Re: will fasting fix slow metabolism?

There is some dissention in the low fat plant based community right now about this thing of eating as much as you want and not gaining. It didn't work for me, either. The diet is just too carby for many people, so unless you're working out like a mad person every day (which also isn't recommended), there are some tweaks you can do to make it work.

Susan Peirce Thompson has come up with a plant based diet that is working for many of us. It's called Bright Line Eating. She has a Facebook page and if you google her name or Bright Line Eating you may find the eating plan on line. She's writing a book and in order to get a book published these days, you need a "ready audience" which is the reason for the Facebook page. There is a huge community there of people who have "failed" the low fat plant based diet as it is generally written and are following her guidelines and it's working.

For me personally, Bright Lines kills cravings the way a low fat plant based diet never did. I suspect it's because she has you cut way back on grains, which were a trigger food for me. I could easily eat 3-4 cups of rice in one sitting, which obviously doesn't help with weight loss.

Slow metabolism: There's nothing wrong with a slow metabolism, it's now being implicated in longevity, the more studies they do, the more they realize that a slow metabolism is more optimal than a fast metabolism, which causes cellular aging.

Fasting will slow your metabolism, which is a good thing, but when you're coming off it, you just need to go VERY SLOWLY in reintroducing food. And make sure it's all plant based and oil-free, so it's low calorie density.

Check out Bright Line Eating though if you want to stay plant based and still lose weight. There are all ages and body types there, all weight ranges. People who started in March are down 40, 50 pounds by now. It really does help with cravings, which is the death sentence of a plant based diet because of the carbs.

Enormous amounts of exercise, especially the high intensity stuff like marathons and long aerobics, is now implicated in inflammation which causes aging of the cells and can cause inflammatory changes around the arteries of the heart as well. A few studies have compared marathon runners to couch potatoes and found the runners had higher rates of silent MIs than the couchers.

So the answer to a low fat plant based diet heavy on grains is NOT huge amounts of exercise. The answer is to cut way back on grains and limit fruits. But check out Bright Lines and see if it's something that will work for you.

I'm also a huge fan of fasting and have had great success with it as well for weight loss, so either one will work. Good luck!