Fasting diet - benefits for the body and figure

Trying to get closer to the cherished number on the scales, the desired reflection in the mirror, people try diet after diet. Mentally cursing the hated regime and the world around them, dreaming of eating a small piece of chocolate cake, many break down and start again every week. Perhaps, instead of exhausting diets, it is better to have a fasting day? How to choose the right mode, to become not an enemy, but an ally of the body? What exactly is a fasting diet for cleansing the body?

The fasting diet is very popular among those who want to lose weight and cleanse the body. There are a lot of options for days for cleansing and polar opinions on this matter. The first consider the mentioned days to be a lifesaver, instantly transforming a person. The latter are categorically against fasting days, classifying them as ambiguous mono-diets.

General rules

Fasting days are prescribed for medical reasons for obesity , diabetes , atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases.
Carrying out fasting days for 1-2 days and no more than once a week is not dangerous to health and is recommended by doctors. Even one fasting day carried out incorrectly cannot significantly harm your health. On fasting days (or contrast days), a gentle regime is created for the internal organs and the removal of metabolic products is improved. As a result of unloading, metabolism improves, since the “shake-up” received by the body these days helps accelerate the burning of fat deposits. Since the calorie content these days does not exceed 600-1000 kcal, unloading is effective for weight loss.

However, restricting your diet for 1-2 days does not lead to sustainable weight loss. Returning to a normal diet ends in weight gain. Therefore, short-term fasting without changes in daily nutrition and without physical activity is useless for weight loss. Short-term fasting prepares the body for the transition to healthy foods.

Various unloading options are best carried out against the background of various balanced dietary programs in order to reduce the calorie content of the daily diet and boost metabolism. According to the predominance of nutrients, unloading can be divided into protein (meat, fish, curd, kefir), carbohydrate (fruit, rice-fruit, vegetable), with the use of liquid (herbal tea, juices, rosehip decoction, green tea, mineral water). At the same time, it is not recommended to consume more than 2 kg of vegetables or fruits and 700 g of protein food during the day. Protein days allow you to maintain weight at the same level, and carbohydrate days will promote weight loss, but it will occur due to the loss of excess fluid.

The general rules are:

• consumption of low-calorie foods;
• eating up to 6 times in equal portions;
• exclusion of bread, sweets and salt;
• individual selection of products for fasting according to taste preferences, in order to prevent severe hunger and avoid overeating in the future;
• exclusion of heavy physical and mental stress;
• drinking enough liquid - the best choice would be still mineral water, regular filtered water, a decoction of rose hips and sea buckthorn (if the acidity of gastric juice is not increased);
• the next day after fasting, eat moderately; you should not pounce on food, catching up on lost time.

Fasting diets differ from fasting days in duration - usually three days or more. When undertaking longer fasting periods, think about the fact that an unbalanced diet when consuming one product, a lack of proteins, fats and carbohydrates can affect your health over time. Long-term and frequent use can lead to vitamin deficiency, anemia (especially in women given monthly blood loss), diseases of the digestive system and lead to muscle tissue degeneration. Therefore, if you practice unloading regularly, it is better to change the composition of the products.

This is the basis of the fasting diet for 3 days, which consists of 3 mono-diets, including only carbohydrates on some days, and only proteins on others. Each product is evenly distributed into 5-6 doses. Salt, spices and sauces should not be added to prepared dishes; tea should be drunk without sugar.

There are many options for a three-day diet, from which you can choose the most suitable one for you:

• The first day is buckwheat porridge, cooked from a glass of sorted buckwheat, without salt and butter. You can supplement your diet with green salad or spinach. Drink 1.5-2 liters of water during the day.
• Second day - boiled chicken breast (700-800 g) without salt, water with lemon juice and green tea without sugar.
• Third day - 1.5 liters of kefir.

According to the second option, on the first day, boiled chicken meat is included in the same quantity, on the second day - a salad without salt from fresh vegetables (cabbage, celery, carrots - 0.5 kg each), seasoned with lemon juice, on the third day - 4- 5 pieces of grapefruit and 10 cups of green tea without sugar. It is recommended to drink 2 liters of still water on all days.

According to the third nutrition option, on the first day you can eat boiled veal (chicken), cooked without salt. The second day is devoted to vegetables and fruits, 1.5-2 kg per day in total. Third day - 1.5 liters of kefir.

These diets, designed for 3 days, allow you to reduce weight by 2-3 kg. It is not recommended to create additional stress on the kidneys while on them by taking diuretics or diuretic herbs. Diets are easy to tolerate, but they cannot be carried out every week.

Advice from nutritionists

For fasting days, you should not choose milk as the main product consumed. Only 10% of adult children are able to digest lactose, which is part of it. It is better to give preference to fermented milk products. They do not contain lactose and are better absorbed by the body.

If you choose juice fasting days, drink fresh vegetable juices. They have a lower concentration of acids. Don't forget about your drinking regime. the rule of 1.5-2 liters of water per day always remains in force. Give preference to warm, clean liquid.

You should not choose fruits for a fasting mono diet. They contain a lot of sugar, which provokes an active release of insulin into the blood. You may begin to have problems with the pancreas and endocrine system.

Before starting the diet, you must undergo a medical examination.

Authorized Products

A fasting diet for 3 days includes a limited list of products:

• Buckwheat for cooking porridge in water without salt and oil.
• Boiled chicken breast or chicken meat without skin in the amount of 700-800 g (optimal, allowed by nutritionists). It is possible to increase the amount of meat when you feel hungry.
• Kefir 1% in the amount of 1.5 liters.

If you choose a 7-day diet, additionally included:

• Non-starchy vegetables: tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, Chinese cabbage, greens, lettuce, cucumbers. Any fish prepared by boiling or baking without salt or spices.
• Beef instead of chicken, rabbit or turkey, cooked by boiling or baking without salt or fat.
• Low-fat cottage cheese instead of kefir.
• Eggs instead of meat.
• Unsweetened berries and fruits with a calorie content of up to 45 kcal in a total amount of 1.5 kg per day: apricots, pineapples, pomelo, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, watermelon, cherries, pears, tangerines, nectarines, peaches, feijoa, plums, cherries, cherries , apples, mulberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, strawberries, princessberries, blueberries.
• Purified water up to 2 liters, herbal teas, green tea with lemon, rosehip infusion, freshly squeezed juices of vegetables and unsweetened fruits.

Fasting week for weight loss - menu for every day

With improper nutrition, our body is capable of accumulating toxins and wastes that need to be removed from time to time. The ideal option for solving the problem of cleansing the body and effectively “burning” weight is a fasting week for weight loss, because its menu is designed to minimize the amount of high-calorie and harmful foods, replacing them with healthy and wholesome foods. The menu for the week is presented with a large number of options, which makes it easier to choose a diet that suits your parameters.

What is a fasting week?

If problems with excess weight have begun to negatively affect your health and self-esteem, it’s time to start looking for a suitable weight loss method. All over the world, every year there are a large number of supporters of fasting weeks for weight loss. The weekly diet is becoming increasingly popular due to its short duration. The body does not fall into a stressful state, because the optimal amount of food does not allow the feeling of hunger to develop. The main goal is to lose weight and cleanse the body by reducing the daily amount of calories.

Fasting diets

Due to their short duration and varied diet, fasting diets are easy to tolerate and help you lose up to 7 kilograms. You can choose any type of diet, but you should minimize the consumption of spices and salt (retains fluid in the tissues). Drinks you should choose are filtered water, compotes and green tea. You can carry out unloading 1-2 times a week for two days, but with a daily change of menu it can be extended. A fasting diet for a week can consist of protein (meat and vegetable proteins), carbohydrate, fat or liquid days (broths).

For 7 days

There are several options for conducting a weekly diet, the most optimal of which allows you to arrange and alternate days with different selections of products. A fasting diet for 7 days helps to remove a few extra pounds without much effort, but if you are overweight, it will not be enough. The advantages of such a system are the absence of the feeling of hunger and the saturation of the body with necessary nutrients. After it, you don’t need to worry that the lost kilograms will return if you continue to adhere to a balanced diet.

Fasting week for weight loss, sample menu for one day:

Advantages and disadvantages

Is it possible to deceive the body?

An abrupt cessation of weight loss is due to the fact that the body begins to suspect something is wrong a few days after a complete restructuring of your diet.
Most often, diets involve an extreme reduction in calorie intake. This immediately works for the benefit of our figure - excess fat is broken down to ensure the normal functioning of all organs and systems. However, after just a few days, the body begins to behave very anxiously - it worries that it has found itself in conditions of starvation for a long period, and begins to panicky put aside all the nutrients for future use in order to protect itself from exhaustion. Despite this physiological feature of humans, the “plateau effect” can be avoided. A fasting diet that should be followed for one day will help you do this. In the following days, there is no need to give up your chosen diet; with short-term fasting, you do not complete the main stage of losing weight, but only give a shake-up to your metabolism, speeding it up. Returning to your usual diet, you will again notice how the extra centimeters and kilograms will disappear.

Why fasting diets don't work

Despite the fact that nutritionists have proven the effectiveness of fasting days, you may not notice the desired result. This happens for the following reasons:

• improper nutrition in the intervals between fasting;
• irregular cleaning;
• the presence of chronic or acute diseases.

Remember that to cleanse the body and lose weight, one day spent on a meager diet will only be useful if you have already chosen the right balanced diet for yourself and have excluded harmful trans fats (cakes and pastries), fast food, semi-finished products from your menu, soda and other harmful products. It is important not to skip your fasting days - do them once a week, preferably on a weekend.

Potential danger

Any mono diet does not provide the body with the necessary amount of nutrients, so it should not be long-lasting. It is optimal to arrange one fasting day. Sometimes this period can be extended to three days. A week-long fasting diet will no longer be beneficial. Products must be selected carefully, taking into account their potential harm. If you decide to engage in therapeutic fasting, you need to prepare for this process in advance.

You can't starve yourself. If you feel dizzy, nauseous, have pain in the abdomen, or cannot go to the toilet, you must immediately stop the diet, visit a nutritionist, and ask to adjust your diet.

How unloading works

The main goal of a one-day or longer fasting diet is to cleanse the body of waste, toxins and excess fluid. At this time, you will not have to sit only on water (although such diet options do exist), you will just need to significantly reduce the calorie content of your food (compared to your usual diet).

The following products help you lose weight and cleanse your body:

• fermented milk (fat content - 1.5%, no more);
• vegetables;
• fruits;
• buckwheat porridge;
• Hercules;
• lean varieties of meat and fish.

Diets based on groups of nutrients are also widely used; for example, protein or carbohydrate days can be arranged in order to rearrange metabolic processes.
The essence of eating foods from one group is that they do not put a large burden on the gastrointestinal tract and allow the body to digest everything that has accumulated in it during normal food consumption. Such techniques are suitable not only for weight loss, but also for improving the condition of the skin, since they cleanse the intestines of toxins and waste, which most often cause acne and pimples.

Psychologically, surviving for several days on a low-calorie menu will be quite simple; it is much more convenient than various long-term diets. However, it is worth remembering that even if you follow the diet for 1 day, you need to properly prepare for it and exit it correctly. To do this, you should not overeat on the evening before the fasting day; it is best to get by with a glass of kefir or a light vegetable salad. On the first day after unloading, you also do not need to immediately pounce on high-calorie foods; it is best to gradually introduce familiar dishes into your diet over several days.

Reviews and results

Three-day fasting diets, due to their short duration and composition, are easier to tolerate and help to slightly reduce weight. They can be used when you need to quickly lose a few kilograms. Longer unloadings are more effective, but can have a negative impact on health due to their imbalance. Therefore, before you start eating according to such a system, you should consult a nutritionist.

• “... I’m used to the fact that my weight either decreases or increases if I start eating everything. I often try different fasting and diets. I noticed that after a three-day fast it is easier to switch to proper nutrition, as the stomach contracts and something changes in the body. The last time I lost 3 kg in 3 days, and then switched to a balanced diet, which included cereals, meat, eggs, fish, vegetables and fruits. I only eat protein with vegetables, and porridge separately from everything else. I excluded sweets. I can eat healthy bread as a snack. Of course, such nutrition does not cause hunger and you feel comfortable, but the weight decreases very slowly. I decided to do 1-3 day fasting against the backdrop of such a diet - it would be correct and more effective.”
• “... I do three-day fastings every two months. This is not harmful to health and not at all difficult. I tried the seven-day plan only once, but failed on the fifth day. I can say that after I started practicing fasting, I don’t feel like eating unhealthy food (I call it food garbage). I already forgot when I ate hamburgers, chips, salted nuts and crackers, sweet cookies and candies. I replaced all this with dried fruits, raw nuts and seeds, flax seeds, and cookies made from whole grain flour with bran, which I bake myself. I eat honey instead of sugar; they didn’t make jam. I began to eat fish and meat only boiled or baked and switched to vegetable soups. If you eat this way, and even “cleanse” and unload the body, everything will be fine – both weight and health.”

Options for fasting diets

The most common in our time are one-day mono-diets for cleansing the body and losing weight - they include eating one product. However, there are also longer-term nutrition systems that will help you lose excess weight not as quickly as express diets, but much more effectively.

Fasting diet for 3 days

This nutrition system consists of three simple mono-diets, which are followed every day in turn. During the entire period of dietary nutrition, you need to drink at least 2 liters of purified non-carbonated water an hour before a meal or an hour after it.

• Day 1 – steam 1 cup of buckwheat with boiling water in the evening, without adding sugar, salt or other ingredients. In the morning we divide the porridge into 5 parts, which we consume throughout the day.
• Day 2 – protein day. During this time, we should eat no more than 500 g of boiled chicken fillet without skin and fat; you can also drink green tea and still water with lemon between meals.
• Day 3 – drink 1.5 liters of kefir with a fat content of no more than 1.5% in small portions throughout the day. Don't forget to follow the drinking regime.

It is best to drink all liquids in small sips during a diet - this way the body will have time to absorb the beneficial substances from them. It is also important that drinks are at room temperature, since our body tries to eliminate cold drinks as quickly as possible. If you repeat this unloading once a week, you can get rid of 3-4 kg of excess weight in a month.

Basic principles

Basic rules and principles of the fasting diet:

• At least five meals a day;
• Small portions;
• Compliance with the drinking regime - 1.5-3 liters of clean still water per day, depending on the initial weight;
• Combining proper nutrition and physical activity.

During a fasting diet, you should not feel hungry. Monitor your gastrointestinal tract. If you are prone to constipation, do not forget to introduce fiber into your diet - fresh green vegetables, bran, and some types of grains.

If there is the slightest deterioration in general health, the diet should be stopped. Try to rid yourself of temptations if you are not confident in your own willpower. It is advisable that there are no prohibited products in the house at all. On the days of the fasting diet, you will have to refuse to attend public catering. Following these simple rules will allow you to pass this test and even enjoy the unloading. The body will say “Thank you” to you; it will be cleansed of toxins and harmful substances. In this way you can accelerate metabolic processes in the body. Metabolism slows down with age, but there are simple rules for speeding it up. Fasting days, which are designed correctly, help with this.