Do you gain more weight if you don't eat?

Not eating won't directly lead to weight gain -- in fact, you may lose weight as you'll temporarily eat fewer calories than you burn. The problem is that fasting is unsustainable, so any weight-loss benefit will likely be short lived and your health will pay the price.

healthyeating.sfgate.com - Will You Get Fat If You Don't Eat? - Healthy Eating | SF Gate

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While skipping meals or fasting for long stretches may appear to help with weight loss, depriving yourself of food may actually make you heavier in the long run. Additionally, your body counts on nutrients from food to sustain mental and physical activities, and starving yourself may cause you to feel sluggish or lead to more serious health problems such as reduced immune function.

How Weight Gain Works

Your body burns calories from food and beverages to fuel physical activities. When you consume more calories than you need, however, it stores the excess as body fat for future use. Conversely, when you eat fewer calories than you need, your body burns stored fat for energy. Not eating won't directly lead to weight gain -- in fact, you may lose weight as you'll temporarily eat fewer calories than you burn. The problem is that fasting is unsustainable, so any weight-loss benefit will likely be short lived and your health will pay the price.

The Yo-Yo Effect

Passing on even just one meal will make you hungrier and more likely to binge the next time you sit down to eat. And as Columbia Health notes, when you avoid food for periods of time, you ignore hunger and satiety signals, and you may have trouble knowing when you're truly full when you do eat again. These factors lead to overeating, which can override the calorie deficit you created and ultimately cause weight gain.

A Slower Metabolism

Not only does fasting affect your caloric intake, but it also influences your energy expenditure. When you go a day or longer without food, your body goes into "starvation mode" to conserve energy. When this happens, your metabolic rate -- the speed at which you burn calories -- slows, so you need fewer calories to function than you did before the fast. When you start eating again, you may gain weight eating the same number of calories that you used to need for weight maintenance.

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