Fasting, Just No Food, No Drinks?
Currently fasting is a hot topic. Most people consider it or know people who are doing it. But is it healthy? Does it offer benefits? Is it proven by science? Is it religious or mainstream? So many questions and I try to answer most of them in a short clear podcast. If you still have questions do not hesitate to contact me.
Transcript
Fasting.
What is fasting?
I do say it's simple,
It's a period when you do not take any food.
But can you still take drinks during the fasting time?
Here starts the differentiation between hundreds of different methods right away.
When you follow the news on health blog,
Lifestyle or even religious sites,
You come across different methods of how you should fast and what are the benefits related to it.
Fact is that there is still little solid evidence and research on this topic and the documents I could find were not very convincing.
Most of these documents contain the terms maybe,
Could be,
Should be,
It promotes and so on.
All terms that makes it doubtful.
Hardly any can back up these statements by measurements and numbers.
This made me doubt on all these signs behind.
Can I conclude that it doesn't work?
No,
No,
No.
Even the opposite is a fact.
Fasting works for nearly everybody,
Only you should personalize it.
The method you use in your situation and your personal health will be different of others.
So you cannot standardize it because of its strong individual connection.
It makes it hard to study in a Western scientific way with all the clear rules and regulations and the need to copy the same test at different time with other people.
In other words,
It's questionable if Western science itself is the right method to study fasting as it has a physical and a mental element.
Now we understand that it is not an easy task to collect proof of its effectiveness.
We should look at the way people apply it right now and it is very important to see if the methods used at this moment are really the right ways to apply it.
Let me look first at fasting in a historical perspective.
Historical we see a long tradition in all religions for a period of fasting every year.
Some religions offer ideas for the fasting as being one with the poor,
Learn from the suffering,
Clean the body,
Purify the soul and so many more reasons.
Religions did not have exclusive right to fasting and healthcare workers have always used the method to purify the body and heal illnesses.
But the truth of his effectiveness comes from a totally different source with a much lesser noble backing.
During wartime,
Many people suffer from malnutrition and during feminine,
Many people die of starvation.
The weak die because of natural selection and the strong show a great resilience for the lack of food and liquids.
People can last a long time without food but lesser time without liquids.
Then we go back one step further in time to the prehistoric era when the human being was still developing.
Before we could eat food,
We had to collect it.
To collect food,
We had to walk and run and hunt it and search for it everywhere.
Sometimes for days until we finally got something to eat and drink.
Our body and mind were conditioned to survive time of enough and not enough food and drink.
That system is still in our body.
Now we live in a time of abundance and our natural reflexes are suppressed.
The survival system of it is still deep inside our bodily functions and we can wake it up and use it to our benefit.
Before you start fasting,
Ask yourself the reason why you are doing it.
This is the mental part of fasting which is considered an important part of the benefit.
If you are a religious person,
You can look which period your religion advises.
Religions have determined specific periods and ways how to do it and you can follow those directions.
To get the maximum health benefits,
It becomes a more complicated situation.
To understand the health benefits,
We should first dive into how fasting works.
The first word that comes in mind is depletion of the system.
When we withhold food from our body,
We disturb an ongoing system of demand and supply.
To repair or grow cells,
Our body needs proteins,
Vitamins,
Minerals and so on.
All these elements are in our food resources and in our body storage.
When you stop giving the supply to the body,
It will turn toward the internal storage which we have.
Our body opens storages which are normally closed when there is enough eternal supply.
During fasting,
The needed food elements but also the less desired particles are being freed and made ready for use by the different parts of the body or expelled.
The most important elements of need are your amino acids,
Your fats,
Your glycogen,
Vitamins and minerals and your defense mechanism.
During fasting,
The body becomes more alert or call it awake for dangers from the outside and the pollution from the inside.
Fasting makes the body think that it must be prepared for danger or attacks and it will stimulate the hormone and blood defense system to be more active.
We activate our immune system.
This is the number one benefit of fasting.
We activate our body defenses on a natural way.
Cells which are confronted with the fasting period start to reorganize their interiors for what is needed and what is not needed.
They will consider storage of desperately needed materials such as amino acids and glucose as a prime factor and clean up their space with throwing out what is not needed for their functioning.
In other words,
They deplete toxicants.
Fasting helps to clean the body cell by cell.
Fasting stimulates the activation and pacifies the muscle and the brain.
During fasting,
The body starts to realize that it should be careful with each energy and do not waste too much.
Tension in cells due to stress consume much energy.
This tension must be reduced and our body starts to do step by step during the fasting period.
This tension must be reduced and our body starts to do that step by step during the fasting period.
Most people are not only stressed in their body but also in their mind.
Their behavior is action directed and they move more muscles than needed.
During fasting,
The body brings down the not necessary movements and actions by reducing the mental energy and starts a conserving program in the brain to calm down and relax.
We can conclude that fasting helps people to reduce stress in the body and mind.
The awareness of vulnerability while fasting keeps you away from taking risks and you avoid dangers.
During long periods of fasting,
The brain gets depleted of glucose and most conserve energy for vital functions.
The effect is clear as the brain only is focused on what is needed.
Most of these vital functions are directed to survival and primary tasks of the body.
Our brain starts a basic program of thousands of years old and tells us how to survive and find food that is needed to prolong life of this body.
When we look at the experience of people who took long fasting periods,
We see a change in personality and thinking which often lasts the rest of their lives.
Fasting makes people less extreme and more reaching out for compromises and balancing in situations of tension.
The information gives a short insight in the result and the expectations of fasting in general.
With this information,
You can decide if fasting is the right tool for you and now we have to find out what is the right approach for you to take.
My first suggestion is to start with short periods of fasting to see how your body and mind reacts to the experience.
You should monitor yourself as objective as possible.
At this moment,
There are several companies offering fasting methods with a ranging from hours to longer periods in the day.
Not taking food for a few hours,
Such as 4 to 6 hours,
Is not fasting,
But meal extension periods.
Real fasting starts with short periods such as 12 hours a day.
If that is successful and it feels a benefit to your body and soul,
It is possible to extend it with 4 to 6 hours each time.
Before you start,
Keep in mind that the first fight is not with your body,
But with your mind which demands you to take food.
People with strong gravenings are prone to feel extremely anxious the first time.
Your first and most important step is to overcome the eager and desire of any kind of food during this period.
A prime question of any kind of fasting is if we take drinks during such time,
Such as water or tea.
The answer is that it is advised not to take any drink when the weather allows you to do so and you are in no danger of dehydration.
With other words,
Be aware when you take your fasting period as mid-summer or mid-winter time,
It is not advised to do so for starters.
When living in extreme heat or cold,
It can be extremely dangerous to stay away of dehydration as cells may fall into the suicide trap and you create the opposite effect of what you want.
Water is part of a cellular competitive system inside your body.
Each cell needs a hydration and specific amount of liquid to survive and often cells start to compete for that.
If that happens,
We create a start of an autoimmune disease,
An illness that destroys your own body system from inside.
This is the main reason why you should be cautious and build up your own fasting experience and system step by step.
To most people a one day a week or one day a month fasting period,
That is 24 hours of fasting,
With only drinking water and no other products seem to have a positive effect.
For more experienced people I recommend a 3 to maximum 5 day fasting period a year.
Longer periods should only be taken when under medical control and among other people who are able to take care of you.
You should not take this kind of risks alone and surely not when you are new to fasting.
Longer fasting periods give more chance and these chances can be radical to the body and the mind.
In case of people with obese I must state a strong warning in reference to free coming toxicants during fasting.
It is very possible that people with some form of obese can fall seriously ill during a fasting period.
And if they prolong over a healthy limit it can become life threatening.
Many wars have proven that fasting show life extension benefits.
But at the same time we should be aware not to take this information for granted as being applicable to all individuals.
During wars many wee people die and only the strong survive,
Which may it look like a benefit.
Conclusion,
Fasting can be healthy and can be even a life saver and age prolonging results when you do it proper and with care.
It is safe and healthy to do it for most people and advised when living in a hectic stressed environment to cool down,
Relax and level all what is going around you.
