Does Fasting To Lose Weight Really Work?

Fasting to lose weight is generally not a good idea. Sure, fasting absolutely works for many things - including cleansing your body of toxins and "refueling" your system - but for weight loss, fasting is not very effective. No doubt about it, fasting will help people lose weight for the short term. It will not, however, allow for permanent fat loss.

The problem undoubtedly comes in when people begin eating again. Because their bodies never know if they are going to receive any more calories (especially if it has hit starvation mode), they desperately cling on to every calorie that they can.

Because of this, one of two things would happen.

The first thing (and the luckier of the two) would be that someone wouldn't be able to lose any more weight once they got off the fast and reintroduced foods. The more common bodily response, though, is to gain weight (even if foods are introduced gradually). Not only would this be damaging short term, but it could also damage the metabolism if fasting happened frequently enough. This is because valuable muscle tissue is lost during the fasting process. Fasting often could make weight loss via normal means even harder in the future.

Other problems that are attributed to fasting are brittle nails, sensitivity to cold, fatigue, diarrhea or constipation, and heart problems. Sudden death could also occur with very low calorie diets. Any type of fast or reduced calorie diet should be medically supervised by a doctor or health professional.

You can check out more about alternatives to fasting on my website at http://tinyurl.com/yayFOODlifestyle