Discover what happens inside your body as you fast for 3 days, 5 days, and 7 days. Intermittent fasting has many benefits, but it also has some drawbacks. Extended water fasting can result in some negative effects. But how long does it take for fasting to cause muscle loss, headaches, and extreme hunger? Find out what happens when you stop eating.
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After you eat a meal, your body enters an anabolic state, where food is broken down into simpler molecules and used as fuel so your organs can function properly. An organ in the abdomen known as the pancreas produces insulin which is a hormone that regulates the process of breaking down and metabolizing primarily carbohydrates but also protein. So insulin is the hormone that helps the cells absorb the glucose found in the bloodstream after a meal. Dietary fat, on the other hand, is broken down into fatty acids which are used by the body for energy as well as for many different biological processes like testosterone production for example. Excess fatty acids are converted back to triglycerides and then most of those triglycerides are stored in adipose tissue otherwise known as body fat.

Meanwhile, excess carbohydrates from that meal will first get converted into glycogen which is a string of glucose molecules that can be stored and used later. Glycogen is mostly stored in the liver and your muscles. Since there's a biological limit to how much glycogen a person can store, once that limit is reached the rest of the excess energy is converted into triglycerides and stored as adipose tissue, otherwise known as body fat. This is the routine process that our bodies go through when we eat throughout the day. But what would happen if you chose to stop eating for 3 days straight?

Well after about 6-10 hours of fasting, most of the glucose that's still circulating in your bloodstream will be used for fuel. At that point, your body will start shifting from an anabolic to a catabolic state. Since it's not receiving any new nutrients, your body has to start using its own glycogen reserves to fuel itself. It's at that point that the pancreas secretes glucagon. Glucagon is not the same as glycogen or glucose. It's actually a hormone, and one of its jobs is to signal your body to release glycogen and fatty acids. Also if your last meal was low in carbohydrates your body may start producing ketones as an energy source within this early stage of fasting. Ketones are chemicals produced by the liver when fat cells are converted into fatty acids. So in general during those first 6 hours, your blood glucose levels will start to elevate and then they'll gradually decline. Meanwhile, your ketone levels will do pretty much the opposite. They'll gradually rise, especially after approximately the 10th hour of fasting. (1)

Now before you ever hit that 10th-hour mark, if you’re accustomed to eating three meals per day or you regularly eat a high-carb diet you'll probably experience hunger and low energy levels. If you ignore this hunger and continue fasting for at least 10 hours your body will start to increase the levels of a hormone produced by the pituitary gland called Human Growth Hormone otherwise known as (HGH). Fasting can actually increase HGH just as effectively as exercise, stress, and very low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia. (2) HGH plays an important role in the fasting process because it's associated with enhanced muscle growth, exercise performance, better body composition, a faster metabolic rate, stronger immunity, and faster recovery from injuries. (3) Although HGH is unlikely to lead to muscle growth in the absence of nutrients while you're fasting, it's believed to be responsible for delaying the breakdown of muscle. So it helps prevent muscle loss while fasting. It does this by stimulating metabolic processes such as protein synthesis and muscle tissue repair. According to research, the longer you fast, the more HGH you'll produce. For example, a study found that fasting for just two days increased HGH production by 5X. (4)

Now at around 12-16 hours in, depending on how many carbs you normally eat, your body will continue to deplete its glycogen stores, while also increasing its reliance on ketone bodies. (5) The benefits of this initial period of fasting have been well documented because multiple studies have been designed to observe people fasting for Ramadan, which is a Muslim holiday where people stop eating food from dawn to sunset, every day for one month. The studies on this topic all provide an excellent overview of the benefits that fasting for 10-17 hours daily has on the human body. According to the findings, there's great improvement in weight management, digestion, and cholesterol levels. (6). Also, some studies show a significant decrease in inflammation markers associated with a number of diseases such as homocysteine, C-reactive protein...