Does Fasting to Lose Weight Work?

I have long since debated the value of fasting to lose weight. At one time, I felt that it was not the best process in the world and I came to such a conclusion after coming off a lengthy fast. Honestly, over the past few years, I have reconsidered some of my positions on fasting. I have long since discovered that fasting can work provided it is done in the proper manner.

Bad Fasting Plans

As most people realize, fasting refers to not eating for a determined length of time. When you fast, you do not take in any calories which can contribute to both weight loss AND weight gain. How could this dual situation occur? Basically, a lack of food intake will lead to the body's metabolism slowing down to a crawl. This is because the human body does not understand the difference between fasting and starving.

Since the body may be worried that it might not be getting any food soon, it will slow its metabolism to save the calories it does have. Worst of all, the body will start to burn muscle mass for fuel as opposed to burning stored calories. This can ruin the look of your physique to say nothing of the health problems that could result.

Now, this is not to say that there is no value with fasting to lose weight. The process does have its value. You just need to know the proper way to go about fasting in order to get the most benefit out of it without undermining your health. And no, this is not all that difficult to do.

The Proper Plan

One of the best ways to employ fasting to lose weight would be to only fast one or two days out of the week. This could prove to be a tremendous step forward with fasting to lose weight. By eliminating eating one or two days a week, you can cut out 4,000 - 6,000 calories a week. 3,600 calories is the equivalent of one pound of body fat.

When you opt to fast a couple days out of the week you take a tremendous step forward in terms of the ability to drop a lot of excess body weight. Additionally, since you are still eating the other remaining days of the week, fasting to lose weight is enhanced because your body will not delve into starvation mode. This means the metabolism will not slow down and prevent further impediments to weight loss.

Helping the Metabolism Move Along

Granted, there may be a risk of a slowed metabolism even if you are only fasting to lose weight a couple days a week. However, you can also take a number of steps to avoid slowing down the metabolism. Performing cardio work and lifting weights could help in this regard quite a bit. Keep this in mind when you are considering fasting to lose weight.