Many people ask: Do you lose weight by not eating? You think that the quickest way to lose weight is to cut out almost all food from your daily diet or stop eating completely. In theory, it may make sense that if you restrict your calorie intake by starving yourself, you will lose the weight at a rapid rate. Sure, you will lose weight because when you do not feed your body; your body will pretty much do something to feed itself in order to provide you some nourishment. You do not want that to happen, do you?
As a result, your body goes into what is known as “survival mode” and your metabolic rate drastically slows down for conversation purposes. Then, once you have lost your desired amount of weight, you tend to revert to your previous diet. Since you tried to lose weight by not eating, your metabolic rate is now slower than it previously was. After torturing yourself by starvation, you now pose this yo-yo consequence, which entails that you are going to bounce back to your normal weight or even twice as much as you weigh initially.
Dangers
Hey, pause right here and understand this section really well! Losing weight by starving yourself practically waves some red flags. The recommended healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week and losing weight rapidly through starvation is too dangerous. Here are more reasons why:
- Depriving your body of proper nutrition will have more negative effects on your health than positive. It can lead to malnutrition and health problems as our body requires regular consumption of vitamins, minerals, fibers, proteins and even fats (the good one).
- Non-eating practices and starvation diets deprive the body of the nutrients needed for conditioned and healthy organs specifically the heart, lungs and liver. Thus, depriving oneself from eating can be fatal where it can lead to serious cardio, circulatory and respiratory issues. And again, yes it can lead to weight gain.
- When your body stops getting food, the weight you will lose (which is not much) will be mostly water and muscle tissue. This is very bad because not only will you have to start eating again but since you now have less muscle, you’ll have a slower metabolism compared before which will hinder weight loss; as a result you gain even more fat on top of the fat that your body stored while you fasted.
- Starvation dieting robs the body of needed glucose levels. Blood glucose is the preferred energy of our brains so starvation can cause headaches and unhealthy side effects like fainting, depression, irritability, rashes, reduced sex drive, and hair loss. Hypoglycemia can lead to death when taken for granted.
- Without the needed nutrients of your body, the proteins, vitamins and minerals, you will have little energy for any healthy physical activity so you end up weak and ineffective. If you really want to lose weight, do it the healthy way, the right way.
Here are some simple tips to lose weight the healthy way:
- Instead of not eating, eat small portion of food every few hours.
- Do not skip breakfast because it is the most important meal of the day. Eat fruits and vegetables if you can.
- Eat less carbohydrates.
- Exercise: either you jog, do yoga, workout; just get off that lazy butt off the couch!
- Drink lots of fluid, especially water.
So the next time you even think about starving yourself, think twice or thrice. The secret is simple, instead of not eating at all, you eat! Eat frequently with the right food and right amount, and for sure, you will get those extra pounds off quickly.