Fasting For Weight Loss

When I talk about fasting for weight loss, some feel curious, some feel feared. Many wondered why and how I developed this habit. In fact, if we review our eating history, it’s easy to find something in common.

Remember how much and how often you ate when you were 13? Look at the photo here.


The bottom row was how I ate when I were 13. True! No exaggeration! I did have a record of eating 5 bowls of rice for lunch. When I grew up, my food consumption decreased accordingly. I thought I cut from two to one at my mid 20s. Now I am eating one meal a day, or even without any food on some days. In fact, this does not only happen to me. Many find that they are eating less and less, especially on weekends when they don’t have to work.

Fasting may sound scary to those who worry about energy level or afraid of hungry pangs. However fasting for weight loss isn’t scary at all. I am still eating EVERYDAY and eating what I love to eat.

The kind of short term fasting I do have almost no impact on my social life and yet my body benefits. That way my digestive system got periodic recess, shifting focus from digestion to cleansing and repairing, resulting not only in weight loss but more energy and better skin, not to mention my bloating problem says good bye to me.

May be you’ve been told a million times that you should eat at least three meals a day; or eat like a king for breakfast and a queen for lunch and a beggar for dinner. Forget about these. They may work for some people, but not for you, if you want to lose weight naturally and permanently. Fasting for weight loss is the new trend, whether you want to shed a few pounds or maintain your body weight. Try to start your fasting weight loss project by skipping a couple of meals a week. I’m sure you’ll see the benefits.

If you are afraid of hungry, drink a glass of fresh prune juice to replace lunch or dinner. Its high fibre will create a feeling of fullness and keep you away from hungry. It will also encourage bowel movements and you will gain additional benefit if you are suffering from constipation. Because of this, please make sure no over consumption of prune juice to avoid diarrhea.

More about juicing for weight loss.

Try it out once, and I’m sure you’ll love the feeling. Be prepared to allow some time for your body to burn fat, and DO NOT expect overnight results.

NOTE: You need to do a little more if you are aiming to maintain a steady body weight, i.e. do this short term fasting in an ongoing manner. It could be even better if you could incorporate some daily exercises. If you do these, you’ll simply save money in buying weight loss programs, diet recipes and still enjoying a healthy life.

Read my fasting for weight loss story.

Recommended reading: Eat Stop Eat – a scientific guide for short term intermittent fasting.

My Fasting Windows

Some readers ask me about my fasting windows. Regarding my eating schedule, I have a diary which records every single details. As someone who eats one meal a day, what to eat, where to eat and with whom to eat are very important to me.

Back to my fasting windows. I have recently draw up a table to compare my eating schedule with two of the mainstream intermittent fasting pattern.

ADF (alternate day fasting) - you know what it means, simply eat every other day. This may suit people who enjoy disciplined life.

IF (intermittent fasting) - one meal a day mode - is my preferred option. But as a matter of fact, I've done this in a flexible way.

Anna - I just pick any week in my diary which records three sessions of 24-hour fasting, two of 16-hours and one of 40-hours.

The big picture is: keep at least two 24-hour fasting windows in a week. That's it. Make it simple and flexible. Never fix a day and do it on an unplanned and natural manner. If you keep your eating schedule too rigid, you will have no fun, and somehow will affect your social life.

Anna's Thought Today:

Make fun by fasting, enjoy eating while losing weight!

Intermittent Fasting Success Report

Fasting and Starvation

So let’s talk about the death journey. Scary? Yes, it is. Starvation is really scary, but not fasting.

Starvation induces death. Fasting will not.

But why is there the misconception? Let's clarify it.

Fasting Facts

First of all, let’s take a look at some of the fasting facts.

Health experts say that most healthy individuals have enough fat stored in the body to live without food for several weeks, as long as they keep themselves well hydrated and without emotional stress. Starvation only occurs when the body has exhausted its fat reserves and must use tissue from vital organs as a source of energy to survive.

Human fat is valued at 3,500 calories per pound. Each extra pound of fat will supply enough calories for one day of hard physical labor. Ten pounds of fat are equal to 35,000 calories! Most of us have sufficient reserves, capable of sustaining us for many weeks.

From Fasting to Starvation

There is a huge difference between fasting and starvation.

Fasting is when there are foods around but we don’t eat for a period of time in order to achieve a certain health goal.

Starvation is when food is badly inadequately, people eating scraps of whatever is available or even dirt.

Here is an article describing the starvation death journey in details. I have summarized it for your quick reference.

The Death Journey of Starvation

Until water fasting goes on past the point where all fatty tissues and all abnormal deposits have been burned for fuel and recycled for the nutritional elements they contain, vital muscle tissues and organs are not consumed. And as long as the body contains sufficient nutritional reserves, vital organs and essential tissues are rebuilt and maintained. In fact the body has a great deal of intelligence in doing whatever possible in keeping us staying alive. It knows exactly which cells are essential to survival, which ones are not. The body knows which cells are abnormal deposits, and it goes to work to metabolize them first.

For example, the body recognizes arthritic deposits, cysts, fibroids, and tumors as offensive parts of the landscape, and obligingly uses them for foods in preference to anything else. A starving (not fasting) body also knows precisely in what order of priority body cells should be metabolized to minimize risk of death or permanent disability.

After a starving body has reached skeletal condition, or where some small amount of fat remains but nutritional reserves (vitamins and minerals) are exhausted and there is insufficient nourishment forthcoming, the body begins to consume nutrient-rich muscle and organ tissue in a last-ditch effort to stay alive. Under these dire circumstances, the least essential muscles and organs from the standpoint of survival are metabolized first. For example, muscles in the arms and legs would be consumed early in the process, the heart muscle used only toward the very end. The very last part of the body to be metabolized when one is starving and as has come very close to death would be the brain and the nervous system.

Starvation begins where fasting ends, which is when real hunger begins. If the return of hunger is ignored whenever it takes place, whether it is in 30, 60, or 90 days depending upon body weight and type of fast, at that point exactly, not a day before, starvation begins very slowly. Usually it takes a considerable period of time after that before death occurs. It is important to note that this discussion applies only to the abstention from food, not water. Death takes place very quickly in the absence of water.

So now, do you still find fasting scary? If we are talking about a 24-hour fast, there is practically nothing to do with starvation. However prolong fasting say beyond 60 days could be risky.

HEALTH WARNING: You must discuss with your doctor before going on prolong fasting and received medical supervision throughout the process.

Exercising While Fasting

Is exercising while fasting possible at all? Yes, of course.

When I talk about my eating habit, a lot of people immediately relate to starvation, hunger pangs, energyless and a lot many negative things. Exercising while fasting is somewhat a mission impossible.

Fact is, there are things in the world that look impossible are actually possible and practically doable.

Yesterday at the swimming pool, I had a chat with a life guard. He was wondering why I'm there everyday over lunch hour, so we exchanged thoughts on eating.

He was a young guy but his views towards eating are quite traditional. In fact, he is one of those who doesn't understand what fasting is though he sees a live example who come do swimming everyday over lunch hour without eating. He insisted I must eat breakfast, regardless of amount, I must eat something. And of course he was thinking that eating nothing until dinner will impact my work performance.

He would never know what he thinks is just in reverse of reality. I enjoy doing my workout in a fasted state and feel myself refreshed and energetic working in the afternoon.

People like the life guard who has no fasting experience may find it undoable or unbelievable to go on living without food for 24 hours, not to mention working and exercising during the period. What if you give it a try? You may start to fall in love with this new way of eating.

In fact, fasting is not something new. It is not even invented by people of our generation. It's been around since the Cavemen period when food was not always available. Great thinkers and philosophers such as Plato and Socrates both practiced fasting to attain mental and physical efficiency.

Our bodies are designed in a way to withstand periods of high and low calorie intake in order to keep us alive. Nowadays we have more than sufficient food, so we are requiring our bodies to do only the digestion work without utilize its ability to fast.

Short term intermittent fasting is like adding new wine to an old bottle. We make use of an ancient concept with new methods to achieve health and weight loss. Eat Stop Eat describes the process in a scientific way.

So why do so many people think that fasting means starving? I'll talk about this in my next post.

Intermittent Fasting Success - Exercising While Fasting

The DIRTY DOZEN Obsessive Compulsive Eating Habits

Does any or all of these seem to be the way you are eating? If so, you may want to read my free report on The Dirty Dozen.

1. Eating multiple small meals every day – even if it doesn’t fit your schedule
2. Drinking Green Tea to help burn fat
3. Drinking 8-10 glasses of water every day
4. pre, during, and post workout nutrition
5. Overeating “healthy foods”
6. Allow yourself a cheat meal once a week
7. Eating To Maintain Muscle Mass
8. Avoiding entire food groups
9. Making Your Nutrition Habits The Most Important Factor In Your Day
10. Keeping a Food Diary
11. Obsessing Over Nutrient Timing
12. Letting Your Diet Define You

Many people follow these rules in their quest to lose weight. However, most of these rules do very little to actually promote weight loss. Since it is believed that following these rules should ALWAYS cause weight loss, you have no choice but to assume the rule itself is correct and therefore YOU are doing something incorrectly.

I have a report called the DIRTY DOZEN which is all about the twelve most obsessive compulsive eating habits and how to break them.

I have the author’s permission to distribute it free for my readers. Email me at annafasting(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)hk with a headline "The Dirty Dozen" and I’ll email you a copy. (I respect your privacy and your email address will be kept CONFIDENTIALLY)

Intermittent Fasting Success Report - Free Report on OCE

Bookend this Long Weekend for Weight Loss

July 1st and July 4th are the Canadian and American big time long weekend kick offs for the the summer. And there is also some big time eating that goes on during these weekends.

BBQ steak, burgers, ribs, sausages, chicken, pasta salad, potato salad, grilled veggies, beer (or whatever your beverage of choice might be)...and that's not even mentioning the desserts.

No doubt there will be some serious eating going on, and some serious OVER eating. So how do you enjoy all the great food during a long weekend and still come out the other side without gaining and fat?

I've found the easiest answer is to 'bookend' the weekend with the principles found in Eat Stop Eat.

By using the techniques in Eat Stop Eat to prepare for the weekend you can eat all the great foods that will be cooking during your long weekend feast without the guilt or the extra bodyfat that usually comes with these kind of events.

Get Your Copy of Eat Stop Eat today

Use Eat Stop Eat again the day after the weekend to get back on track for the following week and you might even LOSE weight when it's all said and done. This is the 'bookend technique' that many other Eat Stop Eaters have adopted and used with great success to get through holiday weekends without gaining weight.

Eat Stop Eat is the easiest and quickest way to prepare for and erase any potential fat gain from a long weekend eating extravaganza.

Get your copy of Eat Stop Eat today and be prepared for the upcoming long weekend.

It's the perfect way to get rid of guilt AND fat at the same time.

Anna

PS: For additional information, read my previous post on My Crazy Fasting Lifestyle and see how I ate madly over the Easter long weekend and resumed normal weight in two days.

Juice Fasting - I lost One Pound Per Day

My fasting journey started with one week of juice fasting. The way I did it was to replace lunch and dinner with a cup of fresh juice. I drank water for the rest of the day. The process lasted six days and I lost six pounds.

As juice fasting is concerned, I have two basic rules:
1. Go for fresh juice, NOT bottled juices.
2. Change of colour in terms of fruit choices.

Well, I don’t have to emphasis why fresh juice is better than bottled ones. You should know the answer to this. But isn’t it possible to make fresh juices at the office? Yes. I have a little device which I can take to the office and made fresh juice for me.

This little juice extractor is cheap and portable. But the disadvantage is that it is only cater for orange, grapefruit or lemon kind of fruits. So when I go home, I’ll use my home juice extractor to make other kind of juices.

Regarding the type of fruits, I’m not a nutritionist but believe all kinds of fresh fruits are good for health. So I have developed my second rule as to change the fruit colours. Juice fasting could be a little boring if you stick to one kind of fruit. To have a change in taste and vitamins, change of fruit colour is the simplest solution. Kiwi, watermelon, mango and so on.

In fact, when I eat these fruits on a regular day, I didn’t find them to be so delicious. However during my juice fasting period, they all became very yummy.

As I have been doing periodic juice fasting in these years, I have bought a ebook called Ejuice which gives me creative ideas of juice recipes.

If you have no previous fasting experience, you may find the first two days difficult. And that was my experience too. But I must say the psychological side weighted more than the physical side. In fact, my strongest motivation was HEALTH. As far as I don’t want to put up with my unhealthy life anymore, fasting becomes easy.


Intermittent Fasting - Juice Fasting