In another quest for knowledge, I got to thinking about fasting, the act of not eating for a period of days - whether it be religious or whatever. Now supposedly people would do this all the time back in the (Holy) day, and I suppose some still do to this day. Now considering you’re already a healthy-plump person, how healthy could fasting be for you? How much weight would you lose if you ate nothing (or for the sake of arguing, incredibly small amounts of food like a cracker a day or something) and drank only water? What would be the negative health effects, ignoring death if you were to permanently fast. Would this be an effective way to quickly lose weight if one did? Any other information on this topic would be nice, not that I want to do it or would ever. I couldn’t go a day without sneaking some food. 
Holy crap, so sorry for the triple post… It got tired of waiting after 4 minutes and thought the server timed out.
“Trust the CGI.” — Gaudere
Fasting was very unhealthy for Bobby Sands.
At least one person has died while attempting to follow the “Breatharian” discipline of Australian guru/head case Jasmuheen, aka Ellen Greve. This programme involves no food or drink for a week, after which you supposedly are able to live entirely on spiritual nourishment and don’t need to eat any more. Jasmuheen claims not to have eaten anything bar the occasional snack for some ridiculous number of years; a sceptic and cynic like myself might suspect that her “occasional snacks” actually add up to a balanced diet…
Going without liquid seems to be the dangerous bit; I think (haven’t found a cite yet) the record for survival without any food or water is on the order of nine or ten days (suggesting the Breatharian one-week routine is seriously risky), whereas survival with water but no food allows much longer survival times (the figure of 174 days is floating at the back of my mind, but I can’t remember where it’s floating from).
Obviously, if you use up more calories in a day than you’re taking in, you’ll lose weight. It’s not a method I would choose, though; starvation has other effects on human physiology, and if you’re not eating anything, you’re not getting any vitamins either… deficiency diseases, assuming you live that long, would eventually really ruin your day.
I believe that crash dieting doesn’t tend to work in the long run; you start off apparently losing a good bit of weight, but actually most of that will be fluid that was stored in association with your glucose reserves, when the glucose runs out, two things happen; your metabolism goes into ‘famine mode’ and you get lethargic, so you burn less calories and don’t lose much weight, plus you suffer intense cravings to binge on high-energy foods; succumbing to this urge may actually result in a net increase in body weight. (that’s my understanding anyway, but I’m not a doctor, so forgive me if I’ve oversimplified or twisted something).
As long as you are drinking water and you have some body fat to use up, then you’re most likely to suffer Vitamin deficiency before actual starvation; Scurvy and things like that.
Fasting can be very effective for the spiritual purposes it is designed for- going without food for a safe, reasonable amount of time can help to clear you head and help you focus.
But it isn’t a good method of weight loss, because you gain back the weight you lose once you start eating again.
Also, and I hope I don’t sound too offensive here, it is an insult to the religious and spiritual traditions already mentioned to fast as a ‘double-header:’ “Try fasting! Improve your connection to the Divine AND shed unwanted pounds fast!”
Fasting is actually a good form of self control. The best way to see if you’re right for it is try a juice fast.
Basically it’s an for 24 hours you will only drink a liquid. Actually you only drink 16 hours the other is assumed you are asleep.
Basically you wake up at 6am and drink one SIX (6) Ounce glass of juice. (grape, grapefruit, apple, orange etc). At 7am you would drink one cup 8 ounces of HERBAL tea. Then at 8 am you go back to your juice (but pick a different one than you had from before – Supposedly keeps you from getting bored.). At nine you get back with the tea. You can substitue decaffinated coffee (BLACK) or diet soda for the tea as long as it has no caffine.
This continues and of course you can have all the water you want.
Then at the end of 24 hours you go back to eating regular. If you do this on Sunday, and on Monday you don’t need to eat like a horse you should continue this the next week.
You are supposed to do this for a month and if it all goes good, pick two consectutive days for the next month. Say Sat and Sun.
The purpose of this is to give your body a rest from food, and it is low calorie. But it is more of a self dicipline thing that a weight loss technique. I tried it for a month and it was OK.
Obviously if you’re a diabetic or have health problems this won’t work. But fasting for small periods of time, a day or so is really not a problem as long as you drink water and have no major health issues.
I thought the OP’s question was asking something else … boy am I glad I previewed my post and caught it. (fAsting, ohhhhhh.)
For some orthodox Christians, fasting consists of not eating meat, fish, dairy or eggs for an extended period of time. The only problem with this is a lack of B12, or cyanocobalamin, which is easily overcome with supplements.
So did I, only I originally read it as “How bad is farting for you?”