Georges St-Pierre has become one of fasting’s most outspoken advocates, and his reasoning goes straight to human evolutionary history. The former UFC champion laid out his case for why eating three meals a day is a modern construct rather than a biological necessity.
“We take a lot of that for granted in life. Like we eat three times a day, most people even snack in between,” St-Pierre said. “But realize that is very recent in our existence as a human species.”
He pointed directly to how early humans actually ate.
“You know if you go back thousands of years, hunter gatherer didn’t eat three to five times a day. Like they eat when they had the opportunity to eat because food was scarce during the Ice Age, for example. I’m sure they sometimes spend few days without eating and I think fasting is something very natural for us.”
St-Pierre also pushed back on fears that skipping meals is dangerous, citing research on extended fasting.
“I look at the research and apparently you can stay like almost a month without eating you know for most people, and not without water but without eating. There’s even a guy that held the world record. I think he did 368 days. 368 days without eating and he lost a crazy amount of weight and never gained it back after.”
He was careful to note the limits of this advice.
“So some people wonder, oh it’s dangerous sometime. If you don’t have a condition, of course it’s not dangerous. If you have a condition, it’s something else. But if your doctor tells you that it’s okay, you’re not going to die in only a few days of fasting.”
On his own experience, St-Pierre said fasting never cost him the muscle he worried about losing.
“I never, I don’t think I’ve ever lost muscle mass even in my 5 days of water fast. If I did lose some muscle mass, I gained it back immediately after because it didn’t do any harm to my body.”
He also described what breaking a fast does for his relationship with food.
“There’s something that happens especially when you break your fast it makes you appreciate food like you never have before.”
As for why more people don’t hear about fasting’s benefits, St-Pierre had a simple theory.
“I truly believe it’s very efficient for me, I subjectively it made a big difference in my life. But I think it’s because nobody makes money about it. Nobody gains, and it’s accessible to everyone and it’s very efficient.”
