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Hey fitness nerds!
Thank you all {{active_subscriber_count}} of you!
This was the most requested topic in replies from the previous Monday newsletter.
This is my personal experience, and it is not for everyone.
But I kinda cannot be asked to count calories anymore, and I found a way I don’t need to always count calories to lose weight
Tune in to read how I drop body fat without counting calories.
Read 🔽 below!
🥚
IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES WE WILL COVER:
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The Smartest Way to Cut Fat Without Counting Calories
The Smartest Way to Cut Fat Without Counting Calories
There’s a simple trick I use whenever I want to lean down without tracking calories. I don’t cut food portions or weigh meals. I eat normally six days a week, then I fast on Mondays. It’s an easy reset that trims fat without touching my daily routine.
Here’s what it looks like.
Sunday: normal lunch, then no dinner.
Monday: no food all day, just water, salt, black coffee, or tea.
Tuesday: normal breakfast.
It’s roughly a 36-hour fast, long enough to make a noticeable dent in weekly calorie intake without feeling like punishment.
The math behind it
Let’s say maintenance calories are about 2,500 per day. Over seven days, that’s 17,500 calories to maintain weight.
If you skip one full day of food, you remove about 2,500 calories. That’s close to three-quarters of a pound of body fat in energy terms (1 lb of fat ≈ 3,500 kcal).
Over a month, that’s about three pounds of pure fat, without changing what you eat on any other day.
The best part is that metabolism doesn’t adapt downward much because the body never feels like it’s starving chronically. For six days you feed it fully.
One day you rest it. It’s more efficient than eating 500 calories less every day, which eventually slows down metabolism and increases hunger hormones like ghrelin.
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How to avoid the “fast headache”
Most fasting headaches come from low electrolytes, not hunger. You lose sodium and water together, and since most sodium comes from food, skipping meals drops your intake sharply.
To prevent that:
Add half a teaspoon of salt to a glass of water or sip an electrolyte drink mid-day.
Drink 3–4 litres of water across the fasting day. Normally, about 20–30% of your daily hydration comes from food, so you’ll need more liquid than usual.
Black coffee or tea is fine, but avoid overdoing caffeine, it’s a diuretic and can worsen dehydration.
Once you get the salt balance right, the mental clarity during a fast can actually feel sharper than after a big meal.
Dealing with hunger
Hunger during fasting comes in waves. It peaks and fades, usually every 30–60 minutes. The trick is to surf the waves, not fight them.
What helps:
Stay busy, hunger is partly psychological.
Drink sparkling water; the bubbles create mild fullness.
Add a pinch of salt under your tongue if lightheaded.
Remember hunger doesn’t steadily increase, it comes and goes.
After the first few fasts, those waves flatten out. The body learns to tap stored glycogen and fat more efficiently.
How to break the fast safely
Breaking a 36-hour fast is where many go wrong. After the digestive system rests, it’s sensitive. Jumping straight into a large meal can cause bloating or diarrhoea because the gut enzymes and bile flow need a few hours to readjust.
Here’s how I break mine:
First, a small portion of Greek yoghurt with honey or a protein shake.
Wait 30 minutes.
Then a normal meal with protein, vegetables, and some slow carbs, something like steak, rice, and spinach.
Avoid high-fat or heavily fried foods right away, they’re harder to digest after a pause. Within a few hours, digestion returns to normal.
The science of why it works
During fasting, insulin drops, and the body switches from using glucose to fat for fuel. Glycogen stores deplete after about 24 hours, pushing the body to rely more on fatty acids and ketones. That metabolic flexibility is part of why fasting feels mentally clear after the first day, the brain runs smoothly on ketones once the transition happens.
Fasting also triggers autophagy, a cellular clean-up process where damaged proteins and organelles are broken down and recycled. It’s like spring cleaning for your cells. This isn’t just about weight loss, it supports long-term metabolic and mitochondrial health. Research also shows short-term fasting can improve insulin sensitivity, lower triglycerides, and reduce markers of inflammation.
And unlike daily calorie restriction, fasting preserves metabolic rate. With consistent feeding on non-fasting days, thyroid hormones and leptin levels remain stable. You lose fat without teaching your body to burn fewer calories, a common problem in chronic dieting.
Why this beats a daily 500-calorie deficit
On paper, both methods create the same weekly calorie shortfall, about 3,500 calories. But the effects on metabolism are completely different.
A 500-calorie daily deficit keeps insulin low but also keeps hunger high. Over time, the body compensates by slowing energy expenditure, less NEAT (the unconscious movement and fidgeting), lower thyroid activity, and reduced leptin.
With fasting, you keep your metabolism intact. You spend six days fueling fully, training normally, and maintaining hormone balance. That one day of deep deficit creates fat loss without adaptation. It’s a short, controlled stress, like a hard workout, not chronic starvation.
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The other benefits
Aside from body composition, fasting improves:
Mental clarity – once the brain switches to ketones, focus often feels sharper.
Blood sugar control – insulin sensitivity improves, making future meals easier to process.
Gut health – resting digestion allows the intestinal lining to repair.
Longevity markers – periodic fasting activates pathways like AMPK and sirtuins linked to cellular repair.
These are subtle shifts that add up with consistency. The goal isn’t suffering, it’s efficiency.
The negatives
Fasting isn’t magic and it’s not for everyone.
It can worsen fatigue in those with low blood pressure or very active training schedules.
It may trigger overeating the next day if you view it as a “free pass.”
It can cause headaches or low energy if electrolytes aren’t managed.
And for people with a history of disordered eating, it can reinforce unhealthy food control patterns.
Think of it as a tool, not a rule.
Why it works for me
I prefer fasting because it’s simple. There’s no counting, no guilt, no endless adjustment. I still eat all the foods I enjoy, just within a smaller weekly window. It fits a demanding job schedule and removes the mental clutter of daily dieting.
The Sunday-lunch-to-Tuesday-breakfast structure gives me one full day of metabolic reset and six days of normalcy. I train, I eat, I recover, and I never feel trapped by a meal plan.
Do you think this way of losing calories has merit?
Conclusion
Takeaway
Fasting is not about restriction; it’s about rhythm. The body thrives on cycles of feeding and rest. Most people live in constant feeding mode and wonder why fat loss stalls. One properly executed fast per week creates the contrast your metabolism needs to stay sharp.
No apps, no spreadsheets, no measuring spoons, just structure.
The rule is simple: eat well six days, rest one, and let biology do its job.
When done right, fasting isn’t a challenge. It’s maintenance with intent, a quiet reset that trims fat, sharpens focus, and keeps your metabolism working for you, not against you.
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