Fasting Diet, Fast Diet Side Effects, Intermittent Fasting Benefits

Are you considering going on a fast diet? Before taking on your challenge against self preservation, you should school yourself on the side effects and benefits of fasting. This health blurb offers some answers.

Fasting Diet

Fasting essentially means you consume zero calories for energy over a planned amount of days. However, while on a fast diet you do need to take in water to avoid the unhealthy consequences of severe dehydration.

A fasting diet differs from starvation. A starved condition occurs after all your stored energy is used up. As a consequence, your body will break down other tissue for survival.

In contrast, a fast diet purpose is to burn stored energy, with a bit of muscle loss along the way. As such, you need to start eating again before you reach the point of organ consumption for energy.

Fast Diet Side Effects

The first side effect you will likely notice while fasting is muscle weakness. This may or may not be accompanied by a headache. Some other fast diet side effects include:

Not eating can also cause a heightened sense of well-being effect.

Within the first day of fasting your body uses up most of its glycogen store. Once it’s depleted, your body looks to other sources for energy. This process involves your liver’s converting stored fat and other tissue into ketones, which causes ketosis. And fortunately your brain, muscles and heart can use this form of energy. Couple side effects of ketosis are:

  • increased energy level
  • hunger sensation dissipation
  • hormone level, other function stabilization

Generally, your fast needs to last a minimum of three days in order to reap any the following ketosis benefits.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits

Reaching ketosis is the goal of a fasting diet. Why? If weight loss is the reason for going on a fast diet, then this is the point when excess fat is consumed for energy. You can expect an average of a pound a day for as long as your fasting diet lasts.

Alternatively, if you are looking to benefit your health from intermittent fasting, then it’s theorized damaged tissue and toxin elimination occur at this stage. The basis of this theory is some toxins are stored in adipose tissue. Intermittent fasting causes a stored energy turnover, with the beneficial result of elimination, However, there is no scientific consensus regarding this nor any other health advantages derived out of an intermittent fast.

Another benefit of the fasting effect is it’s believed to give your body an opportunity to heal and restore because of the break in digestion. During this time your body is not exposed the threats of bacteria, viruses, parasites and toxins that are introduced with food. Thus, allowing your immune system to strengthen because it’s resources are not used to combat pathogens.

Intermittent fasting is a widely accepted treatment within the alternative medicine community for various health conditions, such as:

Mainstream medicine does not share in the belief that fasting offers these propounded benefits.

The support for beneficial effects of a fast diet is largely testimonial rather than through controlled scientific experiments. This doesn’t translate to the diet plan has no benefit, just means not proven.

Diet fasts lasting more than a week should never be attempted without health care provider supervision, particularly if you have some sort of chronic health condition. Prolonged fasting can result in:

Juice fasting diet is used for detoxing as well. But a major difference is your body may never reach ketosis on this type of liquid fast diet. Therefore, deep detoxification is not believed possible unless you completely refrain from the intake of an energy source.