Fasting • Tony, as a food blogger, how do you not get fat?

I am often asked, "Hey Tony, how do you keep slim with so much eating?" 🤔

In the past, I replied that I eat less and eat simple at home when I am not food hunting outside. I also brisk walk at least 10,000 steps almost daily.

For years, that has kept my weight within range and body fat at around 25% (which is slightly above the recommended BMI of 20% - 25%).

Since 2026, I have added intermittent fasting (to my daily walks). It works well for me.

The basic principle of fasting is pretty straightforward.

Our body either burn sugar, burn fat or muscle for energy.

Our body takes about 16 hours to finish burning the sugar (glucose & glycogen) in our body for energy (it varies slightly from person to person).

After all the sugar is used up, our body turns to burning fat for energy. This starts at about 16 hours after we stopped eating (completely).

Continuing the fast for more hours brings more benefits such as detoxification, cell repair, etc until about 100 hours (4 days) when starvation sets in (and the body starts to burn muscle for energy - I don't ever want to go there!).

What I do is I go on 24 hour fasts whenever there is an opportunity. As an illustration, I eat a lunch on Wednesday, then don't eat again until lunch time on Thursday. If I can, I stretch that to Thursday dinner (36 hour fast).

Another illustration. Eat dinner on Wednesday, then stop eating. Skip lunch and dinner on Thursday. No snacking. Eat breakfast on Friday morning and that's a 36 hour fast.

This means that, since I started intermittent fasting, many of my meals ended up as food hunting or tasting sessions 🤣 So eating is intentional. Food blogger lifestyle 🤦

I couple fasting with a low carb diet and exercise lifestyle.

For breakfast, I either skip it or have two soft boiled eggs with olive oil, pepper and a dash of soy sauce. No bread, noodle, rice, porridge, cereal, and such.

I have also given up kopi C or latte, and have kopi O kosong or black coffee without sugar.

In my experience, my first 24-hour fast wasn't difficult at all. The anticipated lowering of energy, hunger pangs, growling tummy, famished feeling, none came to bother me 😀

By my second fast, my body got accustomed to no food for 24 - 36 hours. Every fast made me feel cleansed, more alert, energised and stronger. These positive feelings and outcomes make me look forward to every opportunity to fast, especially to break from eating (e.g. upon just returning from heavy overseas eating adventures).

FASTING TIMELINE

4-6 H - Blood sugar use

10-12 H - Liver glycogen use

12-14 H - Fat burning starts • Rise in ketones

18-20 H - Fat oxidation increases

22-24 H - Liver glycogen depletion • I am able to go to the gym and do my whole routine without any drop in energy level (as I am powered by ketones at this stage). Indeed, I found myself performimg better (pushed & pulled more) with ketone fuel

24 H - Gluconeogenesis progresses

24-36 H - Growth hormone spike

36-48 H - Autophagy increases • What I am after is an immune system reset getting rid of damaged cells, inflammation, etc. Detoxification and regeneration / renewal are the goals, not only the aesthetic aspects of weight management

48-72 H - Ketosis rises exponentially

Day 3 - Gluconeogenesis peaks

Day 3-5 - Ketones rise multifold

Day 3-5 - Blood sugar the lowest

After Day 5 - Growth hormone flattens • stop fasting

Notes

Exercising while fasting shortens the interval between each phase

Fasting burns visceral fat, the fat that wraps around our organs e.g. the fat that causes fatty liver. Losing visceral fat reduces our waist size.

The reason why the low calorie diet or simply eating less doesn't work well - It just feeds our body with sugar at lower but continuous doses, so we never finish up the sugar in our body to shift fully to fat burning mode.

Continuous small doses of food don't work well, if we aim to burn fat. We have to cut food intake to zero for at least 16 - 24 hours to start reaping the benefits of fat burning and more. So no snacking (a bad habit of the old me) between meals during fasts 😬

Fasting is so much easier to implement than all those faddish food restriction diets, low calorie programmes, etc. And, more effective too.

The OMAD or One Meal A Day plan is really a daily 24-hour fast cycle lifestyle. But, our body adjusts to fixed habitual fasting by lowering our metabolism, which is counterproductive to our objective.

16/8 plan is to fast 16 hours and eat normally for 8 hours. One method is to skip one of the meals such as breakfast. For example, after dinner at 7pm, skip breakfast the next day and have lunch at noon plus the next dinner at 7pm. Repeat. No snacking or sugar drinks in between.

Between meals during a fast, I drink tea or coffee sans milk or sugar. I also drink natural spring water to replace minerals in the body. That spring water drink first thing in the morning or after exercise feels so good!

When I break fast, resume eating, I eat mostly proteins and fibres but avoid carbs and sugar as much as possible. A very low carb & sugar diet keeps my body in ketosis or state of burning fat for fuel.

Also avoid the fast and feast habit which is counterproductive, disruptive and unsustainable - just eat normally after fasting.

🛑 Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, not a medical professional nor trained in any related field. I am merely replying to a question I am often asked by sharing my personal experience and information gleaned online. Please consult a medical professional, if you are considering fasting.

I also wrote this for myself - noting down for my own records / reference, the things I've learned and experienced during my fasting journey. I am updating this post as I learn more.

Your experience may, of course, be different from mine.

Written by Tony Boey on 5 Feb 2026