Fat Loss Tips

Clearly, fasting is an effective way to lose unnecessary body fat, but once the fat has melted away restoring a youthful physique, how do we keep it off?  Should a fasting regime be practiced to maintain weight loss? The answer is a simple one.  Never use fasting as your primary source of keeping weight off.  The secret is to learn how to fast healthy and eat healthy.  You fast to lose weight, than you eat in a way to keep the weight off.  That’s balance.  Lets learn how.

First you must understand when I say weight management I do not mean the endless seesaw action of gaining and losing weight.  We are all sick of that ride where eating is ether a mathematical equation of calorie counting or a mindless overindulgence.  No, I am speaking about managing body weight as a consistent dietary lifestyle.
I have a friend who is an avid faster.  In fact he finds it easy to fast and has done it  often throughout the years.  On the surface it would seem he has steel discipline, effortlessly doing what others find to be a great challenge.  His self-imposed purpose is to become a fruitarian and for twenty years has read and studied the health benefits of eating an all-fruit diet.  Yet never has he been able to put together more than 14 days of fruit eating, experiencing countless failed attempts.  My friend eats better than most people I know, but in his words, always “blows it”, gorging with franticness and absurd extreme.  I found it difficult to witness these compulsive exhibitions because I knew the aftermath would be guilt and depression, leading to yet another joyless fast.  This abusive cycle has continued for years and probably is still continuing.  He is thin and in good shape but there is no joy and little freedom in eating.
  
Not long after opening our Internet Bulletin Board, I became increasingly alarmed about some of the posts popping up here and there.  Over time we learned that a website which promoted anorexia had linked to our website.  I immediately went and looked in no way prepared for what I was about to see.  A mixture of shock and profound grief griped my heart as I read the melancholy testimonies of young women emasculated with self-hate, repulsed by their own bodies, never thin enough.  Most of the testimonies came with photos of themselves, a macabre gallery of gradual suicide, skin stretched over skeletons, large, hopeless eyes set in bony faces, wearing their gauntness like a cry for help.  Weeping, I was appalled that a ministry created to bring freedom was being used to enable obsession.  It was a mockery directly from Satan, soiling the purity of our work into desecration. We responded quickly by offering a forum on our Board for those suffering with sever eating disorders, enlisting the help of an Anorexia and Bulimia Counselor and providing links to other Eating Disorder Recovery sites.
 
Satan is a god of extremes.  He will gladly offer the two extremes of obesity and anorexia as long as it is he who is in control and not you.
 
Nervosa/Anorexia/ plus some other related eating disorders:
Tragically it is not until we see an unbalance taken to the extreme that we can begin to recognize its peril within ourselves.  The images of those young woman has forever changed how I look at my own body-focus.
No matter what type of personality God has planted in you, practicing fasting or dietprograms as a means of balancing the scales is unhealthy.  Bingeing and purging is harmful and emotionally dangerous.  You have replaced one damaging cycle for another.  There is no freedom and joy in such a cycle, only slavery and guilt.  
Fasting is an exciting way to begin a healthy diet, by this excess body fat quickly drops, maybe you will notice it  the first time in years.  Fasting can produce a temporary altered state¾hunger and craving shut down.  Often, while fasting, feelings of euphoria and emotional balance can be enjoyed.  Those with an obsessive personality are attracted to fasting almost like the escape of drugs.Problem is, later or sooner you must face the voracious world including all its trappings.The junk-food  corner will call you invariably after they have waited patiently.  What was pushed into the peripheral through fasting, is now back into the fore.  Voracious hunger awakens from sleep; the fragrance of KFC is all the more intoxicating.  In fact, some find themselves worse off and within day’s rush to their old food-lovers, fulfilling the axiom, “distance makes the heart grow fonder.
 
I have fasted to gain lost ground on a slipping diet or to break a tenacious addiction or even detoxify after Christmas feasting¾this has been very effective for me.  The fast re-establishes focus on Christ.  This can be healthy and balanced.  Once the fast is completed, my diet reflects the spiritual freedom found during the fast.  In other words, the fast is more about warfare than weight.      
Where do we cross the line from healthy concern to obsession?  The simplest way for me to answer this important question is by creating what I believe is a balanced and healthy lifelong weight management program, avoiding the endless seesaw action of gaining and losing weight through fad dieting or quick-fix fasting. 

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