Glycogen, Alternate day fasting, confused?

[alexbuilda]

First off, I am new so sorry that I'm asking a question as my first post. I was sent here by a friend who spends a lot of time on this forum and he says you guys can help.


So a friend of mine is doing a diet called Alternate day fasting.

Basically, he eats what he wants (reasonably and he tailors the diet to match one for muscle building, high protein) one day, and he fasts another day. He is actually seeing results and is getting ripped. He says he's not losing muscle and is actually gaining strength.

What is annoying me is this:

I did some research and forgive my ignorance, but from what I understand, the body must use the stored glucose, glycogen from liver, blood etc before it starts using fat. Correct me if I'm wrong (which I think I am)

If my friend is fasting one day, I assume he's depleting his stores. If he eats to maintenance or more on his eating day, he's refilling those stores all over again.

So, at what point does the body use fat if it is always given more stores to use other than fat? I've been searching a lot but I just get bogus articles of people who are guessing pretty much...



Main point:

If glycogen is being depleted on one fasting day, and refilled on eating day, how is he losing fat? I am pretty sure I must be missing something.

His diet is eat one day, fast the next.

[Deadandlivin]

If your friend is consuming less then his body is using he will lose weight.
It's really that simple.

Say his maintenance is 2500.
On his refills he eats 4500 calories and the day after he eats zero calories.
This nets him about 1500-2000 calories a week which will be taken from his fat, and possibly his muscles.

If you workout without consuming carbohydrates you'll simply use other resources from your body other than glycogen.

TL;DR He's eating less calories then he consumes. You enter your glycogen stores pretty fast when you're malnutrishouned.

[musculoid]

The body is able to burn fat even if glycogen isn't depleted. It's more complicated than that.

If you want to do the diet, start by reading EatStopEat by Brad Pilon for general info and look into the sources. It's easy to find.

[cunfewzed]

The body is able to burn fat even if glycogen isn't depleted. It's more complicated than that.

If you want to do the diet, start by reading EatStopEat by Brad Pilon for general info and look into the sources. It's easy to find.

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