If you are trying to lose weight quickly, it may seem logical to go on a fast. Fasting generally involves doing without solid food for a period of time, which would severely limit your caloric intake. However, while you may lose some weight on a fast, much of it is from loss of muscle and water weight. After you stop fasting, you are likely to gain back the weight. There are other negative side effects to fasting, so cutting back on your portion sizes and increasing your activity levels is a more healthy approach to weight loss. Before you begin any weight loss regimen, consult with your health care provider.
Types
There are several different approaches to fasting. The most restrictive type of fast involves consuming only water. Some fasts allow you to consume fruit juices along with your water. Generally, fasts that involve consuming just water and/or juice are short term, lasting three to 10 days. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, consider a fast that includes protein shakes. For the morbidly obese, physicians may recommend a medically supervised fasting program. These programs are supervised in a hospital setting. Patients receive required amounts of protein, in liquid form, vitamins and minerals. To help prevent patients from regaining their weight, a maintenance plan is included.
Effects
Because you are essentially starving your body, fasting causes many negative side effects. According to Mayo Clinic dietitian Katherine Zeratsky, the side effects include fatigue, dehydration, dizziness and nausea. Also, because you generally limit your fiber intake on a fast, you may experience loose or watery stools. If your fast eliminates protein, your body will begin to break down your lean mass for the protein it needs. This loss of lean mass slows your resting metabolism, which slows down your weight loss.
Cleansing
Some fasts are designed to detoxify and cleanse your colon. These fasts involve taking herbal preparations, and in some cases, enemas. Proponents claim that they remove impacted waste and toxins from your colon. Zeratsky states very little evidence exists that detoxifying fasts, and the diets that follow, actually remove toxins from the body. If you do experience weight loss, it would be as a result of water loss, and the laxative effect of the herbs and/or the enema, not from fat loss.
Maintenance
During the course of a fast, your body adapts a starvation mode, which slows down your metabolism. This factor, along with the loss of muscle tissue, means that you burn calories at a slower rate than you did prior to your fast. When you finish fasting, and you return to consuming the same amount of calories as you did prior to the fast, you are likely to regain your weight. Also, you have not modified the factors that caused your weight gain to begin with.
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