Is this fasting good or bad?

The human body is pretty amazing. A person is able to survive without food for several weeks, without water for 3 days, and without air for four minutes. Granted, these things are effected based upon the amount of physical exertion a person goes through and the climate. However, just because the body can survive in these conditions doesn’t mean it goes without consequence on the body.

Your body will kick into starvation mode if you do not eat something, no matter what you do. I think you know that doing more physical work will only accelerate the process because common sense tells you that when you do work, calories are burned and given enough calories burned, you lose weight. However, there’s a misconception that this is an easy way to lose weight. Quite on the contrary, this is the SLOWEST way to lose weight since when you fast, your body slows its metabolism down to conserve energy. This causes a host of problems: irritability, fatigue, confusion and trouble concentrating, and trouble being able to maintain body temperature. All of these leading to more severe consequences.

When your body goes into survival mode, it can only last so long because it begins to digest itself. You have muscle and stored fat in your body, everyone does. Your body begins to break down the muscle and burn the fat for energy to survive. This is NOT healthy. This promotes weight loss and weakness, and without a certain amount of fat or muscle, you could possibly die. After going through a period where your body has had to digest itself and you go back to eating, your body goes into a sort of hyperdrive which causes you to gain more weight back than what you lost. Your body is SMART. It will cling and store everything it can to rebuild itself. Even when exercising, there is virtually no way to counterattack it because once you lose muscle, your body stops need so many calories for energy and therefore all the excess calories your body stores turns into fat.

There was a huge controversy over the “Atkins Diet” for something similar. The plan called for excluding carbs from your diet in total. This was effective and led to weight loss, HOWEVER, when people started to eat carbs again, they gained all that weight back. Same principle as fasting.

The best, most healthy way to lose weight and stay fit is to go through dieting with a healthy plan and exercising regularly. Weight lifting is excellent, because for every pound of muscle you gain, I believe your metabolism is upped by 3% which allows you to burn more calories at a pace healthy for your body. Drinking a lot of water while exercising is necessary for weight loss. Also, dieting doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t eat. It merely requires protion control (ex: more veggies, less fatty and sugery junk foods).

In summary: putting your body into a “starvation” mode is dangerous and is only needed for when you’re put into a situation where it’s required to survive. There are no short cuts to losing weight and staying healthy. If you go through it the healthy way, it will be more gratifying and you will feel better.