Does fasting help purify the body and lose weight?

Doctor Dinh Tran Ngoc Mai , Department of Nutrition - Dietetics, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, answered: To lose weight effectively, cutting calories is very important. However, some people take drastic measures such as fasting to reduce daily calories.

Fasting involves not eating for long periods of time instead of eating regular meals. A popular concept recently is intermittent fasting for weight loss. This method helps maximize fat burning for energy. There is evidence that alternating between fasting and eating periods can help you lose weight, but not more than if you cut calories during the day while still eating regular meals. Fasting or intermittent fasting has a number of other benefits, besides weight loss.

Unscientific fasting will lead to serious consequences.

Fasting gives the body time to heal, helping to reduce things that can harm the heart, such as lowering blood pressure, lowering blood sugar, and lowering blood cholesterol levels. So the key to the effectiveness of fasting is from reducing food consumption, leading to reduced calorie intake, and ultimately weight loss.

Who should not fast?

Fasting has some benefits, but some people should not fast, including women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Fasting is also not recommended for some people with diabetes, as it can cause dangerously low blood sugar levels. Avoid fasting if you are recovering from an illness or undergoing cancer treatment and need to maintain or gain weight.

Unscientific fasting will lead to serious consequences such as stomach ulcers, lack of vitamins and minerals due to malnutrition, physical weakness, fatigue, hypoglycemia, memory loss... Therefore, to lose weight instead of fasting, starving to lose weight, maintain a healthy lifestyle, eat enough meals, diversify foods, choose healthy foods, eat enough fiber, protein and reduce sweets, saturated fats such as fat, viscera, margarine...

Remember, the key to losing weight is to reduce calories intake and increase expenditure through exercise. Any other support measures such as intermittent fasting only make cutting calories easier but also have many harmful effects on the body.

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