6 Reasons Why Fasting Will Thwart Your Fat Loss
Thursday, October 8th, 2009In order to survive, the health and wellness industry has to constantly come up with new gimmicks. One category of gimmicks are fad diets. And fasting has proven to be a somewhat popular fad.
The big problem with fasting, however, is that it can cause some very serious issues especially if you do it for a prolonged period of time. Don’t believe me? Here are 6 reasons why you shouldn’t be fasting:
1. Liver drainage. What drains out of your liver? Glycogen. And this can happen in less than a days time. Without glycogen your body doesn’t have a mechanism to control blood sugar. Thus, you’ll end up with extremely low levels of energy.
2. The transformation of muscle to sugar. Without sugar, the brain shuts down. This is one of the reasons diabetes is so scary. When you fast, sugar becomes depleted in your body. In order to prevent death, your body begins to transform muscle tissue into sugar.
3. The cannibalism of other tissues. Muscle tissue isn’t the only victim here. Other vital tissues like organs will also be cannibalized and transformed into sugar. This is definitely not a healthy state to be in.
4. Ketone bodies. Your body can only cannibalize so much tissue before you enter the danger zone. And once you’re in the danger zone, your body will do everything it can to get you out. How does it do it? With the production of ketones which are basically an inferior substitute for blood sugar.
5. No proven benefits. Many people undertake a fast under the impression that there’s some type of health benefit. Yet there hasn’t been any solid scientific evidence proving this. On the contrary, fasts tend to be extremely unhealthy.
6. Acid/base mayhem. Fasting is most likely going to disrupt the acid-base balance in your body. In addition to loses in minerals and the degradation of your intestinal lining. And the worst part of all of this is that exercise becomes extremely painful.
What effect do all these factors have on your body? A decreased metabolism. And studies have shown that most people end up bingeing after a fast above and beyond what’s needed for weight maintenance. The end result here is a massive rebound in weight and fat gain!
