What is fasting exactly, you may ask? Fasting is abstaining from food, drink, or both, for a certain period of time. Fasting could also mean abstaining from something else that you take pleasure in, for example, fasting from watching TV or being on your phone….yes, a phone fast! That would be good…
The type of fasting I’m going to be talking about today is water fasting. This means that you ONLY consume water for a set amount of time. Now, before anyone freaks out about anything, I just want to say that I fast regularly, (even daily if you include intermittent fasting which is abstaining from food for 14+ hours) anywhere from 24 hours up to over a week. The average person can actually go 40 days without food. Yep. Forty days, or longer.
Now, why in the heck would you want to water fast? (And may I digress here and say you must be drinking good, filtered water during this time.) Fasting has been practiced throughout many cultures for millenia and has many proven health benefits.
Fasting makes cells autophagy, which means they get rid of the unnecessary and dysfunctional components.
Fasting helps weight loss. Now, while this isn’t a long term solution, it can”jump start” weight loss. Always be mindful of what you go back to eating after a fast. I recommend a whole food, plant based diet for optimal health.
Fasting slows the aging process. Fasting lowers inflammation and oxidative stress, therefore helping you to stay looking, and most importantly, feeling younger.
When starting a fast for the first time, I like to recommend first by skipping a meal -- breakfast is a good one to start with since you are already fasting overnight (I hope), and wait to “break the fast” until lunch time. Then, move on to a longer time frame. Work up to 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, and beyond. Know that your body wants food, and your mind will trick you in every which way to eat. And if you do, that’s okay. There’s always right now to start your fast.
The more you fast, the easier it becomes and the more benefits you’ll reap. I challenge you today -- if you’ve never fasted, what’s stopping you? Hunger is not an excuse this time…
Cura te,
Jenny
