eating
 

hey, is not eating for a week really all that bad?

Depends on what you're "not eating" for a week...

If you decide this week I'm not eating Coca-Cola, ice cream, salts, sweets, fats and "simple" (easily converted to sugar) carbs - then yes! it's a good thing and go for it!

However, if you are talking about putting minimal food in your body - the "coffee and cigarettes" diet - then your are harming your body, setting into motion internal things that will make you gain weight and screw up your thinking and energy and your body will start to feed off of itself.

When I was in my 20's I went from a size 16 to a size 3 in 3 months - by simplying eating once a day (usually a buffet lunch) and not taking anything but water in after 6pm. Yes I lost the weight but what I didn't realize was that I was setting myself up for trouble years down the road.

Now I'm paying the price with an ultra-slow metabolism complicated by the things that happen as you get older and I have to re-learn how to eat all over again.

If you deny yourself food, you'll lower your metabolism and are more likely to binge on bad stuff in a short period of time. You'll also hurt yourself big time on 2 counts - what food you do put into your mouth your body will store as fat because it thinks you're starving and instead will waste your muscles for the energy it needs that it should have been getting from regular meals that you're denying it. And muscles burn calories faster than anything so you want to be fit and have good muscle tone.

A better way to go is to cut out all the processed foods, fats, salt and sugar, go back to natural foods like fruits, veggies and low fat meats. Eat 6 mini meals a day - 1/3 chicken breast and a tiny piece of fruit is a mini-meal. Eating throughout the day keeps your metabolism up and also tells your body since you're getting food on a regular basis - there's no need to store it as fat. And drink plain water, water, water!

Good luck, I hope you make some good choices.