Woah! I think three week and 40 day fasts with only water like I'm hearing about here, are a REALLY bad idea. Do you know that people tend to die when they don't eat?
BTW, have fun being weak and hungry. Good luck.
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That said, fasting can have some unpleasant side effects, and I agree 100% with the assertion that it is not an ideal tool for weight loss. But PLEASE cut the "omg you're fasting, you're going to burn all your muscle and die" crap, because it's disgustingly uninformed, and I'm sick of reading it. I fasted for 26 days on water only under the care of a very well known nutritionist, Joel Fuhrman
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Have it known that 26 days is NOT the same as 40-50 days, where irreversible damage to major organs can occur. Fasting may work well for some people. Also, some people may not live as long as other people without food. One guy may be able to live 40 days or even longer with no negative side-effects while another might die. The longer you go the worse your chances. And just because you have a small amount of fat left doesn't mean that you can keep going. Many times people will die from organ damage while they still have small amounts of fat because after a while the whole body starts to basically consume itself. There are some resources also, that cannot be supplied by just fat which necessitates the breakdown of some cells. Also, being under supervision of a nutritionist is good. I wouldn't be surprised if some people died from a weakened immune system when they catch something unexpected, even during a relatively shorter fast.
There have also been people who die because they have some sort of mental belief that they overweight when they are thin as a rail, and for those people their error could be fatal in much less time than a typical individual due to not having any energy stored up. They may not make it three weeks! Other weak individuals or those with certain circumstances may similarly be at risk. I remember reading a book about World War II, about the 6th German army in Russia. They were cornered, and some people there began to die after only a few weeks. (They actually even had some meager rations occasionally.) People didn't even realize why they were dying until an medical expert came to look at the bodies and told them they were starving to death. They did have to deal with extremely cold temperatures as well as other harsh conditions and this undoubtedly affected their lifespan.
I personally wouldn't recommend fasting for such a prolonged period of time to most people... I don't doubt that it can make you lose weight quickly and clean you out quickly and there may even be pefectly healthy ways to do it, but if you don't know what you're doing you may suffer negative consequences. In my opinion patience is usually superior to fasting unless you've got some serious issue of massiveness that interferes with your daily life.
Except I do recommend it to all fat lazy jerks who live off of welfare because they are "too fat" to have a job.