Originally Posted by JohnP:
Why not? Mentally it might not be good because when you do eat you may end up making some really poor food choices but physically there is no science to back up your statement. In fact there are studies that show short term fasting is good for us. (Unless of course someone has blood sugar issues)

Short term fasting is okay (ie for a medical exam)- but consistently fasting is not good for you at all. That's the problem IMO with a lot of overweight people- they constantly "fast" all day and then end up binging later.

While not scientific this link is pretty good:

http://www.fitnesshealthzone.com/hea...t-bad-for-you/

But the reality is fasting doesn't help with weight loss. The body cannot function properly because it's not properly fueled, hence why a lot of people are also tired when they don't eat enough. Over time your metabolism can slow down as well. You feed off the glucose stores in your liver when you are starving, you don't go straight to fat burning.

Originally Posted by Linsy:
I agree. I don't think there's anything wrong with not eating every once in a while. If I'm not hungry, which I wasn't because I was stressed out, then I just won't eat. It doesn't seem to negatively affect my weight loss and I still end up making on-plan choices when I finally am hungry.

I hope you aren't skipping breakfast though- to wake up your body's metabolism you really should eat SOMETHING within a few hours of waking. Some protein can keep you full for a few hours while at the same time jump-starting your body to burn calories.

Our bodies first reaction to no food is to actually speed up our metabolisms slightly. Only after days of no food does it begins to slow down.

I'll grant you that many people get tired when they don't eat enough in particular those who normally have a high carb diet but the body can function quite nicely without food over short periods because it can and does easily tap into fat stores for energy.

As to wether or not short term fasting helps with weight loss really depends on what you do when you start eating. Like I mentioned, if you're unable to make good food choices when you're really hungry than you shouldn't skip a meal. Weight loss or gain is a simple matter of calories utlized vs ingested.

I make really poor food choices when I'm stressed out or crazy busy. Sometimes (we're talking on rare occasions, a couple of crazy days a year) it's a better choice for me personally to just drink water all day through the stress and go home to a hot shower to unwind. Then I'm better prepared to make good food choices. One day of not eating for 8-10 hours isn't going to do your body any physical harm, provided you can make good choices at the end of it all.

Most everything our bodies do and don't do make sense if you consider that we evolved over a long period of time where food was usually scarce.