Thanks for the link. Good read, but I'm still a little confused. It does say the body is in absorptive state 3-5 hours after eating, and post absorptive 8-12 hours typically until 12 hours after your last meal until a fully fasted state. It then says you can burn fat in the fasted state that is inaccessible during the fed state. Because we don't enter the fasted state until 12 hours after the last meal its rare that we are in this fat burning state.

It seems clear, but maybe I'm still missing something. While it does't flat out state that you have to be in the fully fasted state to burn fat, it does seem to imply that. I guess my confusion comes from my own experience. I had stalled after a year of slow and steady weight loss. I bought and followed the original Atkins book, and was eating 3 meals with snacks between. I was able to lose the last 15 lbs on this method. I doubt that I ever entered a fully fasted state, so there must be some fat burning going on during that 5 to 12 hour post-absorptive period.

Not that it really matters, I just want to understand.