
"Any time you lose weight, you see improvements in glucose metabolism," says Scott Isaacs, M.D., author of "Hormonal Balance" and a clinical instructor of medicine at Emory School of Medicine. "And anytime you restrict calories, you get weight loss. But if you do something unsustaniable you get fatigue after a while and ultimately gain the weight back."
"During a fast, a person can go into starvation ketosis, which reduces appetite. They won't be hungry because of the ketones -- a byproduct of fat -- that masks hunger. But as soon as they do something where they are no longer ketotic, there's a rebound appetite, which can be hard to control," Isaacs says.