I would agree with you Chris, and I am someone who had done a fair bit of fasting for weight loss so I should by now know what I am talking about. Sure it is a great way to lose lots of weight when you are obese, but on my first fast I had some terrible symptoms, so I stopped after 27 days. It was Fonty who told me that when fasting for weight loss, it doesn't really matter how long the fasts are because you have to eat for as many days anyway, so it works out the same.

As I said over a year ago, one of the best and most unexpected things that came from fasting was a lot of my food addictions disappeared. My taste buds had been reset, as some like to say. In retrospect, this was probably the best benefit from the fast.

In the summer, after obtaining a scuba diving medical which was one of my goals, I eased off to allow loose skin to catch up. I then did a 3 week fast late last year. I then took a break over Christmas and ate and drank more or less what I wanted, including a few excesses, and my weight went back up.

So in January I reviewed the situation:

The fasts are the steep Vs in the graph. Sure, they made me lose a lot of weight, but if you look carefully you can see that I was actually losing weight when I was eating properly post fast. Look even more carefully and project the general weight loss line over the Vs, and you will see it more or less joins up the other side of the valley, as if the V wasn't even there.

So my conclusion was that I would probably have lost the same weight if I had not fasted, and stuck to a healthy eating regime. I have no intention of living the rest of my life having to fast occasionally as as part of a yo-yo weight cycle, plus it was freezing here and I didn't particularly want to fast. So I looked at healthy eating instead.

I discovered Joel Fuhrman. If you want to know more about him, visit his website or his youtube channel. He basically says the key to losing weight AND good health is through good nutrition. He seems to be trustworthy, see my recent posts for his motivation (Fasting and Eating for Health post) and his truthfulness (type 2 diabetes comment). Myself and a few others here are trying out his plan on the Diet and Nutrition Support forum. He is a doctor, so people, particularly those with health or digestive problems, may wish to join his website as a member, where you can "ask the doctor", if you have any specific issues.

I don't know all your circumstances SoulDoc, but if I were you I would consider breaking the fast and looking into healthy eating - what you eat is more important than the fast itself for weight loss. You will put on some weight, don't fight it, it's your system filling up. Just try and eat carefully. Good, wholesome healthy food. Follow refeeding instructions, I prefer fresh oranges for breaking it. Chew food well. Now also your metabolism will be slow, so it will be easy to put on weight, another weakness of fasting for weight loss. It will speed up, but this may take some time. Eventually I think you will see your weigh start to slowly drop again.

If you aim to eat healthily, I think you will find you will lose weight just as quickly - if not quicker, perhaps cure a few illnesses, and live a lot longer. Good luck