Benefits of Fasting

The evidence throughout time supporting fasting is incredible.

There was a guy back in ancient Greece named Aesculapius that said, “Instead of using medicine, fast”. Hippocrates recommended prolonged fasting instead of taking health-destroying pharmaceuticals, which is the God of modern day medicine.

Most of the religions in the world advocate periods of “abstinence” from food to attain physical and spiritual purity and even animals and babies, through their natural instincts, refuse to eat food when they feel ill. Yet, most people are clueless about the benefits of fasting when sick and always advise those that they care about to “Eat to keep up your strength.” During illness, there can be no worse advice to lower vitality.

When you fast there is an increase in the amount of energy available for the eliminative and cleansing process due to the absence of large amounts of food requiring digestion and assimilation, which require energy as well.

The body then is able to redirect this increased energy toward elimination of the obstructions to the vital life force in the form of toxic waste and since vitality equals the life force minus any obstructions, as they are removed higher levels of vital energy are available for more rapid elimination.

Elimination begins as soon as the first meal is missed. As the fasting proceeds, usually during the first three days and reaching its maximum by the third day, this elimination activity manifests in the appearance of a coated tongue, bad breath, headaches, muscular aches and general fatigue.

These symptoms arise due to the increase of toxins in the bloodstream being passed out of the channels of elimination. The sooner these symptoms manifest, the more toxic is the system.

Usually around the forth or fifth day a general feeling of well-being comes about.

But, and there’s always a but, this state of well-being lasts in degrees of varying intensity interspersed with periods of lack of energy and fatigue as more toxins are eliminated. At about ten days the body is able to get rid of a large amount of deep-rooted toxins and waste matter.

At that point if one experiences flulike symptoms or skin eruptions or other various eliminations, the fast is doing its job and in a short time the feeling of increased health and vigor will come back big time.

For people that have never fasted before, start with one day. Eventually, when that settles in, anywhere from three days to three weeks will be a piece of cake. When you can handle one day a couple of times, go to at least three days. From there, knock yourself out.

When fasting it’s always good to drink lots of water and freshly squeezed juices. Stay way from all the pasteurized crap that you get when you buy bottled juices and stay away from fluoridated water. We are talking about getting rid of toxins not continuing to ingest them.

Breaking the fast properly is probable more important. Remember that your body has undergone a heavy detoxification and elimination process so you want to start light and proceed slowly to heavy.

For every three days you fast you need one day of transition. Let’s say you do 10 days. Ten days equals 3 to 4 days of getting back because this process has to be a gentle process for your system. The first day should be fruits, water and fresh juices. Day 2 should be fruit, adding stewed fruits, salads, water and fresh juices. Day 3 can include soups with lentils and peas and/or a light sandwich and steamed vegetables. The more you fast the more you spread out the break-back-in.

Food for thought: you just eliminated a ton of crap from your system. Look at what put you there in the first place and decide if you really want to go back to putting back all those toxins you just got rid of.

At this point you might want to re-think what fuel you want to put in your gas tank. Remember that you are now rebuilding tissue and you should want that to be as healthy and constructive as can be.

The best would be organic, plant-based fuel. If not, it’s back to flesh and blood, GMOs, antibiotics, bovine growth hormones, MSG, aspartame, Agent Orange, and food colorings, for openers.

OK, back to the break-in. Chew you food until it turns into liquid in your mouth, at which point you drink it rather than swallow it.

Remember, it’s easy to fast but a bitch to break properly. Too much too soon or too heavy too soon can create more problems than you would ever want. Think about it: you just cleaned out your system and now it’s as if you have the system of a little baby. What do you think would happen to an infant if you tried to have it ingest
something other than mother’s milk or something that was not heavily pureed? Bye, bye baby? Hell yeah! Now substitute YOU for “baby.

Understand that the tongue is considered to be the mirror of internal health as is used as a guide to the fasting length and process.

What usually happens is that the tongue becomes heavily coated during the first three days of the fast and becomes progressively clearer until the healing crisis starts, or the fast is ended. If the fast is allowed to continue until the tongue is clear and is broken gently with wholesome food, the result will be an increase in physical well-being, vitality, mental clarity, and the body will be at peace.

The type of fast determines the rate of elimination, so, in essence, it is possible to control the elimination process.

By definition, fasting is the elimination of solid food. The strictest fast is the water fast and the order of fast in degree of elimination power is:
Water fast
Citrus juice fast
Sub-acid fruit juice fast
Vegetable juice fast

While the water and citrus juice fasts are more eliminative than the sub-acid juice or vegetable juice fasts, this doesn’t mean they are more desirable in every situation. Some situations need a slower, less dramatic elimination than others and not all people can handle citrus in excess or even go one day on water alone.

When in doubt, see a Naturopath.

The following is a list of regimens that bring about eliminations of greater or lesser degrees, in that order:
Citrus fruit mono diet (only one type of fruit and its juice)
Sub-acid mono diet (i.e. apples)
Mixed fruit diet (only one fruit type per meal; no bananas – too heavy)
Raw fruit and vegetable diet
Raw vegetable mono diet (i.e. raw carrot and raw carrot juice)
Raw fruit, raw vegetables, steamed vegetables
Raw and cooked fruit and vegetables plus complex carbohydrates (not refined)
Raw and cooked fruit and vegetables, complex carbohydrates and vegetarian protein

Some reasons for fasting are:
During any acute disease
In any case of lowered vitality or general debility
During any healing crisis
Repeatedly in most chronic diseases
To clear the mind

Also, the following juice or mono diets are frequently used:
Apple juice or mono diet:
Great alkaline diet for acidic conditions like gout or other inflammatory problems.

Grape juice or mono diet:
Great for heart problems or where heavy activity has to take place during elimination. Black grapes especially used with heart conditions. Grapes are not as eliminative as other fruit juices or mono diets.

Grapefruit juice or mono diet:
Good for liver conditions, general elimination, colds or mucous conditions. Not good for arthritis, ulcers, or hyperacidity.

Orange juice or mono diet:
Oranges are not frequently advised in too great a quantity, as they tend to upset the liver. They are used primarily in mucous and lung complaints. Excess may cause inflammation and itching of the butt.

Lemon Juice:
Diluted, lemon juice and water are highly eliminative.

Carrot juice or mono diet:
Especially useful in digestive problems like colitis or ulcers. A very alkaline juice and extremely useful in all acid conditions.

Cabbage juice:
Most effective with ulcers and commonly mixed with carrot juice for this.

Onion juice and mono diet:
Excellent for any condition with excess mucus, lung complaints, sinus congestion, colds, middle ear and Eustachian tube congestion, etc.

A couple of final words:
1. It is well worth your while to enlist the aid of a Naturopath.
2. Interestingly enough the plant world heals and the flesh world sickens.

Aloha!

Sources:
www.lifehack.org
www.allaboutfasting.com
www.draxe.com

When I was a kid, if I were told that I’d be writing a book about diet and nutrition when I was older, let alone having been doing a health related radio show for over 36 years, I would’ve thought that whoever told me that was out of their mind. Living in Newark, New Jersey, my parents and I consumed anything and everything that had a face or a mother except for dead, rotting, pig bodies, although we did eat bacon (as if all the other decomposing flesh bodies were somehow miraculously clean). Going through high school and college it was no different. In fact, my dietary change did not come until I was in my 30′s.

Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.

After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a “plastic” community would be an understatement.

Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.

I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, ” let’s become vegetarians”. I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, “okay”! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $ 100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.

So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, “The Little Kitchen”.

Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.

I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I’ll elaborate on that in a minute.

But right now, back to “The Little Kitchen”. Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.

The owner said to me, “Let’s make a deal. You do our tax return and we’ll feed you as well”. So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.

But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, “Hawaii”. Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called,” Mr. Natural’s”. I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at “Mr. Natural’s.” To make a long story short, that’s exactly what happened.

So, I’m working at “Mr. Natural’s” and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle – it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka’anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.

Since I was the new guy, and didn’t really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that’s exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.

I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.

Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I’m asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn’t thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, “You expected anything less”? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, ‘enchilada’s at “Natural’s” tonight’. I never had to cook anything else.

A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That’s when they found out I was an accountant and “Down to Earth” was born. “Down to Earth” became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.

In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD’s that would call in asking for my credentials.

My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.

I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii’s premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She said,” If you want to be with me you’ve got to stop working on naked women”. So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.

Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a “chicken” or “egg” or “fish” or “pig” or “cow” was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.

The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.

Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.

For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.

Namaste!

Benefits of Fasting