I recently lost weight by alternating near fasting with eating lightly. One or two days a week max I'd pretty much fast except for 4-6 ounces of red grape juice just before bed (this is what I called the "shock" phase). Then the rest of the days of the week I'd have a light, modified South Beach Phase II Diet with some extra fiber, perhaps 1200-1800 calories, though I didn't count calories closely (this is the "lightly load" phase).

The idea behind this short term diet was to not let my body accomodate to one new eating pattern. I've found in the past that my appestat (sort of like a thermostat, but for appetite) will readjust to a new body weight in a few weeks and then, unless I get ridiculous (eating a lot or very little), I'll stay at or close to that new weight. That makes it hard to break through a weight loss plateau after a usual early easy loss of a few pounds.

 So by shocking my system a bit by near fasting and then loading a bit, I think I avoided the starvation response but also was able to get my intake and weight down in pretty rapid order. I only did this for about two months. During that time I lost about 25 pounds, which I've mostly kept off. I did try once to nearly fast for two days in a row and in the afternoon of the second day I got very cranky very quickly so I bagged it and got a Subway footlong and immediately felt better. So for me, one day in a row of near fasting is good. I suppose if I was at a spa or something or not living my normal life I could go longer, but I didn't have the option of stopping the rest of my life while I lost weight. 

I don't have any contraindicative health or diet issues and this may not work or be a good idea for anyone else, but it worked for me. Losing that much weight in a short time isn't a great idea.

- Bruce