Is Fasting Always the Answer?
Lately I've been talking a lot about fasting and how great it is for improving your overall health. It really is amazing what our bodies can accomplish when at rest and given the chance to heal.
So by now, you're probably thinking that fasting sounds like just thing you need to finally achieve optimal health, right? The answer to all your health woes, eh?
Not necessarily...
Fasting is Not a Miracle Cure
Fasting is merely a tool. It is a much needed rest that allows your body to do everything it can to heal itself.
Yes, the results from fasting can be astounding, especially for those accustomed to the modern medical model obsessed with "curing" what ails you with pills (which really only serve to alleviate the symptoms).
But that does not make fasting miraculous.
Fasting is Temporary
Fasting for several weeks may rid your body of arthritis, anemia, athereosclerosis, etc., but it will not make you impervious to these diseases forever. You can't just finish your fast and go back to your same old habits, expecting the "miraculous" results you received to continue.
If you go back to your old ways, your old results will return. You MUST have a plan of action after the fast if you want to retain all of your wonderful results.
Remember, a fast is short. A typical long-term fast of 21 days may sound like a long time, but it's only about 1/17 of a full year. You spend the rest of year eating, usually at least 3 times each day.
Doesn't it make more sense to put a larger investment into your diet and exercise program than a measly three week fast?
Fasting and Disordered Eating
As someone who comes from a background of bingeing and purging, I have to say that fasting is not for people like me. I simply would not have been able to fast for more than a couple of hours while in the throws of a diet-binge-diet cycle.
Even the mere thought of fasting would have sent me into crazy binge mode!
If you are currently in the grips of seriously disordered eating, I would suggest something like a visit to Banana Island (bananas and water only) for a week or two instead. Basically, you just eat as many bananas as you need to satisfy you. Anytime you are hungry, eat more bananas!
Most disordered eating stems from an obsession with dieting for weight loss. Banana Island will help you familiarize yourself with eating enough simple carbohydrates so you can stop dieting and finally put an end to your disordered eating for good.
Fasting Rocks!
I don't mean to put down fasting. Really, I don't. I agree with Dr. Joel Fuhrman 100 percent in Fasting and Eating for Health when he states that:
"Therapeutic fasting is not a mystical or magical cure. It works because the body has within it the capacity to heal when the obstacles to healing are removed. Health is the normal state.
Most chronic disease is the inevitable consequence of living a life-style that places disease-causing stressors on the human organism. Fasting gives the body an interlude without those stressors so that it can speedily repair or accomplish healing that could not otherwise occur in the feeding state."
In other words, it is our modern day lifestyles (i.e. too much fat, not enough exercise, too many stimulants, too little sunshine, etc.) that lead to the prevailing diseases and disorders of today. By taking a rest from food, physical activity, etc., your body doesn't have to deal with neutralizing these stressors and can instead finally work on healing itself.
But without these stressors (namely our fatty, overly processed diets), there would be no need to fast. Again, it's what you do on a regular basis that really counts.
And what you do on a regular basis should include eating a healthy low fat raw vegan diet, exercising, getting adequate sunshine, and sleeping as much as you need.
Adopting even just one of these factors will improve your health and help you avoid the need to fast all together.
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
Questions and Answers
Article Tags:
fasting
,water only fasting
,long term fasting
,water fasting
,fast
,raw food diet
,raw foods
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