How to successfully fast to lose weight ( fat )..

Over the last few months I have had several co-workers, family and friends ask me about how to use fasting to lose weight. On my vacation to India in December, not a day went by without the topic of weight loss coming up one way or the other...

So I decided to post my experiences about fasting...There are two ways to do it..the easy way and the hard way...and most of the people who tried fasting did the latter and of course crashed and burned....

First of all let me make one thing clear...fasting is not a magic pill...it does not somehow magically create MORE fat loss than any other weight loss method...

Primarily all weight loss comes from creating a daily/weekly/overall calorie deficit. How you create that deficit depends on a) who you are listening to b) what works for  you...



Most people when they gain too much weight decide to join the gym, banish all oily,sugary,processed ( read anything tasty ) foods from their diet. They also work out for at least 45-60 minutes per day in the gym.
They obviously see instant results. Since the food is completely different from what they are used to eating, they eat less of it...and add the 200+ calories being burnt in the gym everyday ( no...that elliptical machine may have told you that you burnt 1673 calories in an hour...but it is an inflated number to keep you happy ).. which creates a nice calorie deficit.

The problem is keeping it up... Most people cannot stay within the confines of their self-created diet prison and sooner or later escape it...never to come back!

They feel miserable eating the bland food and go back to how they used to eat..and that too with a vengeance...

Same goes for the exercise... For someone who did not exercise at all..to someone who exercises all the time..the leap is quite huge...and most people start dreading the gut-busting hour long exercises and soon give it all up and find themselves settles in the comfort of their homes...on the couch watching TV...

The same goes for fasting...most people start fasting right off the bat and push through the hunger pangs by borrowing from their will power... Soon enough there is little will power left to borrow from and they fall prey to the next strong hunger pang that just refuses to go away...

So now that we have set up a backdrop of the failed weight loss situation, lets look at how we can actually succeed...

Here are certain things to keep in mind..
1. Exercise is NOT the best way to create a calorie deficit. So  you should exercise for physical fitness and accept whatever extra calorie burn you get from it as an added bonus...but not as the primary focus!
     
       The body has become efficient at using ( or burning ) calories over centuries...Unlike the modern society where food is easy to come by 24 hours a day,  food was scarce centuries ago...so we would run, walk for days to find food.
     
       So the body is designed to burn fewer calories and store a lot more calories.. Take a simple example... A single banana is 80-100 calories...which you can eat in under 2 minutes.... but you will need to run a mile ( 10-12 mins ) or walk a mile ( 20 mins ) to burn that banana off....
      The point of the story is, don't try to compensate for you overeating by saying "I'll run/walk it off later"... its a losing proposition.

2. Fasting is a great way ( but not the only way and nor is it magical in any way ) to burn fat.
        The whole point of fasting is to create a calorie deficit without having to subject yourself to eating 3 small meals a day which keep you hungry any way.
         Fasting gives you the flexibility of having one large meal at the end of the day so you can enjoy the portions, while eating food you like and go to bed satiated.

3. Hunger is not an emergency.
It simply means your body is warning you that if you dont provide it food its going to use the energy ( fat ) stored in your body for its functioning.

Of course, its much more complicated than that...so dont tell yourself that you are going to stop eating for the next 7 days...that wont work either...
But running off to get some food to quell your hunger at the first warning sign of a hunger pang is not required either.


Now that we have the 3 basic "laws" laid down, I will explain more about how to be successful at fasting and more importantly fat loss in the next post...

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