When you do not know an answer like the above, you could just go by the rule that you can overdo anything. You can drink too much water or eat too much healthy food where your stomach bursts. You can exercise too much or you can do fasting for too long. An MD fasted a fat guy for 8 months and he died. So that is too long. He still had more fat to burn but used up all of his reserve nutrients like minerals. I say that all rules have exceptions, except some. You cannot sleep too long, only as long as you need to. Some people need to sleep 24 hours a day. I know a guy who did that (in a coma) decades ago for many days but he is alive and doing well now. Some depressed people need to sleep 12 hours per day.

The reason that you cannot sleep too long is because you cannot control how long you sleep. You can control how little you get but not how much you get. If you doubt this, then try it. Try to sleep 20 hours. You can lie there for 20 hours but will only be asleep if your body decides that you need it. Note that I am not talking about stage 1 sleep where you are drowsy and trying to get to sleep but you are not really sleeping.

The news announced in November 2006 that 70% of Americans have trouble sleeping. There is a McDougall website about getting over depression naturally. It says that sleep is depressing so you should not even get the suggested 8 hours. This shows that while there is a limit to genius, there is no limit to stupidity. His other ideas are good, though. Mariah Carey had a nervous breakdown a few years ago and she said that it was due to lack of sleep as a warning to others so the same thing does not happen to them.

I have seen on forums people giving rates of weight loss (weight loss/time) that are too fast. So I checked it and could not find any reliable sources for this. An MD on TV said that people on the same diet can lose weight at different rates. Also MDs think it is safe (and the FDA agrees) to lose many pounds of bodyfat in an hour with liposuction. Like with sleeping, you do not control how fast you lose weight. That is why you cannot lose weight too fast. Remember the above rule about exceptions, where someone with a serious problem can lose weight too fast.

Some people have fasted to lose weight and have complained that after not eating for 5 days they only lost 2 pounds. I have fasted many times but I was never overweight. People would ask how much I would lose but I did not notice any difference. So I got a scale so I could measure it scientifically. I weighed myself at the beginning of a fast and right before the end of a 4 day fast of pure water. I gained one pound, which does happen sometimes since people have reserve nutrients and are consuming water and air.

Someone could say "you just retained more water." But most people lose water weight during a fast. Regardless of whether I created more bone (people can mend broken bones during a fast) or retained water is the fact that I had no control over the rate of weight loss which in this case was negative one pound.

People can control their efforts to influence this rate. The way to give yourself the fastest rate loss that your body will safely allow is to fast and exercise a lot. Some exercise, like yoga, is OK during a fast. Allan Cott M.D. suggests walking 3 hours a day during a fast to lose more weight and for circulation. These are mild exercises. But you have to be careful about doing a lot of strenuous exercise during a fast. My mother could eat large amounts of fattening foods with lots of bad carbs and fat and still be thin without exercising. Copyright 2007 by Chuck Bluestein

Chuck Bluestein is a nutritionist, herbalist and an expert on fasting. His website has information on colds and flus, advice for teenage girls and their parents, weight loss, healthy diet, depression self help, happiness, natural cures, fasting and pure water.