Do you have any sort of training in health and nutrition? Even if you do, the advice that you are offering is dangerous and harmful, whether someone has a history of disordered eating or not.
Your clickbait title preys on those who are desperate for a quick fix, and telling them to starve is NOT the answer. It's not sustainable, it's not individualized, and it's not safe.
It's especially unsafe for those who have engaged in dangerous eating behaviours in the past, those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or hoping to become pregnant, those with underlying medical conditions, and adolescents who are still growing but are also extremely susceptible to diet culture articles such as this one, written by someone who is not an expert and does not have their best interest at heart by any means.
Yet there is no disclaimer for any of this to be found in your article, other than your one line "At the most basic level 'go hungry' is rudimentary advice. It doesn't cover issues with eating disorders or nutrition, I understand that." This is the only point I agree with, but in addition to rudimentary, I would add wreckless.
Yes, the body is resilient and it learns to adapt, however there is a delicate hormone balance at play (much more than just the ghrelin that you mentioned) which can easily be thrown dangerously out of whack by repeated and unecessary starvation or restricted eating patterns, leading to long term health problems down the line, far worse than some unwanted pounds.
Not eating is extreme and dangerous, and gentler approaches to good health and weight loss with the help of someone who actually knows what they're talking about, with training to back it up, is the way to go.
P.S. thin doesn't always equal healthy, and being in a larger body doesn't always equal unhealthy. There are markers of metabolic health aside from weight and size. Larger people can be very metabolically healthy, while thin people can be metabolically unhealthy. There is also genetics and many other factors at play.
These phrases especially made me cringe. Just, no.
"Feel hungry. Feel hunger. Feel like you need to eat. If you want to eat — don’t. Feel that rumble in your belly. You can’t lose weight if you are full. Feel the hunger. Feel it. Feeling hungry is helping you lose weight.
Want to eat? — don’t eat."
"Crave the feeling of an empty stomach. Let your body go to work on the excess fat you have stored up. Let yourself be thin. Desire healthy."
"Feel famished, feel fabulous."
Diet culture and weight loss misadvice at its finest.
