Healthy Weight Loss By Fasting?

The other day I ran into a friend of mine at the store. She told me that she was really tired of being overweight so she had started fasting to lose weight.

Well being an inquiring mind this conversation got me wondering about fasting for weight loss. Does it really work? Is it really advisable? Is it even healthy?

Why Fast?

I know that there are all sorts of types of fasting and reasons for fasting:

spiritual enlightenment or clarity

political statements

better health

weight loss

religious requirements

detoxification

There is a ton of information out there on fasting and most of it contradicts each other. One will say it is the key to longer, healthier life. While another source will say that it is detrimental to the body and doesn't offer any real benefit. Many health gurus claim that fasting detoxifies the body and flushes the fat right off our bones. Is that true? According to WebMD it is not necessarily so. The body is built to detoxify itself and has many organs designed to do just that. You don't need to fast in order to detox your body.

Does Fasting Result in Fat Loss?

So what about fasting to lose weight? Fasting does result in fat or weight loss. That is undeniable and logical. Unfortunately, the body does go into starvation mode when it doesn't't have enough food. The metabolism slows down and begins pulling from its reserves. Thus producing a loss of fat as the body uses its fat reserves to survive. However, the long term benefit of this fat loss is not really sustainable. The body's metabolism has already slowed down so once you begin to eat normally again the body begins to replace its lost reserves and you gain the weight back. It seems counter productive to me, like a yo-yo effect.

What the Medical Field Says About Fasting?

There are some researchers that say that temporary fasting may be beneficial to your body. Many studies show that the restriction of calories reduces the production of free radicals in the body which deteriorate other cells of the body and cause disease and aging. Some medical experts also say that fasting helps to "reset" the cells of the body to a neutral state thus allowing the bodies systems to function and perform more efficiently.

According to study author Benjamin Horne, who researches heart disease at the University of Utah and Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, "The thought from a biological perspective is that fasting rests the metabolism for a day and re sensitizes the body's cells to glucose and insulin."

Even though the most of Horne's studies have been done on rodents, roundworms, and slugs, Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging, believes that there is good cause to believe that restricting caloric intake can be as beneficial to humans at it has been in the animal studies.

Fasting: A Cloudy Issue

As you can see the subject of fasting for weight loss is cloudy at best. If you talk to a person who has fasted or fasts regularly they will swear by it. I have noticed though that the benefits that fasters lay claim to are not usually as much about weight loss as it is about over all wellness and health. They say they feel better both mentally and physically. They say they are more energetic and clearer minded. I believe it really comes down to motivation. What are the goals of the fasting? I do not believe that fasting is a long term solution to real weight loss but could be a good jump start to cleaning and detoxing your body.

A Real Solution to Weight Loss

For real long term, lasting weight loss solutions the formula is simple: use more calories than you consume.