To fast or not to fast?

This is one of the main questions that I get asked in my naturopathic practice. People seeking a naturopath, generally have a fair idea of how to improve their health. Fasting seems to be a trend at the moment and I often get asked about if it’s a good idea, what the best way to fast is and will it improve health. So I will answer these questions for you.

There is a lot of media hype around fasting and its potential benefits and there are also the critics, who think the whole idea of fasting is ridiculous. If you research fasting, you will see a whole array of information from 24 hour fasts, intermittent fasting, 3 day fast and even the 40 day fast. You will see pro-fasting articles stating all of the benefits and then you will see anti-fasting articles, telling you about all the dangers. You’ve probably heard something about fasting and have hundreds of questions about fasting, hence why you are reading this, so I will attempt to answer them as best I can. Remember to be discerning of what you read, as this post is only about my knowledge, opinions and my personal experiences to date. I strongly believe that there is no one size fits all equation when it comes to health.

The history of fasting

When I studied to become a naturopath, I was introduced to the idea of fasting. I learnt that fasting is a practice that has been around for centuries. We all know that many religions practice some sort of fasting at some stage during the year. Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and it is believed that fasting was practiced for hundreds of years before Jesus lived as well. Hippocrates (who was a physician in ancient Greece and lived from 460-377 BC), also known as the father of natural medicine, recommended that his patients fast if they had certain illnesses. He believed that to eat was feeding the illness. If you have a pet, you might notice that animals fast when they are sick because they intuitively know that fasting will make them feel better. I would think (and this is only my opinion) that fasting would have been more widely accepted thousands of years ago and may have been a regular practice. Nowadays, we live in a society, where we overthink things, we are constantly bombarded with advertising about certain products and we are brainwashed into thinking that we need certain products, we need to eat at certain time intervals and we need a particular amount of macros each day. This may be true for some but once again, I don’t personally believe in a one-size fits all approach to health and wellbeing. It all comes down to our beliefs and our DNA and everyone is different.

The science behind fasting

Studies have shown numerous benefits of fasting. Some include: improving the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar and decrease insulin resistance, fighting inflammation within the body, enhancing heart health, boosting brain function and productivity, preventing neurodegenerative diseases, helping with fat loss and boosting metabolism, improving immune system function and prevention of premature ageing.

Fasting achieves these benefits because during the fast, your body is not concerned with digestion. Digestion takes up a lot of your body’s energy and focus. During a normal day of eating 3 meals and 2 snacks, you will use about 10% of your energy digesting food, however that’s only if it was clean healthy food. If you were eating more energy dense or low nutritious food, then you would use more energy digesting it. This energy then becomes unavailable for other functions, such as detoxification and healing from illness.

During a fast, you will go into a state of ketosis. This is simply when the body uses fat stores as energy instead of glucose. When we eat three meals a day, our body uses the carbohydrate from the food you have eaten as energy. Your body will convert it to glucose and use this until there is no glucose left. Only then, will you start using fat as energy. Fasting appears to make our bodies become more efficient at using fat as energy.

How does fasting improve productivity?

Your brain uses glucose as its first fuel source but your brain can also use ketones as its fuel source. During fasting, your brain is fueled by ketones, which are produced in your liver during times of low carbohydrate intake. There is a lot of information about whether your brain is best using glucose or ketones as fuel, however some believe that ketones are a better source of fuel for your brain and therefore increasing productivity. It would be like filling up your car with petrol, if you buy the premium petrol your car is likely to perform better than if you bought the cheapest but once again, this might be true for some but not for others. It depends on our genetic make-up.

Is fasting a good idea?

The question we have all been waiting for. There are many benefits but it depends on a number of factors and everyone will have a different experience.

There are groups of people who should not fast including pregnant and breastfeeding women, diabetics, people with a chronic illness, elderly people, children or anyone taking medications that must be taken with food. It would always be best to check with a health professional before fasting. When I see clients for naturopathic consultation, this question comes up a lot. I then go through the clients health history, family history and current health status before recommending a fast.

As I touched on earlier, we all come with different belief systems and different DNA. Our subconscious beliefs have the power to create our lives and the way we experience life. This is probably why some ideas about health work for some people but not for others, it may be why some medications work for some people but not others. So if fasting is good idea for you or not, depends on a number of factors but it may be worth giving a go.

You could always start off with a short fast and increase it over time. You could start with intermittent fasting, where you fast for 16 hours and eat for 8 hours. When I do this, I find it easy because you are sleeping for most of the fasting period, you wake up, skip breakfast and before you know it, its lunchtime. I usually eat between the hours of 12pm-8pm. You could tailor this concept to suit your day. Once you get used to intermittent fasting, you could work your way up to a 24 hour fast and/or a 3 day fast.

Can I drink anything other than water during a fast?

There is lots of information regarding what you can and can’t have during a fast. When I have done it, I have had water and herbal and green tea. Sometimes I have had lemon juice in water or apple cider vinegar (ACV). You aren’t breaking a fast unless you are having calories, so if you want to try fasting but feel that you need more than just water, then have some tea or try lemon juice or ACV, the calories are so low that it is not likely to break your fast.

My experience of fasting

Now I will get into my experience with fasting. In the past I have tried intermittent fasting, where I would eat between the hours of 12pm and 8pm and fast for the other 16 hours per day, but I had never fasted for long periods of time. I would do it for a week or so or then do it for one or two days a week and then stop, not because I found it difficult but simply because we are so conditioned to think about eating that one day I would simply forget and have breakfast or a coffee and then the fast would be broken for that day. Or a friend would ring and ask to meet up for coffee or a meal and I knew if I told them “Sorry I’m fasting today” they would roll their eyes and tell me I’m crazy before hanging up. Probably because they are also conditioned to think about food. The fasting itself was not hard for me, it was the undoing of the societal conditioning about thinking that we need to have 3 square meals and 2 snacks everyday. It seems to be programmed into my subconscious mind and unless I make a conscious effort to remember that I won’t be having breakfast, then it’s easy to forget and do whatever is habitual for you. Eating is habitual for most people. We eat to celebrate, we eat because we are bored, we eat because we are told to from the time we were born, we eat to socialise. Eating is the centre of most of our activities. We rarely think of eating simply as fuel for our body and pick the best fuel accordingly but really it is as simple as that. Yes there are foods we enjoy that may not be healthy and I’m not suggesting to cut anything out, as balance is important but just imagine how much we could improve our lives if we started focusing on food as fuel the majority of the time and then had the occasional treat, showing our amazing bodies the respect of good nutrition and being so grateful for the fuel provided to our bodies. For me, intermittent fasting was great, when I could maintain it. I felt energetic, I woke up with vitality and my sleep improved which was amazing since I have had lifelong insomnia. I was hungry at times in the morning but it was easy for me to manage as I fed the kids, got them ready for preschool and got everyone in the car. Mornings were hectic and seemed to just fly by and the next thing I knew, it was lunch. I will definitely get back into intermittent fasting at some stage.

I decided to do a 3-day fast recently. I came to this decision because I had been feeling unwell and had a range of strange symptoms that didn’t really add up to anything. Some of these symptoms have been hanging on for years and some for months. I have seen doctors, who did not have any real answers for me but were quick to prescribe medications that did not work. As a naturopath I have treated myself and tried every single avenue that I could think of naturopathically. It all worked but only temporarily, then a few days after the treatment plan had finished, I would be frustrated that all the symptoms were back I went to see a naturopath, a friend of mine and followed his advice, and once again, it all worked temporarily. This was really frustrating for me because living a healthy and clean life and helping others to do so as well, is something I am passionate about. I take all the supplements I need, exercise, eat clean and practice theta healing on myself to clear energetic blockages and improve my belief systems but still I was not well. To me, this was proof that there is no one size fits all approach to health and wellbeing. At times, people may heal from medicines and supplements but other times, illnesses and symptoms can be energetic and belief based.

So I decided on a 3 day fast. I figured I should give my body a break from digestion and give it time to regenerate its immune system.

Day 1

I woke up with no energy as usual after a night of broken sleep and a severely itchy arm that kept me up most of the night. My children wake up at 4.30am and refuse to go back to sleep, so I entertain them and make breakfast for them. By 6am, they are having their second breakfast and having tantrums over what clothes they want to wear that day. The morning went by quickly and I had some itching on my arm again but I was busy with the kids so I did not pay any attention to the fact that I wasn’t eating. I had a glass of warm water with lemon juice while the girls ate their lunch.

By mid afternoon, I felt hungry but I drank some water and pushed through. This day was tough. It was mentally draining to get my head around not eating for the entire as I had never done this before.

I went to teach a Pilates class at 6pm, so skipping dinner wasn’t too much of an issue and when I came home, I went straight to bed. I was feeling ok but no better or worse than usual.

Day 2

Woke up at 5am, poor sleep again but I felt more alive. I felt vibrant and I did not even feel hungry. I dropped the girls off at preschool and went for a walk and a swim. I was slightly out of breath walking but it was fine.

After swimming, I sat down by at the side of the rock pool and suddenly felt euphoric feelings that I have never experienced before. It seemed kind of like an out of body experience. I was completely present and had a newfound respect for my body and for water. I had an awareness of how amazing our bodies really are. Your body is constantly fighting off illness for you, digesting food for you and absorbing what it needs and detoxifying the rest, your body allows you to move but most importantly, I had an awareness that our bodies are a vessel in which we are able to express our souls uniqueness and creativity and influence others in a positive way. Our body is simply the suit we wear so we can have the opportunity to help others. We choose whether we want to do that or not. We could spend our whole lives in our comfort zone, just plodding along and making the same mistakes over and over or we can be present and try to understand life and have a positive impact on others. I understood how important water is and how life giving it is and for the first time in my life, I felt love for my body. This was huge as a person who has suffered life-long body image issues. I could feel the water having a positive effect on my cells, both the water I was drinking and the water from the ocean that I had swam in. I also gained an understanding of how eating can be a form of self-abuse and lack of self-respect. At times we are susceptible to using food as a form of managing our emotions, overeating, eating when we are not hungry and eating until we are overfull. At times we are all guilty of this and it shouldn’t be a problem, unless it is constant and consistent. Food is both a blessing and a curse and its up to us to try and use it as blessing.

I was left wondering how that kind of experience was possible after just one day of fasting. Was it the availability of ketones? Was it that my body was starting to become cleaner? Was it an improved brain function? I don’t know exactly what it was but it was worth it and I would fast again for a day to have that kind of experience.

In terms of productivity, I cleaned my house, worked on my business, sorted out my clothes and felt generally motivated. I picked up the kids from preschool, had a hectic afternoon and evening and went to bed. Day 2 was not hard, I was not hungry at all and did not even crave food but the most exciting part of this day was that by midday, the rash under my eyes was nearly gone. This happened in just one day of fasting, after months of trying everything.

Day 3

This day started with difficulty. I woke up feeling sick. My heart was racing and I had a headache. I had to lay down in bed for a few minutes before getting up, to avoid vomiting. I slowly dragged myself out of bed and drank some warm water with lemon juice. I felt fine after that. I wasn’t hungry, I still wasn’t craving food and I felt like I had more energy. I had a look in the mirror and was excited to see that the rash on my face was completely gone. I also realised that my itchy arm had not kept me awake during the night.

I did the preschool drop off, did the groceries, caught up with a friend for a walk. My heart was racing while we were walking but I still had enough energy to walk and talk.

During the day, my heart was racing on and off and it concerned me at times but I pushed through. When I was focused on it, my heart raced more and when I managed to focus on something else, my heart rate declined. I thought about giving up at times but I had come too far and couldn’t give up. This made me realise that we often begin to panic when it comes to our health and this can make symptoms worse but if we can focus positive energy into something else, our symptoms seem to calm down, when we calm ourselves down. We hear it over and over again but presence really is the key to living a calm and healthy life.

I had dinner that night to end my fast and woke up the next morning feeling great. For dinner I had a plant-based meal to ease my body back into digestion.

Would I personally recommend a 3 day fast?

Yes absolutely! I plan on doing it again myself but it depends on your motivation for doing it. I recommend doing a 3 day fast, if you want to improve your health and/or explore or enhance your spirituality and your connection to your body and the world around you. I feel like that was the main thing I got from the fast. It is much cheaper than doing expensive detoxes, where you are led to believe that you need supplements and products in order to detoxify yourself. If you can maintain an open mind and a strong will power, you will get amazing benefits from a 3 day fast.

I lost 3 kilos during the 3 days but I would not recommend that you fast, if you are wanting to use it as a weight loss tool, simply because that does not come from a place of love for your body and will probably not provide you with an amazing experience. If you attempt to do a fast to change the things you don’t like about yourself, rather than improve the things that you do like about yourself and explore yourself more, then you might not have a good experience.

If you feel like this is something that you want to try and would like some more in depth information or advice, please get in touch.