Fasting forward
I took a 24-hour fast recently, limiting myself to water (and chewing gum). Since I’d already been counting calories as part of getting back on track after picking up about 10 pounds over the holidays, I can see that I ate probably a bit more in the meals before and after the fast (I fasted from 1 p.m. until 1 p.m.). What I didn’t expect to happen was the kind of hunger that kept after me for the next couple of days, when I found myself feeling almost compelled to eat more than I would normally eat. A kind of after effect of fasting, I guess. I wonder if that would happen every time I fasted, or if my body would adapt.
Sounds like the fast thus proved counterproductive. Right?
I’ve only fasted once, at an (ironically) pricey spa in Thailand, but that was for over a week. The hunger goes away at some point.
But a few weeks later I was back to where I had started…..
Nah, the fast was a good thing. I didn’t fast because I was trying to lose weight (although I did drop a number of pounds, as any wrestler or boxer knows).
But the body likes to hang on to weight and will foil such attempts over the long term.
I know that studies show that the most effective way to live longer is a very low-calorie diet. But it seems to me that most humans would not be able to follow such a diet on purpose.