The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting

Book Details

Title	The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting
Author(s)	Dr. Jason Fung, Jimmy Moore
Publisher	Victory Belt Publishing
Year	2016
Edition	1st Edition
Language	English
Pages	304
ISBN	978-1-62860-001-8
Genre	Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Fasting / Metabolic Health
Series	Unknown
Size	2.1 MB
Extension	PDF

Summary

The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting is one of the most important and widely read books on therapeutic nutrition published in the past decade, co-authored by two complementary voices whose combined authority gives the work an unusual depth and range. Dr. Jason Fung, a Canadian nephrologist who has practiced kidney medicine in Toronto since 2001 and has applied fasting protocols clinically with more than 1,000 patients, brings the scientific rigor, medical credibility, and clinical evidence that anchor the book's core arguments. Jimmy Moore, an international bestselling author, veteran health podcaster, and founder of the influential "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" platform, contributes the perspective of someone who transformed his own health through dietary intervention and has spent nearly two decades translating complex nutritional science into language that general audiences can understand and act upon. Published in 2016 by Victory Belt Publishing, the book arrived at a moment of rapidly growing public interest in fasting as a health strategy and has since become the definitive reference for anyone seeking a thorough, evidence-based understanding of how fasting works and how to practice it safely and effectively.

The book is organized to build the reader's understanding systematically, beginning with foundational questions — what fasting actually is, how it differs from starvation, and why it has been practiced across virtually every human culture and major religious tradition throughout recorded history. Dr. Fung then provides a rigorous explanation of the metabolic science that makes fasting so powerful: the role of insulin as the primary fat-storage hormone, the concept of insulin resistance and how chronic elevated insulin levels undermine weight loss efforts, and the physiological shift into fat-burning that occurs when insulin levels fall during a fasting period. This scientific foundation is presented in language accessible to general readers, making it one of the few health books that genuinely educates rather than merely prescribing. The book then moves through a comprehensive survey of fasting protocols, including time-restricted eating, 16:8 intermittent fasting, 24-hour fasts, alternate-day fasting, and extended fasts of 36 hours or longer, explaining the specific benefits, appropriate uses, and practical management of each approach.

Beyond theory and protocol description, the book provides readers with a complete practical toolkit for beginning and sustaining a fasting practice. A centerpiece of the practical section is the 7-Day Kick-Start Fasting Plan, which gives readers a structured, day-by-day schedule for their first week of fasting, reducing the intimidation factor and providing clear guidance on what to eat, when to eat, and how to manage hunger and energy levels during the adaptation period. The book also includes recipes for healing liquids — broths, infused waters, and other fasting-compatible drinks — that support the body through fasting periods and help readers manage the practical challenges of going without food. Chapters address how to track progress, how to troubleshoot common difficulties such as fatigue, headaches, and social pressure, and how to recognize the difference between normal fasting discomfort and signals that warrant medical attention. Personal testimonials from patients who have used fasting under Dr. Fung's clinical guidance are woven throughout the book, providing human context and motivational anchoring for the scientific material.

The book is intended for a broad readership that spans multiple motivations and starting points. People seeking to lose weight — especially those who have tried calorie-restriction diets and experienced the frustrating plateau or rebound that such approaches typically produce — will find in this book both an explanation for why those experiences occurred and a genuinely different strategy for achieving lasting results. Readers managing type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes will discover that fasting is one of the most clinically validated non-pharmaceutical approaches to improving insulin sensitivity and reducing blood glucose levels. The book is also relevant to readers interested in the growing evidence linking metabolic health to cardiovascular disease, cognitive function, cancer prevention, and healthy aging. No prior knowledge of nutrition science or medicine is required — the authors write for an intelligent general audience and explain all technical concepts from first principles — though the book is equally well-suited to healthcare professionals looking for a clinically grounded resource on therapeutic fasting.

Since its publication, The Complete Guide to Fasting has earned international bestseller status and has been translated into numerous languages, establishing itself as the essential reference in a category of nutritional literature that has grown dramatically in both public and scientific attention. The collaboration between a practicing physician with direct clinical evidence and a patient-advocate with a deep media platform has proven to be a particularly effective authorial partnership, with each contributor's perspective reinforcing the other's. The book's influence can be measured not only in its commercial success but in its role in shifting mainstream awareness toward fasting as a legitimate, evidence-supported therapeutic tool rather than a fringe or dangerous practice. For any reader who wants to understand fasting in depth — its history, its science, its protocols, and its practical implementation — this guide remains the most complete and authoritative single resource available.

Key Features

• Co-authored by a practicing nephrologist with over 1,000 clinical fasting patients and an international bestselling health author, combining medical authority with practical accessibility in a single volume.
• Provides a thorough scientific explanation of insulin's role as the primary fat-storage hormone and demonstrates why chronic insulin elevation — not calorie excess — is the central driver of obesity and metabolic disease.
• Covers the full spectrum of fasting protocols in detail, from 16:8 intermittent fasting and 24-hour fasts to alternate-day fasting and extended multi-day fasts, with specific guidance for each approach.
• Includes a 7-Day Kick-Start Fasting Plan that gives first-time fasters a structured, day-by-day schedule to follow during their initial week, significantly lowering the barrier to beginning a fasting practice.
• Features recipes for healing broths, infused waters, and other fasting-compatible liquids that support the body during fasting periods and help readers manage hunger and electrolyte balance.
• Explores the history of fasting across human cultures and religious traditions, situating the modern therapeutic fasting movement within a much longer human practice with millennia of accumulated evidence.
• Addresses who benefits from fasting and who should approach it with caution or avoid it entirely, providing the responsible medical context that many popular fasting guides omit.
• Explains how to track progress during fasting beyond simple body weight, including measures of energy, cognitive clarity, hunger patterns, and metabolic markers that reflect genuine health improvement.
• Dedicates specific attention to the management of type 2 diabetes through fasting, drawing on Dr. Fung's extensive clinical experience to show how fasting can reduce or eliminate the need for diabetes medication under medical supervision.
• Includes patient testimonials from individuals who underwent fasting protocols under Dr. Fung's clinical guidance, providing real-world evidence that contextualizes and humanizes the scientific content throughout.
• Provides practical troubleshooting guidance for the most common fasting challenges, including fatigue, hunger surges, headaches, social eating situations, and the management of exercise during fasting periods.
• Explains the physiological difference between fasting and starvation at a biochemical level, addressing one of the most persistent and damaging misconceptions about therapeutic fasting in the popular imagination.
• Published by Victory Belt Publishing, whose catalog of evidence-based health and nutrition titles has established it as one of the most respected specialist publishers in the health and wellness category.

About the Authors

Dr. Jason Fung was born in 1973 and is a Canadian physician and nephrologist based in Toronto, Ontario. He completed his medical degree at the University of Toronto and subsequently completed his residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in nephrology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received board certification in internal medicine and nephrology from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Upon completing his UCLA fellowship, he returned to Toronto and joined the staff at Scarborough General Hospital, where he built his clinical nephrology practice. As a nephrologist treating large numbers of patients whose kidney disease was caused by type 2 diabetes, Dr. Fung became increasingly dissatisfied with the conventional pharmaceutical approach to obesity and metabolic disease, which addressed symptoms rather than root causes. This professional frustration drove him to investigate dietary and fasting interventions, leading him to co-found the Intensive Dietary Management (IDM) program and later The Fasting Method — both clinical programs designed to help patients reverse type 2 diabetes and achieve sustainable weight loss through fasting and low-carbohydrate nutrition. He is the author of several international bestsellers including The Obesity Code (2016), The Diabetes Code (2018), The Cancer Code (2020), and Life in the Fasting Lane (2020, co-authored with Eve Mayer and Megan Ramos).

Jimmy Moore was born on December 27, 1971 in the United States and attended the University of Tennessee at Martin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and English. He subsequently obtained a Master's Degree in Public Policy from Regent University. On January 1, 2004, weighing 410 pounds and managing multiple health conditions including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, he began an Atkins low-carbohydrate diet that resulted in a 180-pound weight loss and allowed him to discontinue three prescription medications within a year. This transformation catalyzed a new career as a health communicator: in April 2005 he launched the "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog, which grew to 250,000 monthly readers, and in 2006 he became the host of The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show, one of the longest-running and most listened-to nutritional health podcasts on iTunes, featuring over 1,400 episodes with leading researchers, clinicians, and practitioners. Moore is the international bestselling author of multiple health books including Keto Clarity, Cholesterol Clarity, The Ketogenic Cookbook, The Keto Cure, and Real Food Keto, and has co-hosted additional podcasts including Fasting Talk alongside Dr. Fung and Megan Ramos, and Keto Talk. His work has appeared in numerous media outlets and he has spoken at health and nutrition conferences internationally.

Related Books

• The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss — Dr. Jason Fung
• The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally — Dr. Jason Fung
• Life in the Fasting Lane: How to Make Intermittent Fasting a Lifestyle — Dr. Jason Fung, Eve Mayer, Megan Ramos
• Keto Clarity: Your Definitive Guide to the Benefits of a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet — Jimmy Moore, Eric C. Westman
• Eat Stop Eat: Intermittent Fasting for Health and Weight Loss — Brad Pilon
• The Warrior Diet: Switch on Your Biological Powerhouse for High Energy, Explosive Strength, and a Leaner, Harder Body — Ori Hofmekler
• Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle — Gin Stephens
• The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery — Dr. Jason Fung

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q : What is the core scientific argument the book makes about why fasting works for weight loss when traditional dieting does not?

R : The book's central scientific argument, developed primarily through Dr. Fung's clinical experience and research, is that obesity is fundamentally a hormonal disorder driven by chronically elevated insulin levels — not simply a matter of consuming too many calories. When people restrict calories through conventional dieting, their bodies respond by lowering their metabolic rate to match the reduced energy intake, which is why calorie-restriction diets produce diminishing results over time and lead to the well-documented regain effect. Fasting, by contrast, lowers insulin levels sharply and sustainably, signaling the body to access stored fat as its primary fuel source — a metabolic state that conventional frequent-meal dieting never achieves. This distinction between caloric restriction and hormonal reset is the book's most important and well-argued contribution to popular nutrition science.

Q : How does the book differentiate between fasting and starvation, and why does this distinction matter?

R : The book dedicates significant attention to distinguishing fasting from starvation, as conflating the two is one of the most common and consequential misunderstandings about therapeutic fasting. Starvation, as the authors define it, is the involuntary deprivation of food driven by external scarcity — a state in which the body eventually catabolizes muscle tissue because no alternative energy source is available. Fasting, by contrast, is a voluntary, deliberate, and time-limited practice in which the body primarily burns stored body fat rather than muscle, especially in people who have adequate fat reserves and undertake fasting under informed conditions. The physiological distinction is significant: during properly managed fasting, growth hormone levels actually rise — protecting muscle mass — while insulin falls dramatically, making stored fat readily accessible. Understanding this difference allows readers to approach fasting without the fear of metabolic damage that conventional dietary advice has long promoted.

Q : What specific fasting protocols are described in the book, and how does the book help readers choose the right one?

R : The book presents a comprehensive range of fasting protocols organized roughly by duration and frequency, from the least demanding to the most intensive. Short daily protocols include time-restricted eating and the popular 16:8 approach, in which eating is confined to an 8-hour daily window and fasting occupies the remaining 16 hours. Longer single-day protocols include 24-hour and 36-hour fasts, while alternate-day fasting alternates between normal eating days and complete or near-complete fasting days. Extended fasts of 48 hours, 72 hours, or longer are also covered, with appropriate guidance on medical supervision and electrolyte management. Rather than prescribing one approach for all readers, the authors present the protocols with enough contextual information — goals, health status, prior experience — to allow readers to make an informed decision about which approach suits their specific situation and starting point.

Q : Is this book appropriate for people with type 2 diabetes, and does it address the medication implications of fasting?

R : Yes, people with type 2 diabetes are among the primary intended beneficiaries of the book's guidance, and Dr. Fung's clinical background specifically in treating diabetic nephrology patients gives this section particular authority. The book explains in detail how fasting lowers blood glucose and improves insulin sensitivity, and it addresses the critical issue that fasting can cause blood glucose to drop significantly in people taking insulin or certain oral diabetes medications — making medical supervision and potential dose adjustment essential before beginning any fasting protocol. Dr. Fung draws on his clinical program's outcomes to show that many patients with type 2 diabetes have been able to reduce or eliminate their diabetes medications under medical supervision through fasting, which he frames as treating the root cause rather than managing symptoms. Readers with diabetes are strongly encouraged to work with their healthcare provider before starting any fasting protocol and to monitor their blood glucose closely throughout.

Q : What practical tools does the book provide for someone beginning their first fast?

R : The book's most immediately useful practical resource is the 7-Day Kick-Start Fasting Plan, which provides a day-by-day schedule for the first week of fasting that balances accessibility for beginners with a genuine introduction to the physiological changes fasting produces. Beyond the plan itself, the book includes recipes for healing liquids — bone broths, herbal teas, electrolyte waters, and other fasting-compatible preparations — that help manage hunger, maintain electrolyte balance, and support the body through the adaptation period. Practical guidance on managing social eating situations, exercising during fasting periods, tracking progress through measurable health markers, and breaking a fast appropriately after extended fasting periods is also included throughout the relevant chapters. Taken together, these resources give first-time fasters both the knowledge and the concrete structure needed to attempt their first fast with realistic expectations and a meaningful chance of success.

Q : How does the book address common side effects such as hunger, fatigue, and headaches during fasting?

R : The book candidly acknowledges the discomforts that commonly accompany the initial phase of fasting and dedicates specific content to explaining their causes and providing practical strategies for managing them. Hunger, the authors explain, is not a constant or linear experience but rather a hormonal wave driven primarily by the timing of habitual meals — and it typically diminishes significantly after the first two or three days of fasting as the body adapts to fat-burning metabolism. Fatigue and headaches during early fasting are most commonly caused by sodium and electrolyte depletion as the kidneys excrete additional sodium in response to falling insulin levels, and the book's healing liquid recipes are specifically designed to address this. The authors also distinguish between normal fasting discomforts — which are temporary and manageable — and symptoms that warrant stopping the fast and seeking medical attention, providing readers with the calibration needed to navigate their experience safely and confidently.

Q : What role does Jimmy Moore play in the book compared to Dr. Jason Fung, and how do their contributions complement each other?

R : Dr. Jason Fung serves as the primary scientific and clinical voice of the book, providing the medical evidence, physiological explanations, and clinical case studies that underpin its core arguments about why fasting works and how it should be practiced from a health standpoint. Jimmy Moore's contribution is complementary in nature: as someone who has lived experience of dramatic dietary transformation and has spent nearly two decades communicating nutritional science to a broad general audience through his blog and podcast, he brings the patient's perspective, the communicator's instinct for clarity, and the advocate's motivational energy. Moore's sections and testimonials within the book make the clinical material feel human and relevant rather than purely academic, and his presence as co-author signals to readers who may be unfamiliar with fasting science that the material has been tested and validated by real people with real health challenges. Together, they create a book that is simultaneously more scientifically rigorous and more personally accessible than either could have produced alone.