I agree, fasting for the purposes of losing weight is very bad for you. Most things I have read say it is better to eat very small meals 4-5 times a day... an example of one of these "snacks" would be a string cheese and a cup of grapes (obviously with some meals being more substantial than others). That is why we don't say we are "dieting", we are trying to make some lifetime changes in our habits.

I don't want to embarrass my brother but at one point we estimate he was over 500 pounds... he is now down to about 370ish and we do not plan on just getting down to a certain weight and then deciding that we can eat whatever we want, we will continue to exercise, watch our portion sizes and what types of food we are eating for the rest of our lives (I hope)... we would rather make changes now (by choice) than be forced to do it later when we are (almost inevitably) diagnosed with diabetes. We have an extremely high likelihood of developing diabetes based on our family history (3 out of 4 grandparents, plus many other aunts, uncles, etc.).