Ask:
I am around 5’3 and weigh 110 lbs. I would really like to lose weight fast- potentially ten pounds. I have heard water fasting is both good for losing weight, and is also beneficial to gastro-intestinal health.
Is water fasting as effective as it is said to be?
Answers (2)
Answer 1:
You need at least 1000 calories of energy per day to support your life so where would that come from? If you don’t eat food what is your body going to burn? Well, if you don’t know the incredibly obvious answer to that question, it’s you. Your body will burn you. It will literally consume itself and that’s a very fast way to lose weight. Of course there’s a problem with consuming yourself…it’s starvation and you’ll eventually die. And, before you die you’ll get terribly sick and before than you’ll have myriad negative health symptoms, etc. So, water fasting is fast but it’s also really, really bad for your health.
If you’re serious about water fasting, which isn’t good for anything including your GI tract, you should stop and reconsider. You have nothing to gain except speed of fat loss. Fat you will regain eventually because you haven’t really done anything except starve yourself. Here’s the best way to lose fat and it’s approved by the US National Institute of Health…the people doctors listen to in the US.
Eat varied, wholesome, and high quality foods such that your daily caloric intake is about equal to your daily caloric burn while keeping your macronutrient ratios at about 55/25/20 (%calories from carbs/fats/protein). Only slight changes should be made in the macronutrient ratios to accommodate the extreme demands of special activities such as athletics or inactivity due to illness.
Note: Here are the details in case you’re interested. —> http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2010… and here —> http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/nutri…
You get to make the food choices (no supplements without a doctor’s recommendation) based on culture, available foods, personal preferences, your resources, food alergies, etc. However, the words “varied”, “wholesome”, and “high quality” are important. And, you should consume your food in 4-6 daily meals with healthy snacks between such that you’re nourishing yourself every two hours when awake.
To burn body fat, simply decrease portion sizes of your food such that your daily intake is 500 calories less than your daily burn rate. That should result in a loss rate of one pound per week.
Tracking your calories is crucial to your fat loss and maintenance. Tracking your macronutrients is crucial to your health. And, of course, it is implied that you will learn how to read labels, weigh portions, do food lookups, enter data, interpret data, etc., if you don’t already know how. It’s all easy stuff and, if you persist, it will eventually become such a routine that you’ll be able to enter data from your cell, know what your daily nutritional requirements are real time by the hour, interpret labels and estimate recipes, plan cheats, and, best of all, not have to rely on the scale to tell you if you’re losing, gaining, or maintaining.
Good luck and good health!!
Answer 2:
I undertake a water fast for 5+ days every six months under the supervision of a qualified medical professional. I lose a lot of water weight and about 1 pound of muscle at the start. On average, I lose about 1/2 pound per day of fat weight. Because I eat a whole plant based diet, the fat weight is lost permanently and I regain the muscle and water weight after I stop the fast.
I have lost 90 pounds of fat weigh most of which I attribute to my change to a whole plant based diet. For information about this diet, I suggest any of the following authors:
Dr. Neal Barnard
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr.
Dr. Dean Ornish
You can lose weight easily by changing your food choices. A fast is totally ineffective unless you change food choices before and after the fast. A fast needs to be medically supervised and is not required in your case.