And it’s a fact too long fasts are dangerous and even fatal.
Optimal fasting makes a sense to me: it’s some quite harmless fasting, with benefits. It’s hard to say when it’s too much, I agree, there is no such thing as “N days are optimal”, not even for a certain person. But “definitely longer than optimal” clearly exists and problems comes typically way, way earlier than becoming slim. And we loses protein too, it starts very early as we need amino acids and we have a very tiny amount available when we stop eating, it’s totally not optimal for many of us, it’s a bit personal, of course but I wouldn’t play with my little muscles. I would need a better reason for a 2-week fasting than losing fat, that’s doable without starving (slowing metabolism, losing a significant amount of muscles, and so on).
I am aware we don’t lose so very much protein in extended fasts if we don’t even have much muscle to begin with, I just don’t think I can afford to lose even a little more than unavoidable. People choose to do very long fasts with success, each to their own as long as they mostly know what they are doing (and have medical help for really long fasts). I understand doing whatever one can, I know someone who simply starved until they become slim (and they never got fat again) because they had no better idea but it’s still not an advisable method. That was clearly starving, not fasting (some people probably would call it low calorie diet but it was intentional starving) but both are harmful at some point. Don’t misunderstand me, I know fasting has benefits and it’s not necessarily starving but it still becomes that after some while. As far as I know, metabolism tends to slow down after a few days. I’m sure it’s not this simple (for example, it matters if we do frequent fasts since ages, there are almost always personal factors in everything) but 2 weeks are long so certain negative effects are bound to happen. Maybe it’s still worth for you, it’s possible but it’s far from ideal according to the definition of our ideal for most of us. And it’s very dangerous for certain people, of course but it’s not the point here.
It’s interesting how different things people can think about long term fasting. Some people say no muscle loss happens until all the extra fat is lost (it’s obviously wrong), some people say no fat loss happen until all not essential muscle is lost (it’s wrong too). The truth is somewhere in-between but the body prefers using fat reserves for energy if it has them galore and there’s is no choice, it’s muscle loss for amino acids. But the exact numbers obviously vary.
You will need a good diet in the end, no matter how you lose your excess fat. If a diet doesn’t work, try something else. I like food too but that’s not a problem as I am a human and I need to eat a lot anyway. Getting satiated is the problem and I am not as controlled as I should when I am hungry. To me, very little carbs seem to be the answer, not simple keto, it changes A LOT! Even overeating, I automatically overeat on almost every woe and I probably quite massively overate for a few decades, I don’t resist temptation, I love food and spend quite a few hours doing something related to food per day. There are worse cases than me but mine is serious enough. But as I lowered carbs and skipped some items I was able to at that point, things automatically got better without using willpower or suffering. It’s great finding a better way of eating that just works without struggle. But we are all different so your method might be something completely different.
(To be clear, I still fall off the wagon sometimes but I come back and it’s not like I eat zillion carbs when I am off keto. My off times gets better and lower-carb too. Some changes happen quickly, others need time. In my case, easily several years but it’s still much better than no progress.)
