Fasting Benefits and its Type – Diet Chart

What’s the point? Why on earth should one suffer through something like this at all?

You get regular exercise and have a reasonably balanced and healthy diet. Still, not everything is quite as it should be. Then fasting may be something you should look into. Fasting is something anyone can do and there are about as many ways to do it as there are individuals.

In other words, it is something only you can do for yourself. But what’s the point? Why on earth should one suffer through something like this at all? The answer lies primarily in the enormous health benefits and the persistently wonderful feeling of well-being that follows in the cooling water of a successful fasting regimen.

When we stop eating solid food, the body immediately starts preparing for a major cleanse.

All the resources that were tied up in digestion and processing of food are now freed up to deep clean the entire body down to every smallest cell. Within 24 hours after the food intake has stopped, the enzymes stop flowing to the stomach and start circulating in the blood and the intestinal system where they consume all kinds of waste materials and harmful microbes. All the body’s glands and organs get a long-awaited rest and can finally be allowed to recover and rebalance themselves. Seven days are sufficient to clean all the blood, as well as establish the correct PH balance again.

Won`t somebody bring me some water, can`t you see i`m burning alive (have you heard it?) Thirst

is a nuisance, so make sure you drink plenty. Water is the natural first choice. If you don’t go for the tap, there is plenty of good bottled water in the shops.

If you want to lose weight, as well as establish a new and better diet, fasting is a very good way to dive into it. You will notice that during the fast the body will scream for various foods (often of the more unhealthy kind) and these withdrawal symptoms are only a sign that the addiction is getting out of hand.

When you start eating again, healthy food will taste better than junk food, for the simple reason that you are now functioning more in harmony with your body’s real needs and are no longer dependent on your own artificially created needs. Fasting thus becomes a way to overcome oneself. It gives confidence and strength. If weight reduction is not desirable (and perhaps rather the opposite), you have to take a long-term view of it. In a way, it becomes a one-step-back-two-steps-forward mentality. A clean and well-functioning digestive system is the alpha and omega for nutrient absorption and health as such. With regular exercise and a good diet, the kilos will still come on when and where they are supposed to. No need to rush.

For those who might think that fasting goes against nature, may I inform you that man is the only animal? who do not fast instinctively when ill. Hope this article can help inspire and increase interest in the wonderful opportunity for purification that lies in fasting. And even if the body may behave a bit like a small child at the beginning and lash out and resist – when the cure is over, it will show its gratitude to you for months and years afterwards.

What happens when we fast

Fasting has a number of effects physically, mentally and spiritually. The most obvious is what happens to the body. When we stop eating, the body shows that it is not like a car that stops when it runs out of gas, but the body finds other ways to absorb nourishment. In the first 3-4 days, the body burns what is already in the intestinal system of the last days food. But after this period, when the body has “understood” that there will be no food for a while, the combustion process “reverses”, and the body begins to “eat by itself.” At the same time, the body is so intelligent that it “provides” itself first with what the body has the least use for, which is excess fat and especially accumulated toxins and waste substances in the intestinal system, tissues, joints and internal organs.

In this process, there is also a strong excretion already from the first days, where waste substances are excreted in the bloodstream, in the intestinal system and through breath, urine and sweat. This is rarely pleasant and can cause everything from fatigue, depression, headache, nausea and fever. (In case of fever, the fast should usually be interrupted and a milder fast should be made.) The degree of excretion symptoms is often in accordance with the amount of waste substances that the body has accumulated over the years. This discomfort should be welcomed because it is a sign that the fast is working. Fortunately, it is temporary, and after 3-4 days the body often feels light, old tensions and pains are released and you feel periods of intense well-being. But one should not overestimate the desire to take action and inspiration, because there will also be periods of fatigue and lethargy. But the most pleasant effect is that the feeling of hunger usually completely ceases after this, and it becomes easy to fast. Fasting is like flying, it’s the “take-off” and landing that are difficult, as soon as the plane is at altitude most things go by themselves.

As a result of these physical changes, a lot also happens on the mental level. When the body no longer uses energy to digest food, a surplus occurs that can provide everything from mental lightness and clear thoughts to mystical and ecstatic experiences. But fasting is a roller coaster, and when old waste products that have been stored in the body for years are cleaned out, it can also cause emotional fluctuations in the form of depression, fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, etc. Seeing this as part of fasting makes it easier to relate to the feelings.

Fasting types

Semi-fasting  – This is a moderate form of fasting that consists of restricting the usual diet in one or more ways:

• Not to eat before 12 o’clock. The morning is the best time for excretion, and just by omitting a meal and then eating normally the rest will have a regulatory function on the other meals as well
• Only eat fruit before 12 o’clock
• Only eat a light evening meal, only a vegetable soup.
• Avoid meat, fish, eggs and dairy products
• Eat only whole grains, vegetables, beans and seeds
• Only eat firmly measured or half portions.

Rice or cereal – Cereal is the food that is most in balance with the body’s needs.

The most important metabolism in the body is the cells’ potassium-sodium pump. The body regulates this ratio to 7 parts potassium to 1 part sodium. In most cereals and especially rice, this ratio is also 7 parts potassium to 1 part sodium. This is an important reason why grain products have an energy-balancing effect. (That it is said in Our Father’s Day: “give us today our daily bread” expresses that grain is the foundation of life. It is also the foundation of most societies.)

Rice cure consists of only cooked natural rice (round grain). Small amounts of sauerkraut, umeboshi or pickled ginger, some toasted sesame seeds and nori seaweed are beneficial. You can eat as much as you want with three meals a day, but it is important to chew thoroughly. (30-50 times per mouthful). It makes the rice slightly alkaline. This is usually an easy way to fast and with little hunger. Other grains such as millet and barley can also be used, but rice is best suited. From one to 10 days is usually suitable. And as with all fasts, it is also very important here that the transition to normal food is gradual and controlled, especially if the cure has lasted a long time.

Fruit fasting – Fruit is cleansing, but also cooling.

Only eating fruit from one to 10 days can be suitable for more robust people and preferably when it is hot or in a hot climate. Particularly suitable are grapes, apples, grapefruit.

Fruit contains a lot of fructose and is not suitable for candida. In addition, it can mentally give a feeling of lack of focus, or “spaciness” or lack of contact with the ground. For people who have problems with that kind of thing already, fruit fasting is not the thing.

Fruit and vegetable juice fasting – This is perhaps the most common form of fasting and, in terms of health, the one that gives the best results.

You can consume a large variety of drinks. Herbal teas, vegetable decoctions, raw fruit and vegetable juice, wheatgrass or barley juice. This will ensure a safety net of minerals, enzymes and vitamins that make excretion more efficient and neutralize acid in the body.

6-8 glasses a day with a variety of drinks is usually enough. Intuition increases when fasting, so it is often better to drink the amount of water you feel the need for, rather than following a slavish plan. In the case of severe purging symptoms, you should increase your bag intake.

This form of fasting can be used from 1 – 14 days, but beyond that should only be done in consultation with an experienced supervisor.

“Intestinal peeling” – In combination with a fruit and vegetable juice fast, it can also be effective to use flea seed husks (psyllium) and bentonite or volcanic clay to especially clean the intestinal walls of deposits.

Psyllium swells up in the intestine and suppresses feelings of hunger and helps to keep the intestinal system working. Bentonite has a special ability to bind heavy metals and toxins and excrete them in the intestine. In combination with this form of fasting, it is necessary to do thorough bowel flushing, and some people experience that 1/2 – 1 kg of old coating that has been sitting in the intestinal walls is excreted. Usually, these kinds of cures should be carried out at special cure places that have specialized in such a method.

Waterproof – Drinking only boiled water or tempered water is waterproof.

This is among the more radical forms of fasting, and beyond one day is not for beginners. Most people should experiment with the slightly lighter fasts before embarking on water fasts.

Lightfast – Diets and food are put into a thought-provoking perspective when it is a fact that several people live completely without food, but subsist on light.

Some have done it over a period of many years. For example, the Catholic nun Therese Neumann, who lived in the last century in Germany, and certain yogis. The Australian woman Jasmuheen lives like this and has not eaten since 1993. Several hundred have followed her example and instructions such as can be found in several of her books, the most famous; “Living on Light”. However, Jasmuheen does not see eating as a goal in itself, but rather as an effect of inner development and mental reprogramming of the body, which according to her is entirely possible for most people. The biggest obstacle is our notions that it is not possible.
Normally, such a fast should not last more than 36 hours, and only with a slow decrease and increase. Lysfaste has more spiritual purposes and goals, where one removes all disturbances and can experience expanded states of consciousness. In the future, this will probably become an increasingly large part of our reality, and living on light and love may become a regular diet. All food is a transformation of light, so why not go directly to the source?

What kind of fasting is suitable for whom

If you are stout, short, usually hotter than cold, physically active, have an excess of fat and a long background of meat, fish, eggs, milk and sweets in your diet, fasting will do wonders. You will be a so-called Kapha or bordering on Pitta type according to Ayurvedic medicine, more yang-type classified according to Chinese medicine, or A-type according to Western medicine.

This is the type of person who tolerates fasting best, and who usually enjoys fasting. Here, the more radical forms of fasting such as a fruit and vegetable juice fast or a pure water fast will be beneficial, and with a longer duration of up to 10 days.

For the more fragile type, who is thin, usually more cold and likes heat, is more mental than physical, has little excess fat and is a vegetarian, fasting is far less attractive. This is a so-called vata type or more yin. Such a person should rarely fast for more than three days. Short fasts of one day, or grain fasts or semi-fasts of a maximum of 10 days are better.

These are the two extremes and in between there is the pitta type and the more balanced between yin and yang, and who can choose a little more freely between the forms of fasting, but should still avoid the extremes.

The most important thing about fasting is how you break it. As Bernhard Shaw also stated about fasting; “Any fool can fast, only a wise man can break it.” So before a fast, you should have a diet that works on a daily basis. If it is not in place, fasting easily becomes a skipper’s roof strategy where the dangers of a yo-yo diet that oscillates from one extreme to the other are great. In such a context, fasting can be directly harmful, and there are those who have died from throwing themselves at food after a longer fast. So fasting should not be undertaken until there is clarity on how to eat after the fast. And a balanced diet over a long period of time is often far healthier than half-desperate periodic fasts.

This is among the biggest dangers of fasting. Because it is an extreme cure, the reactions afterwards can also be just as extreme in a negative direction. It requires self-discipline to carry out all forms of fasting, and it is important that you know your strength and constitution before you embark on fasting.

For whom definitely not suitable

• People with eating disorders should avoid all forms of fasting, and concentrate on a healthy diet that works over a long period of time.
• Pregnant women, nursing mothers and children should not fast.
• Seriously ill people should not fast without guidance.
• One should generally avoid longer fasts when it is cold.

What one should do during a fast

Even if the digestive system goes to sleep and the internal organs get a thorough rest, this does not mean that everything else should stop. Normally, one should stay active during a fast. One should maintain moderate training and physical activity, but without great exertion. The more radical fasts can rarely be combined with work or other activities that require full presence. You should also be careful when driving or handling dangerous machines, as reaction time is often reduced somewhat during strong fasts.

During fasts where no solid food is consumed, enemas should be taken at least once a day. 1-2 liters of body-warm water, possibly with added chamomile, is taken into the large intestine using an enema container with associated hose. There are different variants, from a very simple enema syringe, to more advanced bowel irrigation systems. Colema Boards are particularly effective where you lie down during the entire process. You can also go to a bowel cleansing clinic and have “Colonics” etc. carried out. This is more drastic and should be performed with caution, especially by weaker persons.

This way of emptying the bowels on a daily basis effectively helps the excretion of toxins, and counteracts many of the excretion symptoms such as nausea, headache and fatigue.

Fasting is an introspective period for self-care. So other activities such as getting a massage, going for walks, reading books, playing games or listening to music, meditating and enjoying life naturally belong in such a time.

For longer fasts, weak people should avoid prolonged baths, showers and saunas. This can have a very debilitating effect. One should reduce sexual activity, in addition to showing a certain moderation in what one takes in reading material, television and films.

A fast should always be planned. And the longer and more extensive fasting, the more planning. Mentally adjusting to fasting is important, and it often seems that the body perceives the message and physically adjusts to the process. If one decides to fast for a certain number of days, but nevertheless decides to break the fast before the time, it is not certain that the body will react as quickly as the mind to such a change of plans.
Breaking the fast must also be carefully planned, and it is the period of the fast that requires the most willpower. It is better to fast shorter so that you have energy for this important phase of the fast. The more gradually you can enter and exit the fast, the better, and you should spend as much time on the transition period as the actual fast. So with a 3-day fast, you should have at least one day before and after where you eat down and up. And with a 10-day fast, five days on each side. In the case of a one-day fast, or the milder forms of fasting, this is not necessary.

And one last tip. When fasting do not think about food. Remember to cultivate an attitude of non-attachment, of mentally abstaining from food, – it will make fasting much easier.