Immediate benefits of Fasting Mimicking Diet Skip to main content

Immediate benefits of Fasting Mimicking Diet

There are a lot of skepticism about fasting & skepticism is a good thing. It is possible this protocol doesn't pan out- lots of great ideas didn't pan out - transfat margarine, protocols that are probably based on really bad data (carnivorism).

So what are the FMD immediate benefits:

- If you are cooking from scratch, it is cheap, you probably save $50-$100 provided you don't waste any left over ingredients.

- The prolon boxes are $50-$60 a day, so about the cost of eating all your meals at a restaurant for five days. If you use the prolon boxes, you don't have to cook much for 5 days

- It is an amusing activity involving planning, cooking, and exercising self control

- When I am fasting, I'm so hungry that the food that I eat is the most delicious food & incredibly enjoyable. This is one point in favor of a FMD over water fast. When I'm fasting, I drink water and tea when I feel hungry, but it isn't the most delicious tea I've ever had.

- You will get about 2 days of restless energy. This is a common side effect, scientists speculate it is your body trying to convince you to go out and forage for food or else you will starve to death. For me, it turns into a little bit extra housekeeping & future meal planning.

So if you get hit by a car & die young, if caloric restriction doesn't work for humans, or if this particular protocol doesn't work for humans, if FMD ends up not having any impact on the incidence on the top degenerative killers (CHD, diabetes 2, etc)... then I guess I still get the above benefits.

The skeptics say the most likely harm is losing muscle mass. They have a point. I plan to add some weight lifting in the month following each fast I do as a precaution.

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