Fasting for Weight Loss – Effective Tool or Foolish Fad?

Are you one of those people that has lofty goals for fat loss or muscle building and doesn’t mind spending money hand over fist on supplements in your quest for your perfect body?

What would you say if I told you that there was a way to lose weight and break your addiction to food without crash dieting? When I heard it, I’ll admit I had a few choice four-letter words…that is until I heard all the facts about fasting and intermittent fasting for weight loss.

Keep reading to find out if fasting for weight loss will help you achieve your goals, or if it’s just another promise based on your deep desire to get rid of the fat.

What Is Fasting?

Put simply, fasting is abstaining from food. Many people attempt fasting for weight loss by not eating food for 2 or more days in a row, which can be pretty hard for some people. There is much easier way of doing it and that is by doing it intermittently and choosing when to fast.

Intermittent fasting requires scheduled fasting for weight loss. During this type of fast, you would fast every other day or two.

How Fasting Works For Weight Loss

As a natural born skeptic, I too had a raised eyebrow at simply not eating as a means to lose weight. Then, I actually tried fasting for weight loss and honestly, it changed my world. Hold the eye rolls and scoffs until you hear some of the benefits of using fasting to lose weight.

Taking a break from food for a day or two will give you greater insight into why you eat when you’re not hungry. During a self-imposed fast you can focus on your motivations for those moments when you unwittingly reach for something you don’t need, and if you’re honest, probably don’t want to eat anyway. Imagine being able to observe your own bad food habits and preventing them? That’s exactly what you get with intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting for weight loss has the added benefit of boosting adrenaline and metabolism levels so you burn more calories during the fast. With that kind of peace of mind, you can enjoy some (keyword…SOME) of the foods you’ve been avoiding during your weight loss program.

How Long Can I Fast For Weight Loss?

This is where I became a fasting for weight loss convert. Most people frown upon fasting for weight loss due to myths about the body going into “starvation mode” and attacking muscle mass, but that’s probably the most pervasive myth about fasting. The truth is that intermittent fasting–anywhere from 12 hours to 3 days–allows you to choose when to take a break from the chewing and swallowing of meal time.

Strictly following a fasting diet means fasting every other day, which can be cumbersome during vacations and special events, but since most of us fail at following restrictive diets why should fasting for weight loss be any different? When you start to feel “over” food or after a weekend of indulgence (we’ve all been there), you can decide then and there to begin a fast. The flexibility of fasting for weight loss gives you a great chance of sticking with it, unlike the dreaded cabbage diet or raw food diet!

Effective intermittent fasting for weight loss works when you hold yourself accountable. After a successful fast, you don’t have to beat yourself up for indulging dessert.

Is Fasting Effective For Weight Loss?

Everyone always wants to know how much weight they can lose by fasting, and the truth is that it is entirely up to you. Fasting for weight loss helps create the one thing that is ALWAYS true when learning how to lose weight effectively: a calorie deficit!

Reduce the number of days you eat (not by too much) to help you learn to eat less, and experience weight loss results. Of course the answer isn’t simply to fast for weight loss, either. On behalf of your body, I urge you to adopt a better diet that has more lean proteins and fresh fruits & vegetables on the days you aren’t fasting for weight loss. Your knees and back specifically would also like me to remind you how important regular exercise is to successful weight loss, flexibility and stamina.

If you’ve tried tons of other diets without weight loss success, consider intermittent fasting for weight loss. It’ll give your body a break from digesting and it’ll give you a chance to break those bad food habits preventing you from having the body you want!