Wouldn’t it be feasible to weight by ceasing to take the very thing that makes you gain it? Food only loads your body with tons of calories that only make you gain weight. Perhaps starving yourself could help you become slimmer, and you may think it’s worth a try. But as much as starving yourself could make you lean, is it healthy and sustainable?
You can lose weight by starving yourself. However, general science is against the idea since shunning food does the trick in the short term. You’re more likely to get your body into survival mode when you don’t eat, prompting it to store fat when you resume eating.
Starving yourself also deprives your body of essential nutrients that your body so needs to keep going. Can starving yourself make you lose weight? This article offers insight to help you understand better.
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Do You Lose A lot Of Weight Starving Yourself-How Does It Work?
Starving yourself means shunning food and taking no meals that keep you afloat. However, it can mean taking little food below the body’s needs to sustain its standard processes. Starving for weight loss doesn’t usually have to be so extreme; you can do it intermittently. That’s way healthier and more recommended that shunning food altogether.
People who starve themselves entirely might take it as an ideal method to help them lose weight. If you choose extreme, the results usually show within a few days. However, that usually includes a few other issues, including a weakened body and compromised systems.
You may otherwise choose to starve yourself while taking supplements to facilitate your body processes, which is better.
Can Starving Yourself Make You Burn Down Fat?
Starving yourself might work toward your weight loss goals. The good thing is, unlike dieting and exercise, starvation quickly diminishes your fat reserves, and you’re more likely to get lean almost instantly.
You have a higher chance of losing weight within five days when you starve yourself. However, it’s not quite sought-after because starvation only puts you through adversity without offering long-term results.
Most people don’t prefer starving themselves to attain leaner bodies because hunger is too harsh. The body needs a constant supply of elements, compounds, and nutrients that fuel its processes; persistent hunger does the opposite. Besides, it’s not an easy route since it mostly incapacitates people and makes them unable to be resourceful with their everyday activities.
Why Is Starvation Not Ideal for Losing Weight?
Numerous reasons for people preferring other weight loss methods to starvation exist, proving why they’re right. Sustained hunger is quite challenging to deal with and is compromising. Moreover, hunger only makes the body weaker and unhealthy and can tag along with various health risks that can present challenges.
However, the main concern when losing weight through starvation is how the body responds. As human nature, survival is paramount, and the body always intuitively finds a way to make it through to the next. Starving it only conditions it into survival mode, preparing itself to push through. That isn’t complementary to your weight loss goals since you’ll likely gain weight when you resume eating rapidly.
The Mechanism of Starvation for Weight Loss
Your body will always seek to survive when food is scarce. Starving yourself means the body will lack the ideal nutrients you freely feed it, prompting it to turn to the body fat present. If you have huge chunks of body fat, they should be gone within a few days or at least show signs of diminishing within the first few days.
The rate of body weight reduction will depend on whether you choose to starve yourself entirely or perhaps marginally, with the former being quicker.
Continued starvation completely obliterates your fat reserves by depleting them. That prompts the body to digest other available energy sources, including proteins. Also read: How Many Steps Daily Will Help Me Lose Weight?
That leads to complete emancipation, which is critical and way past the threshold of losing weight. But you aren’t about to reach these alarming levels if losing weight is your goal. If you have to use starvation as an ideal method to lose weight, please opt for intermittent fasting.
What Is the Difference Between Starving and Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting usually involves randomly skipping meals and surprising your body with restricted food intake. Conversely, starvation, as we’ve seen, is the total shunning of food for a particular period. While starvation might also mean restricting food intake and eating way less than the body requires, the idea doesn’t change.
Intermitted fasting can be an ideal alternative to starvation if you aim to lose weight. It doesn’t restrict your food intake and supplies the necessary nutrients to keep your body going.
The good thing with intermittent fasting is that you don’t have to get through the adversity of hunger that lasts for a long. And essentially, it usually doesn’t program your brain into survival mode and stash up food as fat when you resume eating.
What are the Effects of Starving Yourself to Lose Weight?
Starving yourself to lose weight might seem like a glossy idea, and you could achieve the desired results. Undoubtedly, it’s the quickest way to drop extra pounds since you’ll likely lose at least two kilograms in only five days. However, that doesn’t come with discomfort and some side effects you might find challenging.
While this method can seemingly offer you quick results, here are the drawbacks you should know of:
- Slowed Body Metabolism
Starving yourself might not be a good idea after all since it leads to a drastic reduction in your body’s metabolism. Calorie deprivation causes the body to reduce its resting metabolic rate through adaptive thermogenesis.
The body burns fewer calories in this state to preserve energy. If your body’s metabolisms slow, you’re also more likely to feel fatigued often, which isn’t a general feeling you’d want to be in. Also read: How To Lose Weight Fast In Minute?
- Retarded Body Development
Growth takes some energy, and your body may preserve it for survival. That stalls its development, and you may experience poor general health, which can be alarming.
Your hair may become brittle in prolonged periods of starvation, and your digestion and hunger regulation may be lacking, leading to stomach discomfort. Your skin is also likely to appear aged, and your bones may weaken. In truth, that’s not near anything you’d want.
- Declined Mental Health
Your brain depends on food to function correctly; starving yourself only cuts off the nutrient supply. You may develop fears around food choices and be obsessed with food and water. Besides, you’ll likely stop eating as usual once you resume eating. These disorders can make your weight loss effort unworthy and may be more detrimental than helpful.
Conclusion
Starving yourself may help you lose weight quickly, and rightly so. A lack of sufficient food makes the body turn to digest its fat, significantly shrinking it. However, it’s not a typically practical way to lose weight if you aim to burn fat healthily. Starvation may seem to work in the long term, but it negatively impacts your health. Therefore, it’s safe to say that while it may be one of the dieting options you may opt for, it’s not ideal in the long term. You could opt for intermittent fasting instead since it’s safer and more effective.
