The Dangers Of Fasting!

I personally don’t understand how not eating food for hours on end can even remotely be healthy for you, or is it? As a type 1 diabetic this would literally kill me, but how healthy is fasting? When you go without food, you are depriving your body of nutrients it needs on a daily basis. Not to mention it makes your breath smell awful. When fasting you deprive your body of nutrients, of food, and vitamins, your body goes into survival mode and begins to store as much fat as it can without burning it off. It will also slow your metabolism down, which will slow down your weight loss even more.

How Fasting Works:

Fasting is usually done by refraining from eating and drinking only water for a set period of time, although there are some fasts that include drinking juices. In the first day of a water fast, your body turns to the stores of glycogen in the liver for calories, which breaks down to glucose. This usually runs out after the first 24 hours, and the body turns to its reserves of fat and protein to support most of the body, and the muscles to support the brain and red blood cells. After the third day, the body has used up all its reserves of glucose, and starts creating what’s known as ketone bodies in the liver. The body can use them for fuel and it spares the muscles from wasting away. This process, known as ketosis, will continue as long as the body has enough fat stores. If you consume juices during the fast, some of this is mitigated due to the glucose in the juice.

Dangers Of Fasting:

In addition to the side effects that can commonly occur as the result of fasting, such as dizziness, headache, nausea, muscle aches and anxiety, there are more serious problems that can arise. If you fast too long, your body may go into starvation mode, which can lead to anemia, hypoglycemia — low blood sugar, and electrolyte imbalances that can lead to cardiac arrest and coma, according to Michael Picco at Mayo Clinic.com. Kidney and liver failure can also occur. Some people have died from prolonged fasts, usually because they were in a weakened state before fasting.

Fasting For Weight Loss:

When you are fasting, the cortisol in your body will try to release certain amino acids from your muscles and convert them to sugar. The sugar will then be fed to the brain, kidneys and red blood cells. The brain can use fats or sugar as fuel, but it usually prefers sugar, and red blood cells need sugar to survive. By releasing amino acids, cortisol is actually breaking down your muscle tissues. Losing muscles can slow down weight loss, because you need muscles to burn excess fat in your body.

Although people can quickly drop pounds while fasting, the majority of people regain all
the weight they lose on any diet, especially the highly restrictive varieties, according to recent research published in American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association. While fasting, individuals can lose 5 to 10 percent of their weight in the first few months of a diet, but up to two-thirds of people regain even more weight than they lost within four or five years, the researchers found.

Cutting back on high-fat foods, eating in moderation and consuming more vegetables and fruits may not seem as glamorous as fasting and starving yourself like a celebrity for days, but it’s certainly healthier for you in the long run!

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Thanks for Reading!

Chris