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HOME / GUIDES / FASTING SAFELY
Fasting can be a useful way to structure when you eat, but it is not appropriate for everyone and there is no single fasting routine that is right for every person.
Burn helps you track your fasts, understand your progress, and follow what may be happening during different stages of a fast. It cannot assess your individual medical circumstances or tell you whether fasting is safe for you.
Here are some important things to consider before you start.
You should speak with a qualified healthcare professional before fasting if you:
Burn is not intended to guide fasting for children or young people under 18.
If you are unsure whether fasting is appropriate for you, speak with a healthcare professional before starting.
Changing when you eat can affect how some medicines work.
Some medications need to be taken with food, while others, including certain diabetes medications, can increase the risk of low blood glucose when food intake changes.
Do not stop, reduce, delay, or otherwise change prescribed medication in order to fast unless you have been advised to do so by the healthcare professional responsible for your treatment.
A fasting target is never more important than your wellbeing.
End your fast if you become unwell or experience symptoms that concern you.
Symptoms such as significant dizziness, fainting, confusion, persistent nausea or vomiting, severe weakness, or other unusual or severe symptoms should not be ignored.
If symptoms are severe, persistent, or you believe you may be experiencing a medical emergency, seek appropriate medical care.
Unless you are following a fast that specifically restricts fluids for medical or other reasons, maintaining adequate hydration is important.
How much fluid you need varies depending on factors including your body, environment, exercise, diet, and the length of your fast.
Pay attention to thirst and how you feel rather than treating a fasting timer as something that must be completed at all costs.
A longer fast is not automatically a better fast.
Burn may allow you to track different fasting lengths, but the presence of a timer or fasting goal should never be interpreted as a recommendation to continue fasting.
Your appropriate fasting duration depends on your individual circumstances.
If you are new to fasting, making large or sudden changes to your eating pattern may be more difficult than adopting a routine gradually.
Some people are comfortable exercising while fasting, while others may find that fasting affects their energy, strength, concentration, or exercise performance.
Consider the intensity and duration of your activity, how long you have been fasting, environmental conditions, and how you personally respond.
If exercise while fasting makes you feel unwell, stop the activity and respond to what your body is telling you.
Fasting can require particular care for people with diabetes.
Changes in food intake can affect blood glucose, and some diabetes medications can increase the risk of hypoglycaemia during a fast.
If you have diabetes, particularly if you use insulin or medication that affects blood glucose, fasting should be discussed with your healthcare team so that your individual treatment and monitoring requirements can be considered.
Do not use Burn's timer or fasting stages as a replacement for blood glucose monitoring or advice from your healthcare team.
Burn shows fasting stages to help explain some of the processes that may occur as time passes without food.
Human metabolism is considerably more complex than a timer.
The exact timing of processes associated with fasting varies between people and can be influenced by factors including:
Reaching a stage in Burn therefore means you have reached an estimated point in your fast. It does not confirm that your body has entered a particular metabolic state.
Fasting does not guarantee weight loss.
Body weight can change for many reasons, and short-term changes on the scale can reflect water, food intake, glycogen, and other factors as well as changes in body fat.
Burn is designed to help you track your behavior and progress. It should not be used to pursue increasingly restrictive fasting simply because a particular number has not changed as quickly as expected.
Sustainable progress matters more than completing the longest possible fast.
Fasting involves intentionally restricting when you eat and may therefore be inappropriate for people with a current or previous eating disorder or problematic relationship with food.
If fasting begins to feel compulsive, causes significant anxiety around eating, or encourages increasingly restrictive behavior, stop and consider seeking support from an appropriate healthcare professional.
Burn should be a tool that supports your goals, not something you feel compelled to obey.
Your fasting goal is a target, not an obligation.
Consistency with an approach that works for you is more valuable than chasing increasingly long fasting times.
You can end a fast early.
You can change your schedule.
You can take a day off.
And you do not need to extend a fast simply because you feel capable of doing so.
BURN CAN HELP YOU
BURN CANNOT
There is no prize for the longest fast.
Burn is designed to make fasting easier to follow and understand, whether your routine is short, long, occasional, or regular.
Choose an approach that is appropriate for you, adjust it when you need to, and stop when your body tells you something isn't right.
If you have questions about Burn itself, contact us at: