I’m picky when it comes to my alcohol. I’m not a big drinker, but I have my favorites.

If I’m drinking beer I’m drinking Guinness, unless it’s crazy hot out, and then I’m drinking Banks.

If I’m not drinking beer I’m drinking Scotch or Rum.

(I’m a fun combination of Scottish-Irish-Canadian roots and Bajan roots)

I appreciate these drinks, but I’m not going to kid myself – I know that they don’t help with my fat loss goals.

Here is the simple truth – Your body has a priority system when dealing with fuel sources, and at the top of the list is alcohol.

If you have alcohol in your body, it will be burned first*.

(*Technically it gets transformed to acetate and then burned, but for simplicity’s sake we’ll call this burning alcohol)

Also, if you have a big night of drinking and then you go to sleep, your nighttime Growth Hormone levels will be significantly lower than if you had not been drinking.

Why? Because GH is primarily responsible for releasing fat from your body fat stores. Which is a big part of how you lose fat at night.

Typically, when you go to sleep, your GH increases, you release fat, then you burn fat, it’s a beautiful system. You truly are burning fat while doing nothing.

But when you go to sleep drunk, your body has other priorities. It needs to oxidize (burn) the alcohol in your body… So it doesn’t release GH, because it doesn’t need fat to be released (It already has a fuel source).

The bottom line is you sober up while you sleep by burning alcohol as a fuel source, instead of fat.

You can drink while trying to lose weight, just remember that the alcohol you take in (about 10-15 grams per drink) must be dealt with, and it will get dealt with as a priority.

Keep it moderate while trying to lose weight, and sadly – no drinking booze while you are fasting.

Today, I want clear up some confusion about protein, branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) and fasting.

First, my opinion on protein is that frequency trumps amount…

So I’d rather see you eat between 15-30 grams (depending on your size) of protein every 4-8 hours, than see you have 100 grams of protein once per day. When it comes to protein I believe that consistency is key.

However, I also want you to take a break from this protein-dosing schedule at least once a week… which is why for MOST people I don’t think you need BCAAs during your fast.

When you fast, you DO break down some protein. HOWEVER this is not all muscle AND it is a very important part of the health benefits of fasting.

When fasting, it is the ‘bad’ proteins – the damaged, or weak ones, that are broken down first and then recycled into new proteins. So the small amount of protein breakdown that occurs during a fast is part of how your body improves the proteins in your body – it gets rid of the weak and broken ones first.

This is why for people who are overweight and have typically been in a constant state of protein surplus, I think that a true 24 hour fast is ideal.

However, once your start to become noticeably lean I think it is OK to experiment with taking some BCAAs during your fast.

So that’s the more complete version of my view on BCAAs and protein during a fast.

Today I want to start a series of posts covering some of my more personalized approaches to Eat Stop Eat.

Hopefully this will clear up some questions you may have.

Today, lets talk about Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) during a fast.

People ask me about this a lot – can they, or should they take BCAAs during their fasts as a way to prevent muscle loss or even accelerate muscle growth.

And my answer is (as always)…. it depends.

Muscle loss is NOT a major issue with a 24 hour fast. However, those at most risk would be people with very low body fat who are active.

So my solution is this:

Look in the mirror – are you ‘lean’ by your standards, and would you say you have ‘lower than average body fat’. If yes, measure your waist.

Guys: If your waist circumference at your navel is under 46.5% of your height then you can consider taking BCAAs during your fast. I wouldn’t do more than 8 grams unless you are over 200 pounds (and lean), and I would only take them once every 6-8 hours.

Women: If your waist circumference at its narrowest point just below your rib cage is under 41.5% of your height then you can consider taking BCAAs during your fast. I wouldn’t do more than 5 grams unless you are over 150 pounds (and lean) and I would only take them once every 6-8 hours.

I’m still not sure how much of a difference they would make, but this would be the ideal time to try them out.

Now, if you are NOT lean, then I would NOT recommend BCAAs… ESPECIALLY if you have a large amount of weight to lose.

Here’s why – When you fast you activate a compound in your body called FGF-21 and FGF-21 has recently been found to improve Leptin sensivitiy.

People who are very overweight often have reduced leptin sensitivity which seems to hurt their ability to lose weight… so it makes sense that improving leptin sensitivity is just one of the ways that fasting can help people lose weight.

However, FGF-21 is highly sensitive to protein – it is fasting from protein (including BCAAs) that is needed for a rise in FGF-21.

So the BCAAs might interfere with the way a fast can improve Leptin Sensitivity… NOT COOL if you are overweight and really struggling with weight loss.

Also, even low doses of BCAAs can cause a spike in insulin levels, this is probably not an issue for someone who is lean with good insulin sensitivity (your insulin would go back down quickly), but for someone who is even slightly insulin resistant, your insulin levels could stay elevated long enough to affect your GH levels, which would affect your ability to burn body fat.

So there you have it. A quick Eat Stop Eat ‘hack’ – if you are really lean and active and fasting, you could try BCAAs and see if they help, but if you have a lot of weight t lose (waist circumference is over 55% of your height) then I would avoid trying BCAAs until you have lost some more weight.

Insulin has a bad reputation in the weight loss industry.

Basically, to most people high insulin means fat storage and low insulin means fat loss.

Unfortunately it’s not exactly this easy.

Low insulin doesn’t mean fat loss. High Growth Hormone means fat loss.

Actually, for the full fat burning effect, you need BOTH low insulin and high Growth Hormone, which is exactly what happens during a fast.

…but you absolutely, positively cannot talk about fat loss without talking about Growth Hormone (GH for short). In fact, I’d go as far as to say that any book that explores the science of fat loss without mentioning Growth Hormone is incomplete.

Just how important is GH to your fat loss goals?

Consider this:

When you fast, it is the increase in GH that is responsible for forcing you to burn fat for a fuel instead of sugar or protein. When your GH release is chemically blocked, your fat burning drops and your muscle breakdown increases by almost 50% – And that’s WITH your insulin still being rock bottom low.

So you need high GH for effective fat burning and effective muscle sparing. Which is what makes fasting so unique. – it’s why you lose fat when you fast and why you don’t lose muscle.

It’s also why your metabolism doesn’t slow down while you fast.

The bottom line is that high GH is needed for effective fat loss, and fasting for as little as 24 hours is one of the most potent signals for high GH available without a prescription