Fasting to Lose Weight - Does Fasting Cause Fast Weight Loss, Or Not?
Fasting to lose weight is a suggestion we all hear about when discussing weight loss and trying to cure obesity.
It is an interesting subject because, there is no doubt, put someone on a strict fast and they will lose weight ...
usually a pound or two for each day.
It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I mean, if I could lose 10 to 14 pounds in one week, I'd be ecstatic, wouldn't I? Wouldn't you be pleased to lose so much weight and so quickly? You see, real fasting, i.
e.
eating no food whatsoever, and drinking only water - or even a light clear soup - will give you some of the fastest weight loss possible.
It's only faster if you are made to exercise heavily while being starved or near-starved.
Of course we don't want that, and nobody fasting to lose weight would ever go through such torture.
But if the human body is suddenly starved of food (or thinks it is being starved) it goes into a special energy-conservation mode that's designed to give you the best chance possible of staying alive in the midst of famine conditions.
(A famine happens when a country or large area has no food to eat, often because of crop failure or other calamity.
) So you go on your fast to lose weight, and you stick with it bravely.
After two or three days, the stomach has shrunk and you don't even feel hunger pains any more.
(You still want to eat food though.
) The good news, is that you are losing maybe two pounds per day.
That's fantastic! You are in ketosis, a medical condition where the body starts consuming its own cells to survive.
At first this is fat, but later it is muscle as well.
After a week or ten days of drinking just water (no fruit juice allowed!), you will have lost 14 or 20 pounds.
Wow.
It's time to break your fast with a little clear soup broth, or perhaps a glass of freshly-made vegetable juice...
Your fast has ended.
Gradually, your family or helping medical people urge you to start eating again.
Small pureed meals to start, like baby food or oatmeal.
If you know Asian or Chinese culture, they would be feeding you congee or rice porridge.
(It's called "jook" in Australia.
) In Jewish culture you'd be having chicken soup.
You start to feel healthier.
You get stronger.
Your appetite returns, and soon you are back on a "normal" way of eating.
And here's the clincher...
Now that your body has turned on it's famine-survival mode, it will desperately use as little energy as possible.
It is busy squirreling away every ounce of unburned energy as body fat.
More and more body fat.
Soon you'll be just as heavy as you were before you did the fast, and then you'll start piling on the pounds even more than you ever did.
Fasting to lose weight does not work.
Fasting does have its uses, medicinally...
But fasting is not the way to lose weight and keep it off.
Anything but.
And that's why crash diets don't work either.
It is an interesting subject because, there is no doubt, put someone on a strict fast and they will lose weight ...
usually a pound or two for each day.
It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I mean, if I could lose 10 to 14 pounds in one week, I'd be ecstatic, wouldn't I? Wouldn't you be pleased to lose so much weight and so quickly? You see, real fasting, i.
e.
eating no food whatsoever, and drinking only water - or even a light clear soup - will give you some of the fastest weight loss possible.
It's only faster if you are made to exercise heavily while being starved or near-starved.
Of course we don't want that, and nobody fasting to lose weight would ever go through such torture.
But if the human body is suddenly starved of food (or thinks it is being starved) it goes into a special energy-conservation mode that's designed to give you the best chance possible of staying alive in the midst of famine conditions.
(A famine happens when a country or large area has no food to eat, often because of crop failure or other calamity.
) So you go on your fast to lose weight, and you stick with it bravely.
After two or three days, the stomach has shrunk and you don't even feel hunger pains any more.
(You still want to eat food though.
) The good news, is that you are losing maybe two pounds per day.
That's fantastic! You are in ketosis, a medical condition where the body starts consuming its own cells to survive.
At first this is fat, but later it is muscle as well.
After a week or ten days of drinking just water (no fruit juice allowed!), you will have lost 14 or 20 pounds.
Wow.
It's time to break your fast with a little clear soup broth, or perhaps a glass of freshly-made vegetable juice...
Your fast has ended.
Gradually, your family or helping medical people urge you to start eating again.
Small pureed meals to start, like baby food or oatmeal.
If you know Asian or Chinese culture, they would be feeding you congee or rice porridge.
(It's called "jook" in Australia.
) In Jewish culture you'd be having chicken soup.
You start to feel healthier.
You get stronger.
Your appetite returns, and soon you are back on a "normal" way of eating.
And here's the clincher...
Now that your body has turned on it's famine-survival mode, it will desperately use as little energy as possible.
It is busy squirreling away every ounce of unburned energy as body fat.
More and more body fat.
Soon you'll be just as heavy as you were before you did the fast, and then you'll start piling on the pounds even more than you ever did.
Fasting to lose weight does not work.
Fasting does have its uses, medicinally...
But fasting is not the way to lose weight and keep it off.
Anything but.
And that's why crash diets don't work either.