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Fasting: is it good for you?

Posted on Apr 20th 2007 6:29PM by Martha Edwards

Filed Under: Diet & Weight Loss, Motivation

I saw a poster the other day advertising the 30-hour Famine charity event. If you haven't heard of it, you're supposed to fast for 30-hours to raise money for impoverished countries, and also to learn what it's like to go hungry like so many men, women and children in our world are forced to do everyday.

My first impression of this is that it must be unhealthy and/or completely impossible because come on, that's more than an entire day and night without food. How do you sleep or even function when you're starving? Yeah, I know people do it all the time but not well-fed North Americans like us who are plagued with an overabundance of food. But that's the point of the exercise -- to make you realize how good you have it.

Anyway, back to the health issue. I did some research and found this advice from WebMD on fasting. The question: is it healthy? The answer: Occasionally fasting for religious practices, longevity and even detoxification won't do you much harm, but there's not much evident that it does you any good either. One thing they do know is that fasting is not an effective weight-loss tool and can be quite dangerous if you're not careful.

Have you ever done a fast?

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6 Comment

Tags: fasting, starvation

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

kennyb 4-21-2007 @ 7:58AM

I have fasted for 14 days twice for the past 2 years, and I can swear by it, out of all the crazy detoxification methods out there, fasting, or even juice fasting is by far one of the most effective and rewarding things you can do for the body. Now I have been fasting once a week for a day on water only, and look forward to another extensive fast this summer.

Cindy 4-20-2007 @ 11:48PM

I am sorry, but I totally disagree that fasting is a great thing, especially if you are trying to lose weight. The fact is when you fast, you are starving your body. When you starve your body, your body goes into survival mode. It starts storing anything that you have left in it as fat to use as an insulator, just like when animals are hibernating for the winter. If you are like me and have actually fasted thinking that you would lose weight, and lost it much quicker than eating sensibly and exercising, you have found out that you don't hardly lose any pounds. And then once you do actually eat, the weight starts packing right back on. The experts are absolutely correct when they say don't skip meals, and that it's better to eat 5-6 smaller meals rather than 3 big meals. That teaches you proportion size, and how to eat sensibly, even when you have lost the weight you want to lose and are trying to maintain. If fasting was that wonderful of a thing, then why do anorexic people end up with all of their problems, such as heart disease, bleeding gums, etc., that can ultimately cause death if they don't turn their lives around?

Cazzie 4-21-2007 @ 12:17AM

I kinda agree and kinda disagree. Frequent fasting is a very dumb and dangerous thing. Your body gets used to the idea that it is starving so it struggles to store whatever you eat into your fat cells for later use. You will GAIN weight, not lose it.

Occasional/religious fasting is fine. It usually happens only once a year. But the continuous or long stretch of fasting is a danger to your health and body.

I am a notorious scatterbrain when comes to eating - especially if my husband is out of town. I simply forget to eat. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And if I do it often enough, eating becomes well, repugnant. That's even dumber.

Rock 4-21-2007 @ 6:03PM

Yes fasting isn't good, but allowing your sugar levels to "calibrate" through out the day I think is a good thing. Heavy carb load ever 24 hours. be hungry between meals. I have tried to get away from using the 6 meals to help people lose weight because for carb addicted people it turns into 4-5 thousand calories a day.

kennyb 4-21-2007 @ 6:02PM

Let me put all the fasting myths to rest, there is a difference between fasting and starvation. Fasting is not starvation, during the absence of food, the body will systematically cleanse itself of everything except vital tissue. It continually readjusts to make minimum demands on reserves. Starvation will occur only when the body is forced to use vital tissue to survive. Only on very long fasts does the body start to undergo starvation. What happens when fasting is the body goes into a state a ketosis, a different source of energy used by the body, different from the glucose that is normally used for energy. I would recommend that you guys read more on fasting to understand its not dangerous if you understand how to do it, Ghandi went through many fasts in his lifetime and documented how much he benefited from them.

markie 4-21-2007 @ 6:02PM

i was wondering i know fasting can harm u but if u do do it and u did it for 12 hours and u only dranked lots of water and u excercised for some of the hours can you lose weight and if so how much do u think the person would have lost during the process please explain?????