Dieting vs. Fasting — What's the Difference?

Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. Dieting to lose weight is recommended for people with weight-related health problems, but not otherwise healthy people.

Fasting is the willful refrainment from eating and sometimes drinking (see Water fasting and Juice fasting). From a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight (see the "break fast"), or to the metabolic state achieved after complete digestion and absorption of a meal.

The usual food and drink of a person or animal.

To abstain from food.

A regulated selection of foods, as for medical reasons or cosmetic weight loss.

To eat very little or abstain from certain foods, especially as a religious discipline.

Something used, enjoyed, or provided regularly

The act or practice of abstaining from or eating very little food.

Of or relating to a food regimen designed to promote weight loss in a person or an animal

A period of such abstention or self-denial.

Having fewer calories.

Abstinence or mortification for religious reasons, especially abstinence from food.

Sweetened with a noncaloric sugar substitute.

Abstinence from food, limiting caloric intake, for medical or health reasons, dieting.

Designed to reduce or suppress the appetite

Abstaining from food

To eat and drink according to a regulated system, especially so as to lose weight or control a medical condition.

To regulate or prescribe food and drink for.

Present participle of diet

The practice of following a diet.

The act of restricting your food intake (or your intake of particular foods)