Fasting is like a well hidden gem in the world of health improvement and disease recovery and prevention, and something that has helped me personally, greatly.
But before we get into the nitty gritty on this, let’s explain a little what it’s all about.
What Is Fasting?
Fasting simply means going without food for a set amount of time, although there are different types of fasts where some allow for eating just a little bit or certain types of food.
Extended Fasting VS Intermittent Fasting
The more common meaning of fasting when you hear about it today is periodic or intermittent fasting, where you eat your food in a limited window during the day and fast the remainder of it.
Then we have extended water fasting, where you can go days or even weeks without eating anything.
Why Fast?
You’ll want to fast because it’s one of nature and evolution’s best ways to heal your body from the inside out.
If you combine fasting with a very healthy diet and other health measures you can heal almost any and all types of chronic disease and health problems.
This includes stuff such as heart disease, cancer, arthritis and joint problems, mental illness, depression, ADHD, obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, leaky gut, heart disease, and so on.
Fasting is also a way to just become as healthy as you can be, since it’s during a fast that autophagy, your body’s innate recycling system, kicks into full gear to replace damaged cells and tissue with new one.
It’s also likely to improve thinking and memory, physical performance, overall tissue health, weight loss etc.
Regularly fasting is one of the better lifestyle decisions you can make.
And although I’ll focus mainly on intermittent fasting in this post, I do want to add that as a personal anecdote, I got rid of very long-term food allergies and sensitivities through a 3 week extended water fast (I hadn’t been able to eat fish or eggs for a couple of years and after that it was healed and fine).
How And When To Fast
When we’re talking how to fast (intermittent fasting), I’ll say this much:
You’ll want to have a set fasting window of at least 12 hours per day, but ideally even more than that when and if possible.
16 or even up to 24 hours can be experimented with although this does make it a bit harder when initially getting started.
Being fasted can be seen as a sort of hormetic stressor for your cells, much like exercise, where your body can feel a bit more stressed out during your fast which in my experience can affect you socially at times.
Feel free to experiment with this yourself and report back/keep this in mind when choosing when to fast.
And aside from that, water only may be the simplest, although coffee, tea and other calorie-free beverages may be acceptable as well.
Ideally you’ll want to do this every day, especially the minimum of 12 hours, but every other day or so would still do your health wonders too.
And as for longer, extended water fasts?
Longer fasts you’ll want to do if you want to be really proactive about your health, and you don’t have to do them that often, perhaps up to 1 or a few days a year.
Or if you’ve got really nasty chronic health problems you want to heal.
And then we’re talking perhaps 3-7 day fasts or longer.
Dry Fasting
Another type of fasting that is kind of new to me but that has given me good results healthwise is periodic dry fasting.
This is the same as other fasting except that you also exclude water.
A more difficult yer pretty rewarding type of fast, especially intermittently, which may however also affect you negatively if you got too much social stuff in your schedule.
This one’s more dangerous though, meaning proceed with caution and do educate yourself fully beforehand.
Who Should Fast?
Anyone who cares at all about their health should be fasting. Period.
Preventatively or to reverse health issues and restore health.
Don’t miss out on this.
Diet is hugely important along with fasting though, so check out this post and this (avoiding these oils are hugely important for your health as well).
Wrap-up
So, do you want to take your health to the next level, and fast?
It comes highly recommended.
/Emil
