It is common sense and obvious to me that people have been dieting since the invention of the mirror. Vanity is nothing new; it simply has become magnified over time. Fast weight loss diet programs to burn fat and lose weight are a dime a dozen nowadays. But how did it all begin?
Today, experts tell us lean people live longer and are more productive in their daily lives. For this reason, millions have embarked upon some sort of weight loss program. Although millions diet and exercise to live longer or feel better and have more energy, my guess is that the majority do so to look better. We aspire to the lean image portrayed by those we see on television, and print ads, and in movies.
Years ago, people who wanted to lose fat did so based upon a very limited amount of information. Before the invention of the word "calorie," people lost weight by fasting. Fasting was introduced to mankind by God. The Jews fast, as do the Christians and Muslims. All do so because God told the prophets that abstaining from food was good for the soul as well as the physical body. A common physical change that all three groups noticed was a loss in weight, and a decrease in body fat. Thus, to lose weight, the first dieter would abstain from food and drink water. It was then, and is today, a proven way to lose fat, albeit an extreme approach.
When a person abstains from food, the body has to break down body tissue to use for survival. Most of this fuel comes from stored energy in the form of body fat reserves. Unfortunately, a severe fast is also a dangerous fast because the body also calls upon other tissues to be used as fuel. With fasting, the body chooses a mixture of stored body fat as fuel and lean body mass.
Lean body mass is readily tapped as fuel. Just as the body taps body fat and breaks it down to use as energy, it can do the same with muscle and organs. When deprived of food, the body can easily break down the heart, liver, and other organs to make fuel. The body will also rip apart the muscles throughout the body to make fuel during a starvation fast. While fat is burned up quickly as fuel, muscle and organs are also burned. This can lead to exhaustion and eventually death. So, we can conclude, the fast, while spiritually advantageous, isn't exactly the smartest approach to losing fat.
Once people figured out prolonged fasting works, but the negative outcome was death, they began to alter the fasting approach to weight loss. Thus, the modified fast was born.
The modified fast involved abstaining from food completely for as long as you could, and when you finally broke down, your willpower crushed and your appetite screaming in high gear, you would eat. Some would eat a small amount and drink a ton of water to suppress the appetite, but others would go crazy, break down, and eat as if it was their last meal on Earth, probably negating any fat lost during a few days of fasting.
Eventually, drugs were introduced that would suppress the appetite. But these led to too many dangerous side-effects, and many of them are now illegal. Many other diet theories and programs have been developed since. And the truth is that many of them actually do work, but the question is, "How well? How simple? And how easy to maintain?"
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