Fasting – Is It Good Or Bad?

Could This Fad Diet Be The Smart Way To Lose Weight?

Fasting, this is primarily an act of willing abstinence or reduction from certain or all food, drink, or both for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a period of 24 hours or a number of days. It is largely becoming a fad diet in the world of weight loss, but is it really doing you good at all? After all, you will lose weight because you’re not necessarily putting anything into your body, however, you’re also not gaining anything from it either.

Typically, when you think of fasting, you think of cultures who fast as a way of observation. For the Baha’i’ Faith, fasting is observed from sunrise to sunset during the Baha’i’ month of Ala (March 2-20). During this period of time you completely abstain from both food and drink during daylight hours. Other religion that fast would be Buddhists, Christians and all its forms, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, and many others. Each and every have their own ways of fasting and how long they fast for! But this form of dieting has been carried on to help those lose weight instead of observing spiritual Gods. Keep reading on to find out more!

Is Fasting Good Or Bad For Your Health?

There is much controversy that revolves around fasting and many medicals experts all agree on one thing, it is not a healthy weight loss tool. What drives a lot of people to fasting is that it is quick. However, many of these medicals experts say that it is quick fluid loss, not fat loss. Sadly, if it’s also an easy off than is an easy gain as well. 

Many like to claim that it can make weight problems worse rather than better. According to Joel Fuhrman MD, “…Fasting slows your metabolic weight down so your diet from before the fast is even more fattening after you fast.

Fasting can also carry many other health risks with it as well. If you’re typically a healthy person, fasting for a day or two is rarely a problem, however, it can be quite damaging if you are not already eating a healthy diet, or if you’ve got liver or kidney problems. What evens worse for dieters is that fasting for weight loss can often times distract people from the real message of how to lose weight. It especially important that combining other practices such as colon cleansing while fasting carries its own risks as well.

Many have also tried using fasting as a detoxifying practice on the body. Your liver is already a natural detox center; the lungs, the colon, the kidneys, and the skin all work to get rid of toxins. When we diet in low nutrients are body is incapable of ridding itself from toxins. We see a build up of products in cells called AGE or advanced glycation end products. They build up in cellular tissue and lead to atherosclerosis, aging, nerve damage, and the deterioration of organs. Fasting is one solution to that build up in AGE.

Overall, if you’re considering fasting as your option to lose weight be aware that you aren’t losing any substantial fat and that it’s just water weight. Water weight is very easy to put back on. If you can try and find other effective and safe ways of losing weight, such as exercising or eating healthier foods.