why is it unhealthy to starve yourself?

Question

I want to basicly starve myself for a few days so i can lose 5 lbs, thats it only 5 lbs....i dont understand why its such a bad idea please explain? (im gonna eat dont get me wrong but im only gonna eat under 300 cals a day, and a ton of water)

Answer 1

There is a reason why starvation diets are called "crash" diets. When you deny yourself of the nutrition your body needs to function, you will "crash", literally, from fatigue and weakness. More than likely you will then "crash" into the pantry and eat everything in sight to satisfy your hunger.

In order to lose weight, you need to burn off more calories than you consume. A calorie is the standard unit of measurement for burning energy. To increase the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celcius, one calorie must be released. If a person consumes an average of 2000 calories per day, that person would need to expend enough energy to burn off more than that in order to lose weight.

It is the idea behind the starvation diet, therefore, to consume less than the daily recommended amount of calories to get through the day. By going through your regular routine and eating significantly less, you should be losing pounds every day, right? Not always.

You Need To Eat!

When you deny your body the food it needs to function, amazing things happen. Your body is equipped with its own natural security system that works to repair things that go wrong, or adjust to drastic situations like changes in temperature or lack of nutritition. When your body detects a dramatic decrease in food intake, it takes measure to ensure that you can still function.

When you starve yourself on purpose, your body seeks to preserve fuel. Therefore, your fat stores are preserved — the very same stores you are trying to burn away! As a result, the food you do intake in this time doesn't burn away as quickly as you would expect, because your body is hanging onto to every bit to save for later!

What is burned instead? Muscle. Remember, muscle weighs more than fat, and the body has to expend something in order to keep you moving. Therefore, starving yourself will do more harm than good. It may seem contradictory to your goals, but in order to lose weight you need to eat!

Of course, how well your diet works will depend upon what you eat. You will have better success with a meal of skinless broiled chicken and green vegetables than you would with a box of chocolate chip cookies… it's all a matter of proper diet planning and overcoming apprehensions about food.


Food Is Not the Enemy!

When you are able to have a comfortable relationship with food, you will have greater success in dieting and changing your lifestyle. In the media we have seen reports on good foods versus bad, good carbs versus bad… sometimes we watch and wonder how damage we have inflicted upon ourselves for eating a bite of candy bar! In truth, one should not approach dieting on the premise that certain foods are bad and certain foods are good. Rather, you need to think about how much of a certain food you are permitted to enjoy without overindulging.

Naturally, there will always be foods you should eat more often than others in order to maintain optimal health. The steamed broccoli is always going to be better than you than the glazed donut, but if you should happen to break down and take a bite of donut, don't fret! One bite of a glazed donut won't cause your body to balloon. Just enjoy the bite and remember to watch what you eat. But, you must eat!

Answer 2

a gallon of water weighs eight pounds. you can NOT lose enough weight to make yourself look different in "a few days" unless you give birth during that time. It is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. 1) you can't 2) 300 cals per day? Why bother? Just fast. You still won't make it. 3) one pound of fat represents 3,500 calories. You need to come short of that every time you want to lose one pound.

You can do it safely in a week, so there is One pound. Other options are donating a kidney, donating blood, you can probably spit away one pound over one week.

Starving yourself will put your body into DEFCON 4 and you will not pee or poop but you will feel terrible and lose nothing. You can not lose the five pounds you want. You can't. You may get lighter if you use diuretics and laxitives, but you will still look the same, except that your face will be pained and twisted and you will not have a good time at that reunion.

Answer 3

it will probably be alright for a couple of days if you are overweight (i.e. 14st or more) but if you are a lightweight with little fat in the first place then starving yourself will often cause fainting.
Eating 300 calories a day will be a great challenge but will be helped by drinking a lot of water.
If you drink about 2 litres of water a day you will be ok. I also suggest you take a vitamin tablet a day to keep your metabolism and nutrient leve high.
Dont do it too long as it causes muscle wastage(for some reason the body is so dumb that it burns quite a high percentage of its calories from muscle during a fast) as muscle protein will be used which will turn into energy and ketone bodies upon breakdown by the cell. Ketones cause ketosis of the liver as they burn the liver like drinking a lot of alcohol. Drinking lots of water will help to counter this but will not usualy be a total balnce so do it for a short spot life 3 to 4 days max.

Answer 4

Well its very unhealthy for your body. You will loose unwanted baggage but most of that your body needs for nutrition. When you skip meals at a time your body starts to eat away at your fat, but when your fat runs out, your body eats away at your muscle to survive. And that is horribly unhealthy for your body. Say you wake up in the morning and you don't eat anything all day, this occurs regularly during the week. Well than at night you have a candy bar that you've been craving all day, but you figure i haven't eaten all day so its alright. But because your body isn't used to having any food in its stomach it will save all of the fat and calories from the candy bar because it is going on lock down. So in another way if you do eat like that your not really doing anything for your body. But a good healthy way to eat and not gain weight is this: eat six small meals a day about every three hours. That way your body knows your constantly getting food, and it doesn't save most of the fats from food you eat. Now that does mean eating healthier and exercising a bit, but that's good for your body anyways. Hope I helped. All of this information was from experience. Trust me.

Answer 5

I'm anorexic, bulimic and compulsive....so this is a daily cycle for me. I will say that it will start off as 5lbs..then 10...then 25...then it will get out of control-trust me. I never listened to anyone and that is the exact reason I am in the boat I am in now. It is not cute, nor is it attractive. You will not get muscular legs or definition in your arms, rather you get skin and bones or cellulite from the compulsive part of it. I also have B.D.D which mine is so severe, doctors have said it may kill me one day from me being so dillusional over what is on my face when in reality nothing is there...sexy huh? Yeah, I bet...carving my face until I don't see the ugliness anymore is a great way to start, kind of like my own face lift...for FREE!! Sound attractive yet. Guys will really like your thinning hair and your paper skin. They'll love watching you eat like a barbie and going to the bathroom to throw it up..real attractive huh?! Want some more....rotting teeth, empty insides, making you feel like you have cramps when in reality you won't due to lack of your period from starving yourself to death..lose your friends and while your at it..pick out a pretty coffin, maybe pink or purple, or even blue. I'll pick out your dress...from my barbies body. Bury you six feet under, your body sinking another ten from your weightlessness. Loving it yet? That's exactly where your going, I should know. The pain I go through isn't even worth it. I want to stop but I can't, I see fat and it's gross...yep, I'll love my burial site.

Answer 6

not only is it unhealthy, but you won't lose weight. You'll probably gain 5 pounds the minute you eat something. The human body is smart and when it thinks it's not going to get food again for a while, it holds onto every bit it gets to make up for it.

Plus, is 5 pounds worth the mood swings and headaches and stuff that will happen to you?

Answer 7

You can lose 5lb of 'weight' in a few days, but it is impossible to lose 5lb of 'fat' in a few days. This means, that you are either losing water weight or muscle mass. And the last thing you want to lose is muscle. Why? Because when you lose muscle, the ratio of fat on your body goes up. Here, I'll explain:

Lets say you weigh 120lb. You have 90lb of lean mass (muscle, bone, vital organs) and the other 30lb is body fat. This would make your percentage of body fat 25%.

Now, lets imagine you lose 5lb by starvation and now you only weigh 115lb. You think you have lost 5lb of fat. Wrong! You have probably lost 5lb of muscle. So now you have 85lb of lean mass and still 30lb of body fat. And guess what, the percentage of fat on your body has now risen to 26%.

So in essence, starvation makes you fatter. And the more you starve yourself, the higher your body fat percentage will become. Until one day, you have hardly any muscle and a very high body fat percentage. You end up becoming what doctors are now calling 'Skinny-Obese', which is someone who has a very low weight, but very high body fat....and I'm sure you don't want that!

So please, if you want to lose fat, do it the healthy way.

Answer 8

Why would you do it? You will lose the weight maybe, but then after starving yourself you will put it all back on with probably extra. Also many people's body start to put on weight if they take this approach. There is no easy way to lose weight, you just have to exercise and maintain a regularly healthy diet. Good Luck!

Answer 9

Well, to begin with, your body needs a constant stream of nutrients, in order to operate properly.

What's likely to happen in this situation is that your body will think you don't have access to food, and it will start hording every calorie you take in. You'll lose the water weight, but afterward, you'll have extra weight that'll be harder to lose, because your body has converted it to fat, in order to be able to use it later.

Also, you need to be very cautious that you're not drinking too much water. Doing so can thin out your blood, therefore dropping your blood pressure.

Answer 10

because your body's metabolism goes down in an attempt to store as much as it can. Then it will start breaking down muscle to feed itself cuz it is not getting enough calories. Then when you do go back to eating normal it will store more of those calories because you put it in starvation mode and then you will be gaining weight easier. So if you want to do that go for it. There is a reason why there are daily requirements for food intake.