After the festive period you may feel like giving your body a break and going on a little tour of regeneration or even a gentle de-tox.
Here a few examples of some more recent forms of fasting and also an all time classic, which is my favourite.
There is ‘intermittent fasting’ which means you regularly do not eat any food for 14 to 16 hours a day. In this way you give your body the time to regenerate in the fasting phase. For example, you could say to yourself: ‘I’ll only eat between 4pm and 9pm’. In this time you can eat whatever you want, but for the rest of the time it’s just water.
This is really interesting and when you try it for the first time it takes a few days to overcome the urgent desire to eat ‘outside hours’, but it really works. The longer you persevere, the easier it becomes, as your body will be so happy to have the regular time and space to regenerate.
The ‘1:1 method’! It’s one day on – you eat whatever you want and – one day off, which means the following day you eat nothing and just take water. This, in my view, demands a lot of discipline, as it can easily take you into some kind of food frenzy on the day you are allowed to eat. This can bring on problems of the digestive system, if you are sensitive in any way. The reason for that is that the blood sugar levels of the eating day make you crave food intensely on the non-eating day.
Nevertheless, Frank Madeo, the leading gerontologist (aging) at the University of Graz, Switzerland, had excellent results with hundreds of volunteers, who fasted like this for one year. Due to the blood sugar levels he had to keep close watch on the participants in order to prevent them cheating! Personally not my method of choice, it just does not feel gentle and wholesome enough.
There is the ‘the fasting mimicking diet (FMD)’ by Valter Longo. This is a method by which you regularly do short period fasting with vegetables and nuts limited to 800 -1100 calories per day. This method really deserves the label ‘diet’ more than ‘fasting’ – the term fasting really only applies if there is no nutrient intake. Nevertheless his method showed good results and his clinical trials underline this. He conveniently has designed his own food range (he is American after all) which is highly expensive and of course serves a market place.
The modern classic is the ‘Buchinger Fast’. This is traditional healing fasting for at least 5 days in a row with vegetable broth, herbal tea, juice and water. This is really the profound method in my view to give your body a real chance of regeneration. Otto Buchinger, a medical doctor, fell ill with a severe rheumatic condition which placed him into a wheelchair in 1917. He cured himself of this condition by prolonged fasting. He quickly realised that the fast not only had an enormous curative effect on his organism but also had a profound effect on his soul and clarity of thought. This method has been improved and tried and tested throughout the century.
Andreas Michalsen, Professor of naturopathy at the eminent Charité hospital in Berlin treats most of the classic complaints with the Buchinger method, two to three times a year. Besides the longer fasting periods he recommends ‘moderate daily fasting’. He states that the idea of three meals a day belongs to the past. He recommends that we drop at least one meal a day and gently change the phase of not eating to a 14 hour cycle in order to maintain health and wellness.
I really like the idea of this combination and have experience with it by following the fasting instructions of the German MD and psychotherapist Rüdiger Dahlke.
Fasting is really much easier to implement into your day than dieting. You don’t need to worry about shopping that much and your body and mind isn’t crazed by the little bits of food it receives with the purpose to tantalize your blood sugar levels even more!
I know that many people fear the idea of ‘hunger’ and ‘starvation’. Fasting takes you into another realm as the body accepts the rest phase quickly and will soon stop the desire to eat. It’s not scary really, I’ve done it many times and so can you!
I think a gentle way to enter the realm of fasting is by trying out one fasting day and to experience what that is like. My ideal scenario for you would be to really increase your water intake and also throw some alkaline bathing into the equation.
I would like to give you a glimpse of what natural self care has to offer, all methods you can do yourself, in your own home.
I would like to accompany you and provide you with my knowledge in this field and be your strong support in finding your path to intrinsic health.
For that reason I am offering some personal facilitation , please check it out on my homepage and if you are interested contact me and we can discuss a 12 day plan for you.
Reading recommendation:
Therapeutic Fasting: The Buchinger Amplius Method: The Amplius Method by Françoise Wilhelmi de Toledo