Fasting and Weight Loss - Two Sides of the Discussion

What is the connection between fasting and weight loss?

In a world where thinness is portrayed as beauty, fat, treated as an ugly disease, stands little chance. This has progressively created an obsession with weight-loss, fad diets and contributions to continued difficulty in losing weight as well as aiding in declining health.

Fat is stored calories set up for emergency periods of starvation, though there is rarely a need for such precautions with the average American today. Unlike our ancestors who foraged for food or less privileged people in other countries, we have the opposite. We are known for eating too much and getting too little physical activity in return.

It has been quoted that it takes 30 seconds to eat a cookie having 150 calories, but a jog to burn it off must last a mile and a half. That's no biggie, you might say, but by the same token, you can rack up 3000 to 5000 calories at your favorite all you can eat place, but to take that off, it will cost you a 30 to 50 mile jog.

As a result, many people turn to fasting as a means to lose weight. It is a program where you are able to literally see the pounds melt away on a daily basis while your health is improved, and you watch your skin regain its natural elasticity, resulting in a youthful tone and more energy. It would seem that you could not get a better weight loss program. There are, however, two sides to the fasting and weight loss coin.

On the one hand, there is a positive relationship between fasting and weight loss. After fasting, the body is able to work more efficiently, digestion is far better due to a clean colon, and the colon walls, cleansed of impacted feces, has better absorption of nutrients, translating to enhanced energy.

As you fasted, your body adjusted by reducing your appetite. Now, the problem most people find with fasting is not the fast itself, but coming off the fast - this is the flip side of the fasting and weight loss coin.

During a fast, the metabolism slows considerably. Your survival mode has kicked in, ensuring that you can live longer with less food. Your body now begins to burn its own fat, and you lose weight.

However, when you begin to eat, and the body realizes this, it will revert back to its pre-existing failsafe. This is a crucial time, as many dieters actually begin to feel hungry, with the thought of eating called to mind. Unwittingly, they are more likely to binge.

Only 5% of people who go on a fasting diet and lose weight actually keep their weight off for any amount of time - this is a sad fact of the fasting and weight loss situation. The power that fasting has, and one we must hold fast and rely on, is not in weight loss itself, but in gaining control of the appetite we have allowed to run rampant.

In order to successfully keep the body in a slowed metabolic state, in essence keeping the fast in place, as far as your body is concerned, you must choose foods that will continue to tell the body you are starving. This way, you can continue to harness the benefits of fasting and weight loss, so to speak. After three days, hunger usually abates, so keep in mind, it is the desire to eat that must be contended with.

Our winning comes when we realize the difference between hunger and the desire to eat. When we learn to control the desire, eating only when we feel hunger, we change from living to eat to eating to live. With our thought pattern change, comes true lifestyle change.

And when it comes to fasting and weight loss, bear in mind that there are opposite sides to the situation, and make sure that you are experiencing the positive side of it.

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