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The truth about fasting and starvation diets

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Uploaded by on May 8, 2008

http://www.My6Months.com Mind Body Soul Documentary.
http://www.imdb.me/seansymons
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One doctor called it the "Fast Way to Health." Another called it "starvation diet."

It is very easy to lose weight by fasting. Unhealthy, and in the end counterproductive, but easy. You starve yourself, you lose weight. But, you should know what happens when you do this first.

When you starve yourself (which is what fasting is), you inhibit your body's ability to burn fat. You need to remember that calories are simply a unit of energy, and your body needs energy every day to survive. So, when you don't eat, about 300,000 years of evolutionary drive kick in and your body goes into starvation survival mode. It sets of a chain of processes all designed to slow down your metabolism (the rate at which you burn calories) because your body always wants calories in to be equal or greater than calories out. So your brain starts sending signals to your thyroid to slow things down.

Then, you need to understand that body fat is your body's long term energy survival source. So, wanting to survive as long as possible, your body will do whatever it can to hold onto body fat. This is obviously not what you want, but it's what happens.

Your major organs (brain, heart, etc) can't use stored fat for the energy they need, they can only use glucose, which is what carbs break down into thru digestion. Since you are starving yourself and not supplying your brain with glucose, your body has another survival trick. It creates its own glucose.

Unfortunately, it does that by breaking down muscle mass into the component amino acids that make up muscle protein. It then converts these amino acids into glucose to feed your brain, since you apparently won't do it with food. So now you are losing muscle mass.

Since muscle is the engine where your body burns fat for energy, you now have less of it, and burn fewer calories all day. This is another way your body slows down your metabolism to survive.

Eventually, you can't keep starving yourself, so you start eating again. Unfortunately, you've cratered your metabolism so when you start eating, you gain any weight you lost back very quickly. The bad thing now is the fact that while some of the weight you lost was fat, a lot of it was muscle mass and water. When you gain it back, it all comes back as fat.

Will you lose your 17 lbs? I don't know. But, what I do know is that the weight you will lose will be a combination of fat, muscle, and water. And whatever weight you lose, you will gain back quickly, all in the form of ugly fat.

So in the end, your starvation diet will make you fatter than when you started. This is the definition of yo-yo dieting.
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  • LOL. Fasting is not the problem. The problem is the bad eating habits previous to the fast and after the fast.

    Fasting, to my knowledge, never caused heart disease, diabetes or any number of other health issues caused by the Western diet of processed foods, sugar, poor dairy, fast food and over eating.

    If you want to help people, address this issue! It's killing people and destroying our society,

    Parents are raising the equivalent of drug addicts except additions to food,

  • I agree with the rest of the post. This guy is completely wrong. You do not burn muscle when you fast for a short time.

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  • I have starved myself for days on end and lift weights and the result? I'm more muscular and more defined than I have ever been. (strength increased). My body has not "cannibalized" my muscle tissue. "Grazing" doesn't work for me. I gained 12-15 lbs gross doing that. It's not all about calories either, but the type of nutrients you take in when you do re-feed. And, it takes a surprisingly small amount of glucose to restore depleted reserves. I'm more muscular than my friends who eat more cals.

  • Exactly why no one read about DietOramy diet regime plan? I was randomly hitting Google and became aware of it - I must say it is actually the very first diet system plan that I've tried using that does not cause me to feel always hungry, and I am nevertheless losing bodyweight.

  • What's up... Have you used DietOramy food plan (more info on Google)? I found a number incredible information over it and furthermore my bro got rid of a good deal of excess fat by using it.

  • Fasting in Ramadan for a month is so refreshing

  • I know this stuff and He's sayin it all right. I been through it and had to learn it.

  • I'm pretty sure I remember learning in bio that glycogen is targeted first, then fat and then muscle last. Am I wrong?

  • @seansymons ...or u could TRY IT and not eat blood & starch.. and KNOW for yourself rather than letting someone TELL U

  • Fasting will eventually slow your metabolism, usually occurring after your body has spent most of your fat reserves. Bu skipping meals is not fasting! I am under the belief that most overweight people, are not necessarily overweight for the food that they eat, but the volume of food that they eat. Most people eat to much, past the point of what their bodies require. We as a nation need to control our food consumption. Eat little meals meals 4-5 times a day. And skip meals from time to time.

  • i haven't put anything in my mouth for over 2 days (no lie).. and after watching this video, you scared me into eating now. lol. im leaving to quizno's for food. thanks

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