Two days ago I weighed myself and couldn’t believe what I saw. I lost 3 more pounds. That couldn’t be right, could it?! Of course not. I held myself back from posting about it because I figured it was a fluke. So I weighed again yesterday and… the same number! I lost three pounds in three days. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that I did it by not eating for three days because I had the worst cold in the history of colds. Let me be clear, I don’t advocate simply not eating as a form of weight loss. Why?
First, it’s not healthy. When you don’t eat sufficient food, you don’t get sufficient nutrition, and that can make you lethargic, depressed, irritable, and sick. In order to lose weight healthfully, you should eat nutrient-rich foods with lots of fiber that fill you up and sustain you for longer than quick-burning, simple carbohydrates that leave you feeling hungry an hour later so that you eat more calories.
The second reason I don’t recommend simply not eating as a weight loss plan is because it doesn’t work long-term. The less calories you consume, the more your body goes into conserving mode, storing food in the form of fat in order to use later since the body knows you aren’t going to give it enough calories later to function well. As time goes on, you will eat less and less and still not lose weight.
Continuing to suffer through this cold (really, I don’t usually get sick and I don’t remember ever having a cold this bad), and having given it to my poor little 16 week old baby girl who can’t blow her stuffy nose, I’d rather have the three pounds than our suffering. But I can at least say there is a silver lining to it: only four more pounds to go!
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