Fasting

Fasting is a very controversial practice, used in many occasions in order to lose weight, while in others it is just the result of a bad practice, neglecting one of the most important moments in the nutrition of an individual. The truth is that fasting has proven to be useful to reduce body weight, but not in the way that some people conceive it, that is, by stopping eating just because we believe that by avoiding that food we will gain less weight.

Effective fasting for weight loss is the one that is implemented as part of an elaborate diet, it is usually intermittent, it is done temporarily and is accompanied by supplementation.

Next we will analyze in a general way the effects that are provoked as a result of fasting in order to lose weight.

Is fasting good for weight loss?

The human organism has an ability, which has lasted over time, to store fat after each meal, thus seeking to preserve certain reserves for periods of greater scarcity.

This is achieved by slowing down our metabolism, in this way it obtains what it needs to satisfy our body's energy demand for its daily tasks, and retains a surplus in order to add it to the fat store.

That said, when we fast we turn on all the alarms of the organism, we may lose weight if we sustain fasting for a long period of time, but once we return to normal food intake, the defensive reaction of our body, by default, is to further slow down the metabolism and accumulate more fat than normal. This fat that we accumulate will be difficult to burn later, unless we drastically change our eating style.

Stopping eating for a few hours, as fasting suggests, is not a good idea. What we would achieve is that during those hours our metabolism slows down and when we eat again fat reserves increase to prepare for the next fast. The strategy to combat body fat should not be to stop eating, but to establish a diet rich in protein and low in carbohydrates, which combined with intense sessions of strength training allows us to burn calories and use fat as a source of energy.

Is it good to exercise while fasting?

In no case can lack of time make you adjust your routine in such a way that you have to sacrifice such an important meal as breakfast, in order to be able to fulfill your daily exercises.

It is preferable that you modify other patterns before affecting your meals, both food and rest should be inviolable in your day to day.

When we are fasting, glycogen stores are extremely low, therefore, when we subject our body to exercise, they will be easily depleted. This can have adverse consequences for our health such as burning muscle mass. This happens because our body will seek to obtain glycogen through the breakdown of our muscle mass, this process is called gluconeogenesis.

Our physical condition may deteriorate considerably, being prone to suffer injuries of all kinds, due to the weakening of our muscles and our body in general.

Other adverse effects may be associated with fatigue, cramps, vomiting, general malaise and dizziness. This is mainly caused by the hypoglycemia to which we subject our organism.

In spite of all that we have seen above, fasting exercises do reduce weight. It has been proven that they have an impact on fat reserves as a source of energy. Therefore, they will help to burn fat more easily, this being a necessary process to obtain the missing energy. So do we recommend or not these exercises?

No, we do not recommend them, these exercises are detrimental to our health. There are many safer mechanisms to burn fat that do not put your health at risk, do not sacrifice your muscle mass and above all do not harm your body. In any case we do not share this fat burning methodology, not only to accompany a Detox diet, but for any type of diet.