follow than a lot of other diets out there. 

However, a lot of people wonder if taking a break from fasting over the weekend will affect the progress they made during the week?

This article helps explain whether or not it’s bad to stop fasting over the weekend. 

Is it bad to stop fasting over the weekend?

Let’s face it; fasting is easier during the week. 

During the week, we usually have a set routine for when we wake up, go to work, pickup/drop off the kids (if you have them), and so on. However, when the weekend comes around, a lot of us throw the routine out the window. 

The weekends give us time to sleep in, spend time with your loved ones, catch up with friends, and finally get onto the errands that we’ve ignored during the week.

That’s why a lot of people wonder if it’s okay to stop fasting over the weekend?

In short, it’s okay to stop fasting over the weekend — as long as you don’t let yourself go. 

That means you should still make a conscious effort to make good food choices and eat healthier. However, you don’t need to worry as much about when you should be eating or not.

The one exception to this is if you usually combine fasting with keto. 

Keto is a popular high-fat, very-low-carb diet that limits your carb intake to 2050 grams per day. This way, your body switches from using carbs as energy to ketone bodies (fats).

If you stop both fasting and keto over the weekend, your body will switch back to using carbs as its main source of fuel, and you’ll have to wait anywhere from 2–7 days for your body to get back into ketosis (123).

If you find that fasting 5 days a week works better for you and your lifestyle, then it’s absolutely fine to do so. Just make sure to make healthy food choices and don’t use the weekends as an excuse to let go and erase the progress you made during the week.

Summary

It’s okay to stop fasting over the weekend as long as you continue to make healthy choices. The only exception is if you do keto along with fasting because it will take your body out of ketosis.

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Blog written by
Ryan Raman MHSC, RD
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