If you have been trying to lose weight and NOTHING seems to work, then this thought might have crossed your mind, “What if I just stop eating altogether?! THAT will cause me to lose weight!”
When you stop eating like this for a day or more, it is called fasting, or a fasting diet. It turns out that there has been a fair amount of research on fasting, and if you are healthy enough to try it (ask your doctor) you can gain some important benefits. This video talks about three different kinds of fasting and the benefits that can accrue from fasting (it is the best and most complete video on fasting that I have seen):
The video discusses the pros, cons and benefits of:
- A three-day fast
- Day on/Day off Intermittent fasting (one day of eating followed by one day of fasting, and repeat)
- 5:2 Intermittent fasting (5 days of normal eating followed by 2 days of fasting, and repeat)
The benefits of a 3-day fast sound pretty impressive. Your blood sugar levels get back to normal, supposedly your immune system resets, and you gain some new brain cells.
I have actually done the 3-day fast twice, and the second time I was able to go 4-days. But in that case I was trying to make it to 5-days and I could not hold out that long. So I was interested to learn about this fourth way to fast:
The fasting mimicking diet is supposed to let you eat a little bit of the right foods each day, which takes some of the edge off of strict water-only fasting, while your body does not notice this food and still thinks it is fasting.
[In the video above, he talks about using an envelope of soup mix each day. That step is never explained, and I have been unable to find any references to it elsewhere. On my 4-day fast, I used half a can of Campbell’s Consume’ once a day in place of the envelope of soup. Half of the can of Consume’, mixed with an equal amount of water, makes a mug of broth that has only 20 calories, all of which come from protein. I don’t know if this is good or bad, but this too takes the edge off for a few hours, and is really helpful right before bed.]
In my experience, if you try a 3-day fast, you do lose weight for sure, but much of it comes right back unless you are very careful. If you can stay pure-protien after the fast, that works pretty well.
Dukan Table of Contents
- My Dukan Diet Experience (I lost 52 pounds on this diet)
- How much does the Dukan Diet cost per day?
- Very cool calculator for calculating your specific dietary needs – Protein, carbs, fat, vitamins, etc.
- Fasting and Fasting diets – Four different ways to try a fasting diet
- Good question – what is your “ideal weight” if you want to be healthy?
- What can you do when you “get stuck” at some weight plateau on the Dukan diet (or any diet)
- Drew Carey loses 80 pounds with a no-carb diet
- How does your appearance change when you become obese?
- How does your appearance change when you become obese?
- Would you like to lose weight? Video shows the latest science on what works and what doesn’t
- This has got to be the easiest dieting/weight loss tip ever: drink more water
- How to make Greek yogurt at home and cut your yogurt costs in half
- I made half a gallon of Greek yogurt this weekend – talk about cheap and easy! And Tasty!
- All the dire warnings I have gotten about the Dukan diet have turned out to be wrong
- What if everything that we are taught about carbs is actually propaganda?
- How Carbohydrates Don’t Work – in fact, carbs are probably causing the obesity epidemic. If you are overweight, it is probably the carbs
- Why do we feel like we are entitled to carbs? That we cannot live without them?
- Today I officially reached the “50.0 pounds lost” milestone on my Dukan Diet weight loss journey, and you can too