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Obesity Cured in Mice

Tellenbach

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Harvard study: Could Chinese ‘thunder god vine’ plant be cure-all for obesity?

In a paper published in the journal Cell on Thursday, scientists said an extract made from the plant reduces food intake and has led to a dramatic 45 percent decrease in body weight in obese mice.

It's a leptin sensitizer; leptin tells people they've eaten enough.

In the study, Ozcan found that with only one week of treatment with an extract made from thunder god vine -- which they called Celastrol -- the mice reduced their food intake by 80 percent as compared with those who did not get the extract. Three weeks later, those mice had lost nearly half of their initial body weight.

The results were even more effective than a drastic measure used to reduce weight: bariatric surgery. In addition, scientists reported that they saw other positive health effects from decreased cholesterol levels to improved liver functions.

I'm impressed. Some enterprising farmer should start growing this stuff and selling it.
 
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By far the most effective weigh loss tool I've encountered is water. If you "eat" only water for two weeks you lose ~10kg, and the loss is mostly fat. Of course after this treatment it is recommended to get back your normal weight in the form of muscle by eating clean and training enough. This worked for me even when I had an extreme hormonal imbalance years ago and I couldn't really train and lose weight that way for many reasons. It helped me not only to shed almost 20kgs of fat but completely cured my high blood pressure and bounced me back to almost normal hormonally within a month. The problem with not eating is not hunger (as after a 1-2 days you are not hungry at all) but the fact that it makes your days extremely boring.
 

Tellenbach

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I read that obese humans can go months without food (like estivating bears); starvation as a weight loss strategy seems like a no-brainer to me. Just drink a bunch of essential nutrient enriched water and watch the pounds fly off.
 
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An average person (not an obese one) dies after about 1,5-2 months without food. I've read that some morbidly obese man (~200kgs) lost most of they weigh by going without food for several months that exceeded even the half year mark. Although my guess would be that during that long period they probably had to consume at least some zero calorie nutrients/minerals in some way... There are actually fasting clinics in some parts of the world where you can fast for long periods with supervision. It is said to cure type2 diabates... And experiencing its effectiveness on myself I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

Its very difficult to go without food but the gains are enormous. I went without food for a month, lost all of my fat and in the next month I regained the lost weigh in muscle (I had a six pack). People couldn't really believe the whole things. I got a lot of attention when my face, stomach, and thighs started to get very skinny at the 3 week mark from very fatty, I looked ridiculous in my jeans before I bought a new one. Not eating for that long is very difficult but I felt so crappy from my hormonal imbalance and from the overweight (I was unable to sleep for more than 5 hours, always tired, ....) that I had enough motivation to try this method. Not eating for a long time makes you extremely tired, after few weeks you get almost fainted if you stand up quickly (probably low blood pressure), its difficult to move up on stairs after two weeks. However, when you break the fast even with low calorie foods you get back on track so quickly that its amazing. With hormonal imbalance I felt like crap after trying to run with medium speed for 5 minutes. After 2-3 days of breaking my fast I could run almost half hour with constant 10-12km/h speed. I could sleep 10hour/day again. I was completely refreshed compared to the previous myself.
 

kyuuei

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This is, of course, assuming obesity is solely based on food consumption.. Obesity comes in many forms, and calories in/out isn't the only aspect there. It is always a little irking to hear buzz words like "cure-all" when talking about the scientific merits of something as complex as obesity.

In fact, I'd dare say that searching for things like this (eating something to cure not eating things) is really always a step backwards in 'curing' the 'obesity epidemic'. There is no cure for something that's pretty normal.
 

Tellenbach

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kyuuei said:
There is no cure for something that's pretty normal.

Clearly there is a demand for a weight loss treatment and eating some herb seems much safer than having bariatric surgery.

"Normal" is subjective but the medical consensus is that obesity is a disease that leads to heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

Is this normal?
Dan-Dan-obese-300x274.jpg
 
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It is based on the assumption that not eating food for a prolonged period allows your body to rest and repair with light speed compared to when you are eating one meal after the other all day.

Obesity is self generating. The fattier you get, the harder to get rid of fat. More fat -> more estrogen -> more fat -> more estrogen. When I had ~20kg fat I wasn't able to sustain normal training length I remained fatty even if I consumed minimal food. Besides this your body is much more complex. It is not only estrogen, much more (like insulin resistance). A lot of chemicals providing very complex feedback loops that noone understands. For example type2 diabetes is also assumed to be a complex disturbance in this complex system. Aside from this: diabetes itself is not a binary yes/no, its symptoms gradually get worse and worse until you are marked/labelled as a person with type2 diabetes. Not to mention that diabetes and insulin resistance are getting gradually worse for many people and at the same time they are getting fattier. There may be some correlation according to statistics...

When you don't eat for a prolonged period, very complex changes occur in your body. Genes switched that probably haven't switched for most in the last few decades... Within a few days your body switches to fat burning to provide almost 100% energy and only a few percentage comes from muscle because some tissues need blood glucose. I know from experience that you really lose mostly fat if you eat zero calories. I couldn't do this by eating only a few calories. Many suggest that the body has a very clever mechanism to keep only what is necessary when you stop taking food. Anyway, why would your body store fat if it didn't have a mechanism to reuse it??? This would seem like an evolutionary dead end. Digesting is one of the most energy-wasting things for your body, have you ever been tired after a big lunch? And the bacteria in your gut releases tons of chemicals into your body during digestion that has to be handled. While you are not eating your body doesn't have to deal with that shit.

Somewhere else I've also read that the complex chemical messaging system of your body also get into much more resting state and this helps to get rid of the disturbances more easily although this is quite vague theory I've read on a blog but might be interesting for some scientists to investigate.

Another interesting thing: Many animals (e.g.: dogs) don't eat when they are ill. It often happens that ill people are not hungry (although forced to eat). Not eating is a natural reaction in some cases.

Anyhow, I've just mentioned this as an option that I've tried myself and found it extremely effective despite the debates around the topic on various forums. I'm really not the religious category and I'm basing my opinions on experience and/or evidence.
 
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Being fat is not normal for anyone. That child may be an exception (unlike most people) but it can not really be determined from a picture. Maybe he is just stuffed by his grandma (like I was). If he doesn't have a very rare disease then it should be possible to cure with less or zero calorie intake.

Most people are lazy, they want to sit in front of the TV, stuff chips into themselves but still lose weigh and look like Schwarzenegger. It is a demand for a dream. They should rather try not overeating and not eating crap. Getting rid of fat is much more difficult than maintaining a healthy body. When damage is already done then you have to invest a lot of energy to reverse the process.

A magic pill seems to be ridiculous. Blaming genes is also ridiculous, it applies to very few people. Reminds me of a documentary film in which an obese woman blamed genes - they asked her to drink some special liquid with which they could estimate the daily calorie intake. She said that she is eating normal amount of calories, the reality was 4000 per day.

Another thing: counting calories alone is mostly bullshit. I've experimented a lot with food and I know that I can eat a lot from certain types of food (regardless of its high calorie content) while others are literally poisoning me with instant fat gain. The allowed daily food intake also depends on the amount of your training. With regular heavy training it may easily happen that you can take in 2x-3x more food without fat gain.

Everybody should spend some time on the "health" topic to get to know their own bodies. Its really "simple" to lose weigh, its about food and physical activity, but mostly food. Other parameters of your body (insulin resistance, metabolism, ...) that affect weigh gain can be changed within weeks if you are not lazy.
 

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When a person stops eating, the body converts the fat into ketone bodies (acetone, acetoacetate, and beta-hydroxybutyrate), which are a form of fuel.

During short periods of energy abstinence, the human body will burn primarily free fatty acids from body fat stores. After prolonged periods of starvation the body has depleted its body fat and begins to burn lean tissue and muscle as a fuel source.

Starvation response

I also read that since cancer cells require glucose as an energy source (the Warburg effect), fasting (which depletes the body of glucose) will slow down cancer growth. This is the basis of the ketogenic diet.
 

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Low-carbohydrate diets also stimulate some of the hormonal and signalling patterns of starvation, and as someone who has dabbled with them before I can vouch for the fact that after "adapting" to a ketogenic diet for a month or so, I can easily go an entire day of at least mild physical labor without eating and I just feel... invigorated and not desiring of food for most of it.

It is the moment that I ingest food, ironically, when I start to feel my ease of willpower and ease of mental stability start to fall off.

It's a wonder I don't practice that all the time, but to be frank, I have 2 small kids and a wife who doesn't believe in restricting carbs (although she's starting to buckle as the evidence from her own minor mindfulness and experimentation of her diet has begun to show results) and vehemently rejects the "restrictionism" involved in low-carb dieting so it's very, very, very difficult for me to consistently sustain that in the context of my current lifestyle. (This is one reason I have a fundamental problem with "anti-nutritionism" mindsets; there is CLEAR EVIDENCE and consistent anecdotes at least in my case that some restrictions actually WORK)

Actually I wrote all that without spelling out the main point I was going to add-
As we're taught in low-carb books, SALT is a super important nutrient and I have found that consuming truly salty-tasting amounts of fluids helps allay the lightheadedness particularly during physical labor. The hormonal changes that occur in either starvation or low-carb dieting raise your requirement for sodium intake, and if my understanding of this is correct, the loss of sodium results in the loss of other electrolytes in a self-regulating manner, so sodium is of the utmost importance here.
 

kyuuei

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Clearly there is a demand for a weight loss treatment and eating some herb seems much safer than having bariatric surgery.

"Normal" is subjective but the medical consensus is that obesity is a disease that leads to heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

Is this normal?
Dan-Dan-obese-300x274.jpg

Who knows? I don't know what the child's medical status is.

The reality is, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease.. these are luxury things for humans to die from. Infections are the #1 killer in developing countries. And, realistically, we're all going to die. Obesity is fairly normal, not just for us--but for most of the animal kingdom. Left to their own devices, many animals become very fat, lazy, and die of heart disease and similar conditions. We're bright enough to figure out how to prolong our lives more and more through health and science and stuff, but obesity being an 'epidemic' leaves people with the impression it's a disease to be cured. It is not. It is a normal body process. It doesn't get cured. People's genetics predispose them to all sorts of body types, the BMI system is an absolute joke, and obesity is NOT a disease.

When (some) people get on steroids to cure REAL diseases, a side effect is swelling of the body, inflammation, and 'obesity' as a result. The body holds onto everything and doesn't let it go easily. So, while someone can be very active and eat literally half the calories I consume in a day's time, they'll be 'obese' by anyone's social standards until such a time as they can get off the steroids. They're doing everything right for their health, but they look like fat lazy slobs to people who don't know what's up. Health is not measured by body weight alone. No real doctor or nutritionist will tell you that. Calling people unhealthy based solely on their appearances and body weight is narrow minded, ignorant, and a convenient way to justify insertliterallyanybadhabitregardlinglogichere.

Eating a 'harmless herb' does NOT fix the reasons why people get obese in the first place.
 
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Low-carbohydrate diets also stimulate some of the hormonal and signalling patterns of starvation, and as someone who has dabbled with them before I can vouch for the fact that after "adapting" to a ketogenic diet for a month or so, I can easily go an entire day of at least mild physical labor without eating and I just feel... invigorated and not desiring of food for most of it.

It is the moment that I ingest food, ironically, when I start to feel my ease of willpower and ease of mental stability start to fall off.
Eating only a few calories per day for several days is much more difficult than eating zero for the reason you mentioned. If someone wants low calorie intake than the easiest to do it by eating those few calories in the evening. It is very easy to adapt to a daily pattern of eating only in the evening. For me this works like a miracle as I'm usually not hungry when I wake up and I can stay in this state until eating. Another good technique is drinking some water when the belly feels too empty/acidic. For me the only low calorie diet that works is the veggie-juice diet. If I'm hungry then I drink a lot of veggie juice (that is quite low calorie if you choose the right veggies) and I'm done for the next 1-2 hours and at the same time I'm filled with a lot of nutrients.
 

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best cure for obesity is always lots of water and daily half hour walks. in most cases, a noticeable change will occur within weeks. if the person is disabled and cannot walk, then there are alternatives to this means of exercise.
 
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We're bright enough to figure out how to prolong our lives more and more through health and science and stuff, but obesity being an 'epidemic' leaves people with the impression it's a disease to be cured. It is not. It is a normal body process. It doesn't get cured. People's genetics predispose them to all sorts of body types, the BMI system is an absolute joke, and obesity is NOT a disease.
Absolutely agree, and I would add some comments on this. Being able to gain weight is completely normal. Being able to gain weigh and store energy in some way (e.g.: fat) is actually an advantage for animals, this way they can survive for a very long time without hunting and food. It was also probably an advantage for humans too some time before the current civilization and in those ages I could easily imagine that being unable to gain and store fat was actually a disadvantage. In nature its also a somewhat self-balancing thing: If an animal becomes too fat to the extent that it can not move effectively then it definitely has to lose some weigh before going for the next hunt and they have to move their asses anyway to get food (unlike office worker).

Times have changed, and today a lot of people have access to almost infinite amount of food without having to make physical effort. This however doesn't mean that gaining 20kg extra fat and keeping it for prolonged periods is healthy, it is unhealthy to be fat and physically inactive for a long period.

Calling people unhealthy based solely on their appearances and body weight is narrow minded, ignorant, and a convenient way to justify insertliterallyanybadhabitregardlinglogichere.
I disagree. It is obviously visible when someone is overweight despite the fact that most people cover up to 90% of their bodies with clothes. BMI is bullshit but estimated body fat percentage is a quite good approximation when it comes to defining obesity. There are actually skinny but still "fatty" people that is probably another very unhealthy thing.

Having some degree of constant fat somewhere is not necessary unhealthy but the amount of the "still healthy" body fat percentage probably isn't as high as most people would like it to be. If someone is thinking whether he/she is overweight then the answer is probably yes. Being able to grab a big bunch of bacon located directly under your skin is a warning sign.

Eating a 'harmless herb' does NOT fix the reasons why people get obese in the first place.
Absolutely true. Most people go wrong with nearly zero physical activity and constantly eating more daily calories than necessary. Eating those calories from really bad sources (refined sugars, ...) just adds to the stack of problems. The most important things is having enough physical activity and not exceeding the necessary daily calories. The quality of food is only a little factor compared to the previous ones but a little bad can be a huge one when you have already screwed yourself up badly. The recommended daily calories (~2000/day) is bullshit. You have to find out your needs yourself based on your circumstances. It can be anywhere between 1000 and 5000 (or even more) depending on how physically active you are and what kind of foods you prefer.

Eating is a natural addiction. It provides a very huge dose of your daily joy. Do you remember that I mentioned that it's not hunger but extreme boredom is what makes prolonged fasting difficult? Eating less means less joy, it requires serious willpower to change your eating habits and to compensate with other things if necessary.
 
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kyuuei

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Times have changed, and today a lot of people have access to almost infinite amount of food without having to make physical effort. This however doesn't mean that gaining 20kg extra fat and keeping it for prolonged periods is healthy, it is unhealthy to be fat and physically inactive for a long period.

Something else that's changed is people's perceptions of health. Your statement that "gaining 20kg of extra fat and keeping it" isn't healthy is entirely wrong. Everything is subjective, and health is a very, very personal definition. The definition itself of health isn't stead fast, and medical experts argue about it all the time. Someone who was obsessed with being 'thin and trim' and gaining weight only to find mental satisfaction (and thus more physiologically healthy habits) is far healthier than the state they were in before. To use a personal example, my mother was 150 lbs and ballooned 100 EXTRA pounds for a long time. One would think that's unhealthy.. but no, her medication caused it (it's a side effect) but it was medication that saved her life. At 150 lbs, she could not physically push herself out of bed due to a muscle condition that's pretty rare to develop. Even 100 lbs heavier, she was FAR far healthier than she was when the doctors did not know what was wrong with her. And she eventually did start losing the weight when she got better control of her disease, but it took 7 years for everything to balance out.

You. Cannot. At all. Determine health based on looks. Is it Faaaairly safe to say that a 600 lb person has health issues? Yeah, sure. But the average citizen? You cannot make that call based on weight alone. Not for 20 kgs, or any other arbitrary number you throw in there.

I disagree. It is obviously visible when someone is overweight despite the fact that most people cover up to 90% of their bodies with clothes. BMI is bullshit but estimated body fat percentage is a quite good approximation when it comes to defining obesity. There are actually skinny but still "fatty" people that is probably another very unhealthy thing.

Yeah but defining obesity and equating obesity to ill health is where everyone messes up. Your BMI will not tell you how healthy you are in and of itself. I know people bigger than me, with more fat, that are excellent athletes and are in far better shape than I am and eat healthier than I ever will and they all have higher BMIs than I do at that. Yeah there's such a thing as skinny fat (I don't qualify for it, but I've known 118 lb women who have 50% BMI) but that's the exact problem with obesity--skinny fat is veiled, fat alone is seen as the enemy, and people are shamed for gaining weight. It's no wonder we have rampant anorexia in (particularly) women when blanket statements like "gaining 20kgs is bad for you" are made without batting an eye.. When clearly some people could definitely benefit from gaining all 20kgs and more.

Don't get me wrong.. I really dislike these 300lb+ "fat is beautiful" campaigns where people try to pretend being obese has no role at all in their health. Your body shape and size absolutely does play a role. But it is not the star role. That campaign is the extreme in the opposite direction. Looking at fat and obesity as a disease is the wrong attitude, and equating muscles and fit/skinny body types to healthy is grossly ignorant.

I do like what you mentioned about the calorie thing. People really don't need to fast (although when done right it is completely healthy and our bodies were engineered for withstanding fasting times) but knowing your particular body's caloric needs is important.
 

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Here's a cure for obesity ; don't fucking eat!
 
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Your statement that "gaining 20kg of extra fat and keeping it" isn't healthy is entirely wrong. Everything is subjective, and health is a very, very personal definition.
I think it isn't a wrong definition but it is a little inaccurate. Having 20kg of extra fat (or even only 10) contributes to degrading your health over time. 10-20kg of fat is a serious amount and it can considerably change the chemistry of your body. In some cases (e.g.: estrogen) even a little constant change can have a dramatic effect if you have it for a prolonged period (as your hormonal system works with very tiny amounts, yet it has a terribly huge impact). And fat tissue full of veins have a huge potential to change a lot of things even if it makes each of these parameters only a little bit worse. Basically all obese people have high blood pressure as you have to feed the extra tissue. This terribly increases the chance of heart problems especially in the long run. A lot of serious diseases are hands in hand with obesity even if we are looking only at trivial statistics.

There are people who are healthy and obese people but I'm pretty sure that their health constantly degrades over time because of their extra weight. Being overweight has some other trivial disadvantages, some of your joints wear away more quickly (typically the knee joint).

You. Cannot. At all. Determine health based on looks. Is it Faaaairly safe to say that a 600 lb person has health issues? Yeah, sure. But the average citizen? You cannot make that call based on weight alone. Not for 20 kgs, or any other arbitrary number you throw in there.
I can determine overweight based on look (and I'm not talking about BMI and total weigh, I'm talking about an approximate body fat percentage - its obvious when someone has fat under her skin and after some degree of obesity the shape of the body obviously reflects obesity), and overweight is something that slowly but inevitably ruins the body. Maybe the individual has gained it only recently as a result of laziness (or whatever), in this case her health may still be very good, but constantly worse and worse. healthy/unhealthy isn't a binary thing, there is a gray scale between the two. You can gradually push yourself towards the wrong end of the scale without noticing anything until you reach a critical point. The same is true about a lot of things, one of the most famous is type2 diabetes. Diabetes is not a binary yes/no, it develops gradually but after some time the individual reaches a point where it needs constant treatment to be able to keep an acceptable standard of life.

There are many things that contribute to the tendency of your health change but obesity is obviously a huge negative. It may happen that some other positive things balance it out to a zero-ish change but I highly doubt this.

Yeah but defining obesity and equating obesity to ill health is where everyone messes up.
I'm stating that obesity is a factor that constantly pushes your health towards the wrong end of the scale. Obesity is not necessary in direct correlation with the current state of someone's health, but it affects the tendency of the change of your health in a negative way.

We can define obesity in many weird ways. This is how I define it: If one can grab a considerable amount of fat under her skin then she is obese or she is on the right way to become one in the future. Another definition: If someone is thinking whether she is obese or not then the answer is yes. There are some people (but mostly men have the tendency to develop this) who gain most of their fat exclusively around their guts. I knew some guys who were very quite skinny, but they had a considerably large belly. Some say that this is the most dangerous form of obesity as it has more potential to screw up the chemistry around your essential organs (and I wouldn't be surprised if it would make the work of your organs more difficult because of physical things).

Today someone who can eat basically at any time of the day (and of course lives with this opportunity just for the sake of fun and joy) does not need any overweigh.
 

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I'm slightly wary of the promotion of self starvation here, it feels a little too close to promoting very dangerous image as desirable. If you live on just water for a month you run a lot of health risks. Even if you are obese. When you loose rapid weight this way it is mainly the water you are loosing because you have no salt intake to hold onto the water. You not only loose fat but also muscle as well as just a ridiculous amount of things your body needs. You become very tired, less alert, you may hallucinate, pass out, develop all sort of health complications.

I tried a juice diet but stopped after three days because I was so hungry and there was not enough fibre or pulp to fill me. If you want to do a detox or liquid diet I suggest a smoothie diet for a short period of time like one week, making sure you research it first and get a shopping list together which includes all the necessary supplements as well as fruits and vegetables. Spirulina, wheatgrass, acai berries, chia seeds and nuts are great things to stock for this kind of diet. If you want to continue a healthy lifestyle after that replace one meal per day or two snacks with a veggie or fruit smoothie.

Regular exercise is always good, agree with Kyuuei re: 1/2 hour walks every day. boost that up as and when you feel more energised but don't overdo it.

Also agreeing with Kyuuei re: gaining weight though health issues. Because there is so much fat phobia and fat shaming and name calling etc people forget that overeating in itself is a disorder and is often a psychological disorder. It's really quite sad that so many people accept hatred and bigotry of obesity.

I had a metabolic disorder after being pretty slim most of my life (anorexic at one stage) and it was absolutely awful. I first lost weight first but then i put on nearly four stones (28kg) in around 9 months and I suddenly became acutely aware of people watching me if I ate anything that could be construed even remotely crappy in public. People also found it hard to believe that I wasn't eating in secret too, even my own family... and they knew about the test results! I really was hardly eating at all, i was not hungry either but my thyroid had decided not to support me. I have not been obese but I was definitely firmly in the overweight category on the chart. I do think if I starved myself I probably would have lost weight, very slowly, but it would have been a stupid move in that state of health. Starvation can cause brain damage and ofc death, it is not advisable.
 
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I'm slightly wary of the promotion of self starvation here
I just mentioned fasting as a method at the beginning of the thread and all the rest of the debate was about obesity, noone promotes fasting or starvation. Besides: starvation and fasting (not eating) are not the same. Starvation is when your body lacks the necessary resources. If you are healthy, you are non-obese, then your body may lack the necessary resources after 4 weeks if you are not eating.

it feels a little too close to promoting very dangerous image as desirable.
Not being obese is not dangerous. How one gets rid of her overweight: I really don't care.

I tried a juice diet but stopped after three days because I was so hungry and there was not enough fibre or pulp to fill me.
One can get used to being filled only by liquid after a few days. The first fasting or low calorie diet is a pain in the ass not only because you are fighting against your eating *HABITS* but because you start to lose fat and a lot of crap stored in your fat may get released. The first time I fasted I felt like crap, like someone who is ill in the first 10 days but on my second fasting I haven't noticed anything.

You not only loose fat but also muscle as well as just a ridiculous amount of things your body needs. You become very tired, less alert, you may hallucinate, pass out, develop all sort of health complications.
You are physically more tired after two weeks (low blood sugar) but the rest of the things you listed will not happen with healthy people.

Also agreeing with Kyuuei re: gaining weight though health issues. Because there is so much fat phobia and fat shaming and name calling etc people forget that overeating in itself is a disorder and is often a psychological disorder. It's really quite sad that so many people accept hatred and bigotry of obesity.

I had a metabolic disorder after being pretty slim most of my life (anorexic at one stage) and it was absolutely awful. I first lost weight first but then i put on nearly four stones (28kg) in around 9 months and I suddenly became acutely aware of people watching me if I ate anything that could be construed even remotely crappy in public. People also found it hard to believe that I wasn't eating in secret too, even my own family... and they knew about the test results! I really was hardly eating at all, i was not hungry either but my thyroid had decided not to support me. I have not been obese but I was definitely firmly in the overweight category on the chart. I do think if I starved myself I probably would have lost weight, very slowly, but it would have been a stupid move in that state of health. Starvation can cause brain damage and ofc death, it is not advisable.
If you check out the beginning of the thread you will notice that I had basically the same issue 5 years ago, this is why I decided to try fasting and it worked like a charm for me, it cured me in a single month. I actually tried it because I was fed up with being fat and I stumbled upon things similar to this one: Effects of alternate fasting or very low calorie diet and low calorie diet on metabolic syndrome in severely obese patients

I had all sorts of hormonal imbalances, insulin resistance, and who knows... But again, I'm not promoting anything, I've just mentioned it. The whole debate is about whether obesity is healthy or not, and whether it is visible to other people or not. I think the right answers are pretty obvious. It is recommended to get rid of overweight not because it makes you look good, but because you make a favor for yourself with it by becoming more healthy and powerful. Looking better is just another nice side effect. I give no shit what people think about me, that wasn't the reason for me to lose weight. I'm not seeking the acceptance of others. My health is simply #1 for me.
 
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