MORE BENEFITS OF FASTING

Fasting is the greatest natural healing therapy. it costs nothing, requires no special skill, and has many lasting benefits. Fasting has been practiced for religious and health purposes since ancient times. Voluntary abstinence from food has been a ritual in most religions and is clearly a spiritual purification rite.

Fasting may be looked at in a larger context, a spiritual one, meaning to abstain from that which is toxic to the mind, body and soul. Look at fasting, if you will, not as simply cutting down on or stopping food intake, but as the elimination of physical, emotional and mental toxins from our organism.

Many philosophers, scientists, and physicians thought that fasting was an essential part of life and of health. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Paracelsus, and Hippocrates all used and believed in fasting therapy.

Who Shouldn't Fast?

Fasting is well-tolerated by most healthy people. People who should not fast include pregnant and nursing women, children, diabetics, those with cancer, gout, stomach ulcers, liver, kidney, heart, thyroid or lung disease; people with anemia; eating disorders; or terminal illness. Anyone with a compromised immune system, certain genetic diseases and other chronic conditions should only do so under the supervision of their physician.

What Are the Dangers?

For the first 24 hours of a fast the body is able to use stored carbohydrates in the form of glycogen. When these reserves are depleted, fat becomes the energy source so that protein is usually spared. But protein is never completely spared. Some muscle tissue is lost even during short fasts. Weakness, depression and nausea can develop as a result of ammonia and nitrogen being released into the blood during the breakdown of muscle. In severe cases, extended fasts can lead to disturbances of heart rhythm and even death.

Benefits of Fasting:

1. To remove unnecessary weight the natural way, plus learning how to keep it off for the rest of your life.

2. To remove the 5-to-10-lb. inner, toxic waste dump now polluting the average adult's cell, tissue and organ storage areas (chemical toxins, heavy metals, drugs, uneliminated metabolic wastes, excessive cholesterol and triglycerides in the bloodstream, arterial plaque, intestinal parasites, etc., all of which prolonged fasting can remove).

3. To regain the energy you may previously have enjoyed (perhaps when you were more athletic).

4, To enhance your innate wisdom, spirituality, faith and human kindness.

5. To move yourself back toward your life's birthright potential of optimal health, increasing your happiness and healing power as you scientifically reset your body's odometer and greatly enhance your quality of life.


How Long Should I Fast?

Discuss your particular health concerns with your physician before starting to fast. It depends on your current health, your activities, your obligations, and your goals. Fasting for a 24 hour period once a week is a common practice for people who practice fasting.

How to Go On a Juice Fast and What to Expect

If fasting is for health purposes, it makes sense to support your body's needs while fasting. The best single method to accomplish this goal is to juice fast. It is a mild and effective cleansing method. Fresh juices are easily assimilated, require minimum digestion, supply many nutrients, and stimulate our body to clear its wastes. The water fast is for those with fasting practice. Juice fasting is safer than water fasting. It supports the body nutritionally while cleansing. It produces a better detoxification and a quicker recovery as well. The best way to do this is to have a juicer, Never use canned or frozen juices.

Fasting is one part of the trilogy of nutrition. Balancing and building (toning) are the other two parts. We need to fast because of the Western diet which consists of overeating, eating too often, eating a high-protein, high-fat, rich-food, building and congesting diet.

However, we don't always have to fast to cleanse ourselves. Including more fluids in the diet, eating more raw foods, and eating fewer congesting foods will allow for better detoxification.

For whatever reason you choose to fast, the most immediate and dramatic change will be the loss of stored body fat. This has many health benefits.

Much of the toxins stored in our bodies are in our body fat. When we metabolize the fat it forces the toxins into the blood stream where the body processes them for elimination. This is done through not only the alimentary canal and the urinary canal but also through the lungs. We breathe out toxins in our breath.

We also will need to bathe frequently because we will exude toxins from the surface of our skin.

The general thinking is to stay on the juice fast until you have been free of detoxification symptoms for two days. The cure is not really worse than the disease in the long run, however it may seem so at the time of discomfort.

Some people prefer a juice fast program for three days, and the rest of the time they eat normally of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Juice fasting can be used to detoxify from drugs or whenever you want to take a new path in life. Fasting is very safe, however, when it is used for the treatment of medical conditions, proper supervision should be employed. People in professions that feel comfortable supervising people during fasting include doctors, acupuncturists, nutritionists and chiropractors.

Conditions for Which Fasting May be Beneficial

Some of the conditions for which fasting may be beneficial are:


colds atherosclerosis
flus coronary artery disease
bronchitis angina pectoris
headaches hypertension
constipation diabetes
indigestion fever
diarrhea fatigue
food allergies back pains
environmental allergies mental illness
asthma obesity
insomnia cancer
skin conditions epilepsy

Treating fevers by fasting is controversial. Eastern medicine thinks of fasting as increasing the body's fire, and so it thinks that fasting might worsen fever. Actually, when we consume liquids, we generate less heat, so we are really cooling down the body. With fever we need more liquids than usual.

Sources:

"Staying Healthy with Nutrition," by Haas, Elson M., M.D., The Complete Guide to Diet and Nutritional Medicine,
Celestial Arts, Publishers, HealthWorld.

"Fasting Journal," Dennis Paulson, Founder/Director, Fasting Center International, http://www.fasting.com/whyyoufast.html.