Fasting to Lose Weight Quickly

Does Fasting to Lose Weight Cause Starvation Mode

If you’ve ever told someone that you’re using fasting to lose weight then you will have likely had people telling you that what you are doing is wrong and that if you really want to lose weight you should be eating six small meals a day. In this article we are going to examine the pro’s and cons of six meals a day versus using fasting for weight loss and come to a consensus on what is the best method for you.

First we need to look at where this whole idea of eating six meals a day came from and it really is a recent phenomenon as over the last 100 or so years in industrialized countries society and working convention is based around breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The idea of six small meals a day first came from the body building fraternity as a way to lose weight, or get ‘cut’ for body building competitions while maintaining or even gaining muscle mass.

This method worked well for bodybuilders as there large size, high metabolism and large energy demand to fuel their training meant that they could easily consume 2500-3000 calories a day and still be in a calorie deficit! This method filtered into the fitness world then into general advice shelled out by well meaning but uninformed individuals who were then telling people that if they wanted to lose weight they should eat more!

Most individuals that want to lose weight for health or image reasons most often are not the size of a bodybuilder nor do they have the same energy demands due to physical activity. Even six meals a day at 400 calories is 2400, 400 calories more than is recommended as the daily intake for women!

When losing weight really just comes down to calories in must be less than calories out we can see how absurd this six small meals a day theory is. By fasting it is easy to achieve a calorie deficit, it just doesn’t seem as tempting to most people as getting to eat six meals a day!

You see it’s in our basic human nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The idea of fasting to lose weight may at first seem like a daunting task to most people and it will be a little uncomfortable at first as your body and brain crave the sugar rushes you are accustomed to giving it.

However if give it a try and you will soon see it is not as difficult as you had anticipated and you will actually lose weight with fasting instead of wondering why your putting on weight by eating six meals a day like the grapevine told you.

Intermittent Fasting Cycles

There are many different ways to use to use fasting to lose weight, each one varies the difference between the fasting phase and the eating phase. One of the most popular is alternate day feeding in which days of eating are followed by fast days. The problem with these 24 hour fasts is that they actually run closer to 32 hours once sleep is accounted for and many people find it difficult in the evening to resist the temptation to eat.

One method to combat this is to use a shorter fasting window that can begin or end at 4-6pm on the day of a fast. So if you were to begin your fast at 4pm today you would then maintain it until 4 pm the following day at which point you would be free to eat.

Some other methods of fasting involve small windows of 4-6 hours that allow eating, usually a large meal is consumed during this period but the time of when to eat is up to the individual. Some people prefer to eat during the day while others may prefer to eat in the evenings.