I have noticed that, while I am not terribly overweight, I do have an addiction to food. I love to eat junk and I run 6 miles a day, sometimes six times per week, just so I can keep stuffing my face full of junk food and not gain a lot of weight.

This is not a healthy way to live and I am trying to correct it. The way I go about doing this is a bit extreme, but of course I am a recovering drug addict, so I tend to be a bit like that sometimes. My technique for weight loss has always been through juice fasting.

I started fasting a couple years ago and I always do it every few months now. I love the way it makes me feel. Light and full of energy. You are hungry for a day or so and then the hunger evaporates and you are flying high on pure energy. I even continue to run for the first 2 days of my fast (but I don’t on the second 2 days). I have never fasted for longer than 4 days at a time, nor do I see a big reason too do so. The hippies would claim that if you fast longer, it will clean out your system a lot better, but I believe there is diminishing returns after about 4 days. This becomes especially true when you are fasting every couple of months and keeping your system a lot cleaner on a regular basis.

You do drop weight like crazy on a juice fast, especially if you keep up with your exercise routine (you do exercise right?!?!) I typically lose about 8 to 10 pounds in the 3 to 4 days that I fast for. This is remarkable for someone of my build because I am rather tall at 6 foot 1 inch and I weight about 170 on the dot. I have gone as low as 158 following a juice fast.

They say that the body needs to drop weight in order to heal itself. I believe it. I feel fantastic after fasting. Because of this, I will continue to experiment with more fasting in the future.

Another things about fasting is that you appreciate food more after you get done. For a few days, you appreciate every bite of food that you eat, instead of just shoveling junk into your mouth mindlessly. If I can learn how to capture this mindfulness that comes after a fast, and keep it with me always, I could eat a lot healthier all the time.

Fasting is not for everyone, but weight control can be a huge issue for a lot of people. If you want some more traditional weight loss tips I would follow that link there, and I do wish you luck on your journey to a healthier body!