I'm routinely surprised at the popularity of articles in this category. It's no secret that eating less and exercising more leads to a healthier person. Is it just the variety of systems and self-discipline utilized that is found so intriguing?
So instead listening to my doctor, I should follow the advice of a Belgian entrepreneur with no medical training, based on his experiment with a sample size of one.
"It tunes my mind to the station of my body. It makes me feel real hunger and lets me differentiate it from other cravings"<p>What he's describing is congruent with a stoic lifestyle. The core of stoicism is to not be a slave to your feelings and cravings. And this is achieved through mental and spiritual "exercise."<p>I have fasted for 3 days at a time, allowing myself nothing but water. Try six weeks without a drop of alcohol. And don't cheat. It's not a "detoxifying" process- it's a process of gaining mindfulness. You understand, as the author points out, what your body does and does not need, and that many of your feelings of "hunger" (for food, or more figuratively anything) are triggered by your officemate talking about nutella, or hearing some bad news that makes you anxious, or any number of things that you can control if you become aware of them.<p>Once you understand the true control you have over your body and your feelings and actions, you can really start to take it to the next level with what you actually want to accomplish, as opposed to what has been programmed by your social environment.
Isn't it better, safer, and more comfortable to just eat 200-500 less calories per day?<p>I know that I'd rather eat one less slice of pizza during a meal than to eat NOTHING for a whole day.<p>As we all know, weight is primarily determined by calories in versus calories out. Since 3500 calories equals 1 lb or .45 kg, you can lose 2 lbs or 1 kg a week by eating 500 calories less each day.
Well if Muslims and people from some other cultures can do fasting, and they still manage to live long and healthy like any other culture - why not try this method to actually loose weight and then pick for example Japanese diet to maintain it?<p>I think all this fasting is for self control rather than long term process. You teach your body and mind to say "no" to nasty foods and snacks.
> Make it a challenge to see if you can go a full day without eating. What do you have to lose?<p>A lot, actually. Some medical conditions may be seriously affected by not eating for an entire day. As with any medical advice, you should consult your physician before attempting fasting.
> Still the idea of going for 24 hours without any food seemed alien at first. Was I going to be okay, I wondered.<p>I once <i>forgot</i> to eat for three days, I was just so busy. I walked up the stairs to my second-floor apartment, and I felt light-headed enough that I noticed myself start to black out. I began going through the "usual debugging", asking myself "what did you eat today?", and it turns out I hadn't... nor the day before... and when I realized I hadn't eaten the day before that either, it became very clear what happened, and I immediately ordered an extra large pizza. I take it this is highly unusual? :(
One thing about this is paying attention not only to what he eats, but also how his body reacts to food. In high school, I would often only eat one meal a day (I could have had more meals, but I wasn't hungry). In college, I also still only ate the equivalent of one meal a day. Once I had a full time job that included lunch breaks, I felt obligated to eat more, and the more I ate the more I was hungry. Having more money and more freedom to eat what I want, when I wanted (compared to living with parents or in college eating on poor starving student rations), I stopped paying attention to what and how much I ate.
Fasting has been tested for its health benefits. I advise you to check out this BBC documentary<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549</a>
For those interested in different approaches to weight loss, I found this article really helpful while trying to shed a few pounds myself:
<a href="http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html" rel="nofollow">http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html</a>
This actually makes a lot of sense. An obese person burns about 2500 calories a day just be existing (obviously depending on weight/heigh/etc.) 1 day of fasting means 1lb a week lost, basically.
"I still try to adhere to a low carb diet, eating mainly meat and vegetables and severely limiting my intake of bread, pasta, rice and potatoes." - I think this is a much larger player in his weight loss success than he may realize.