Hi. I am new to this site and new to the plan. In addition to reading The Fast Diet book, I also read Furhman’s book on fasting. Keeping in mind his book was written in 1995, I wonder how truly effective a modified fast really is. I guess you could say I’m a little skeptical of the health claims of eating 500/600 calories a day during a “fast” and getting the same results as a true fast. Are there really studies that show that a modified fast works, or is it all merely anecdotal at this point?

Don’t get me wrong: I know this is great for losing and then maintaining weight. It makes perfect sense. What I’m not quite convinced of (yet) is that this can truly affect blood work, prevention of disease, etc, other than as a natural side effect of losing weight. It just seems counter-intuitive to eat whatever you’d like on the non-fast days and have the modified fasts erase all the bad things you might be putting into your body the other days.

Can someone please help with my skepticism, as I’ve always Ben told that if something sounds too good to be true, it IS too good to be true. Thank you.