To Waterbug, fasting for weight loss

Hi Waterbug, I have been a bit busy, but you recently asked...

"What if your obese and you want to get your weight back down to a healthy size and change your lifestyle. Would doing several fasts say with in a year or 6 months and eating healthy in between be bad for your health. (As long as the person stops fasting after they have reached their healthy weight.)?"

I think you have a good plan there, that's more less what i did and I lost loads, see this post of mine with a picture of the jeans that once used to fit me!

I took a break from fasting to allow my skin to tighten up and my body to adjust, and I have put some weight back on. So I now realise more than ever that I need to change my lifestyle to make this change permanent, and I intend to start to start to lose weight by exercise before my next fast starts.

I have also come to realise that my fasts DID make me adopt a healthier way of eating, but it is very easy to lose that desire a few months after the fast, especially after eating out and a few ready meals. So I think that when I do reach my target weight occasional detox fasts of 7 - 10 days (as required) will become part of my lifestyle. But the goal of these fasts will not be to lose weight.

I have been reading old posts here, this forum is a mine of valuable information. I was particularly looking at Mike D and Hopinso, the founders of this forum. By the way thank you for your Dr Fuhrman post, strangely enough Mike D says in this 2007 post that "Joel Fuhrman M.D. says that water fasting is one of the worst ways to try and lose weight". However Hopinso said in this 2005 message "Water fasting can be very safe and healthful when it is done correctly." Of course I agree with Hopinso! However I can see where Fuhrman is coming from.

By coincidence, I also found out about the creation of the fasting for weight loss forum. It was initiated by user #33315, who seemed to always end up in conflict with Mike D who told people when they were doing things wrongly. She seemed to regard this as rudeness and name calling, though looking at Hopinso and Mike D's posts I can't find any evidence of that. Anyway she went to the webmaster, who made the other forum on 27th October 2004. Hopinso made this post on there  several months later giving advice for weight loss fasting, and it got an R. Lol, just reading the old Rs in weight loss and noticed that similar issues were being raised 5 years ago as they are here. I guess things don't change.

But anyway, yes, I think it's a good method of losing weight if you treat it with the respect it deserves, and know exactly what you are doing, and I think what you are thinking of sounds really good. I actually came to this forum rather than fasting for weight loss because there was better advice here.

Oh one final tip, I can't find it now but I think hopinso mentioned that metabolism decreases 25% during a fast, which makes it easy to pile the weight on when you come off it. Now when I was fasting I noticed that my rate of weight loss decreased the longer I fasted, and I think this is because my metabolism was slowing down. When I subsequently did shorter fasts (7-10 days) I found that I tended to put on less weight when I was refeeding, so the shorter fasts seemed more efficient. I think that was because my metabolism didn't slow down so much during the shorter period. Can anyone comment on this, or point me to anywhere I can find info on metabolic rated during and after fasting? Anyway, 7-10 days seems to work for me. See what works best for you.