Losing weight occurs when you burn more calories than you consume. Since eating fewer calories per day can help you burn the necessary amount of calories, it only makes sense that fasting or starving yourself would help you lose weight. Unfortunately, not only is fasting generally ineffective for weight loss, it can also be dangerous. Diet fasts walk a fine line between weight loss tactic and eating disorder, so it's important to avoid diets that require you to stop eating for long periods of time.
Dangers
Fasting for weight loss restricts your caloric intake to a dangerously low level. As a human, you need a certain amount of calories per day to function healthily. For women, the minimum is 1,200 daily calories and for men, it's around 1,500 calories according to MedlinePlus. By depriving your body of the energy and nutrients that it needs to function properly, you could see adverse side effects. What's more, a fast can slow your metabolism so you actually gain weight once the fast is over.
Indicators
Some diets are merely fasting in clever disguise. Anytime a diet plan causes you to stop giving your body food for a period of time, it's considered a fast. Some popular fasts include The Master Cleanse, which is a fasting diet in which an individual consumes only maple syrup, lemon juice, water and pepper for up to 10 days, and a juice fast, which requires the drinking of fresh juice in place of food. Both are dangerous weight loss methods that supply only short-term results.
Eating Disorders
An obsessive preoccupation with your weight, excessive restriction of calories or restricting your weight under a certain amount could be considered an eating disorder, including anorexia nervosa. Fasting or starving your body to attain weight loss can be a first step to more dangerous behaviors, like binging and purging or restricting your calories on a daily basis. If you've noticed that you can't stop thinking about your weight or fast for long periods of time, talk to your doctor about getting the appropriate help that you need.
Alternatives
Instead of using short-term, panic methods to drop weight fast, lose weight slowly and steadily .Starving your body slows your metabolism to allow for the storage of fat and calories as energy in the body. When you begin to eat normally, the calories are continued to be stored and you will gain weight. Instead, eating five to seven small, nutritionally dense meals throughout the day can help curb your appetite and rev up your metabolism as a healthier way to lose weight on a long-term basis.
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