On one hand, it kick starts the weight loss for the diet.

And it can make the diet food taste good. They say hunger is the best sauce.

On the other hand, you inhale the limited portions and are at risk of binging because

it isn't enough.

After fasting, a small meal is fine.

But your body wants to get back to its old weight. You'll break the fast and then start

craving a heavy meal.

If I've been fasting, then small meals will seem larger than they really are. Fasting

shrinks your stomach.

Not so fast. Fasting may put your metabolism in starvation mode, making it more efficient

with the calories it gets.

That sounds like a good thing.

Not if it means you end up needing few calories to operate. Then you could end up gaining

weight on a diet that previously would have been enough to sustain you.

That would be counter-productive.

And fasting can lead to yo-yo dieting. Yo-yo dieting increases your odds of a heart attack.

I thought fasting led to improved life expectancy.

Caloric restriction combined with adequate nutrition increased life expectancy in flies.

Do you really want to spend years starving yourself in the hope of living a few more

years?

That reminds me of the comic where the couple is in heaven and they see the junk food buffet,

and the guy says if they hadn't bothered with the heart healthy diet they'd have been here

ten years ago.

You will live longer if you eat healthy. But fasting is the opposite of eating.

Fasting can help you eat healthy.

By making spinach taste good the first time you eat it, maybe. However, it only helps

you lose weight if your average calorie consumption goes down, but most people respond to fasting

by binging.

Or they respond to binging with fasting.

They'd be better of responding to a binge by hitting the gym for a few hours the next

day. They'll burn more off than if they starved themselves.