Fasting - ever try it?

[bobja]

I usually fast every Monday to give my ol' body a rest from processing food and a chance to release toxins, plus it's an excellent exercise in self control. I eat supper on Sunday, then don't eat again until Tuesday morning. Often, I do have a little fruit juice or carrot juice to hold me over.

Over the course of a year, 52 days without eating saves a lot on the grocery bill!

My longest fast was 3 days, and it was very hard for me. I understand if you get past that third day, you no longer feel that hungry. You won't believe how your sense of smell sharpens. The aroma of cooking food never smelled so good!

Anyone else have fasting experience? Care to share your story?

[Nlighten1]

1. I love fasting

I had to fast for 2 days before a procedure once and I notice it was very easy to do and I felt better for it.

I usually make myself some fresh squeezed fruit juice to drink.

[sujan]

2. used to

gave up. Realized I like eating.

[kixot]

3. Usd to do it regularly.

Back when I was vegetarian I would often have fasting days where I would only have a few cups of unsweetened green tea. It was a great feeling, physically, I felt light and didn't need much sleep. I ate moderately and very healthy. When i started eating meat again and stopped the occasional fast I started feeling like a ton of lead and never got back to the airy feeling I used to have. Since then I have gained about 50lbs and am not exercising as much. Maybe I should start the diet again...

[bobja]

4. I usually sleep vey well, and go to bed early

[Orrin_73]

5. Im doing it now for almost

a month. Its the fasting month for us muslims now.

[Wwagsthedog]

7. C'mon. Tell the whole story about Ramadan and what Iftar is, etc.

No, I'm not anti-Muslim. It's just that their fasting is for daylight hours only. Very strict, yes, but not health threatening. Those who do have health problems are excused from fasting.

[corarose]

6. I went on a fast for 30 days one time & ended up in the

HOSPITAL!

[SpiralHawk]

8. Ever year, in the warmer weather

I fast for 4 days and 4 nights. I go into the wilderness, sometimes alone, sometimes with the support of an elder. In the beginning, it was difficult. But as the years have gone by and i havebecame accustomed to it, I find it strengthening, clearing, and renewing.

If you are fasting from water, too, it is definitely advisable to have an experienced elder supervising you. When it is done right, a fast from food and water is tremendously powerful.

Fasting is one of the oldest and most reliable spiritual development techniques, and very effective if engaged wisely.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

9. Yeah, fat girls don't fast...

That's like telling us to go run a marathon. Yeah. I can't hike across a hilly campus every day without food.
Duckie

[Character Assassin]

10. It is a widely-held myth that fasting can 'cleanse toxins'

Known in scientific circles as 'bullshit'. Please do yourself a favor and divest yourself of it. Even the most peripheral overview of biochemistry will help this old wive's tale collapse of its own weight.

Likewise is the notion that the body somehow needs a rest from digestion, to be blunt, whacky. There simply isn't any evidence for this.

It most certainly IS, however, an excellent form of self-discipline.

[Nlighten1]

12. Recent studies have shown

a reduced calorie diet can increase the life span of labratory mice. Soon they may test this on humans. What do you think it is about a reduced calorie diet that might be beneficial?

[Character Assassin]

18. That's actually something quite different, and quite promising

Dr. Rob Walford at UCLA, unless I'm mistaken is the one who's the leading authority on that, and his work (including work on himself) has thus far been proven to be, at the very least, worthy of more study.

I have no current links on him, but he's quite the interesting fellow. Googling might do the trick.

19. the theory is

...that aside from the benefits to the organs of being slightly underweight, that each cell in the body is designed to process a certain number of calories in its lifetime. So if you go on a low calorie diet, it takes a longer amount of time before the cell has processed that number of calories and thus individual cells live longer which results in the organism living longer.

[Dogmudgeon]

20. Glad you mentioned it

Key your Google search on "Roy Walford" and you'll get thousands of hits. Some of them might even link to his scientific papers.

Recent studies have shown that hypocaloric (super-low-cal) diets kick up production of several hormones and enzyme systems associated with longevity and good health. Some of them don't require hypocaloric dieting; one is the enzyme system affected by the phytochemicals in tea and coffee (not the caffeine).

There are currently several longevity studies being done involving putting lab animals on near-zero-carb diets; start looking for the publications in late spring.

--bkl

[RandomUser]

23. Yes, I've heard of this.

I think it's called "caloric restriction." It's not quite the same as fasting, though. I believe the theory is that less calories, with or without fasting, leads to a slower metabolism and less cell divisions, thus lenghtening life. Cell divisions decrease the telomeres at the ends of the DNA strands, a ticking clock counting down to when the cells will fail. And more cell divisions mean more chance for mutations introduced by mitosis, leading to cancer. And higher metabolisms can also produce more toxins in the body.

The studies have been promising in increasing lifespans, but I'm concerned about the possible impacts on quality of life.

Some critics have said that it's not "living longer" but "living slower." I'm not sure what the energy levels and mental acuity effects are of a slower metabolism, decreased mitosis, and caloric restriction diets.

I suspect there is a trade off point. We really don't need all these calories, since for much of human history, we've subsisted on less stable diets that total to less calories over all. There are theories of binging and starvations cycles, thus the human taste for fat -- a high calorie substance that can see us through the starvation cycles when food is harder to come by after feasting on irregular hunting kills. Averaged out, the binging on high calorie animal fat and the starvation cycles during times of hunting failure would probably result in lower annual caloric diets. The modern high constant calorie diet is a relatively recent development. So a lower caloric diet may not impact our performance too much.

But at some point, too few calories may result in reduced performance, meaning we end up living much slower, impacting our metabolism and mental accuity.

[sujan]

13. agreed

Naturopathy has no scientific validity.

[Character Assassin]

17. We are a minority here, I'm afraid.

[Nlighten1]

24. How about providing some proof?

Link?

[Character Assassin]

25. Sure.

http://www.healthfactsandfears.com/high_priorities/scam/2003/colon022703.html

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html

Although I'm quite sure they'll likely be lost on you.

[Nlighten1]

26. Wow

The first link did not mention fasting ONCE. The second link had not one shred of scientific evidence in it to support your claims. Do you have anything else? I don't care about colon cleansing since that isn't what this discussion is about. I would like to see scientific proof that fasting is dangerous not some quack website whose only "proof" is anecdotal at best.

[Character Assassin]

30. I see you are oblivious to what's staring you right in the face.

The first link did not mention fasting ONCE.

It doesn't have to. Any supposed 'toxins' that are in the body are released and/or stored in the digestive tract. Fasting, as in not supplying any more to that area, or cleansing, as in removing supposed current ones, are essentially the same thing.

The second link had not one shred of scientific evidence in it to support your claims.

Obviously you don't have the necessary rudimentary knowledge of science to understand what they're telling you.

Do you have anything else?

No time to waste on the scientifically ignorant.

I don't care about colon cleansing since that isn't what this discussion is about. I would like to see scientific proof that fasting is dangerous not some quack website whose only "proof" is anecdotal at best.

A. No one is making the claim that fasting is dangerous. That is a concoction of your own imagination.
B. Quackwatch is a website that is specifically designed to educate suckers who buy into quackery. I'd suggest your invest a lot more time reading there.

[ikojo]

11. Wow, bobja...that's amazing.

I usually fast on Jewish fast days, Yom Kippur being the most well known. Some are sundown to sundown fasts and others are just during the daylight hours.

[Awsi Dooger]

14. I fasted 9 days once, in the late '80s

After 3 days or so, I did not have the slightest interest in food. The headaches went away after a couple of days as well. The only reason I ended the fast was my friends had a full comp to the Caesar's Palace buffet and asked me to join them.

That meal was the most tasteless of my life. Roast turkey and Key Lime pie seemed virtually identical. Not long after the meal, everything I had consumed stormed right out of my backside in liquid form.

My favorite diet by far is an every other day one-day fast. I call the diet GO and NO. On the GO days I eat everything and anything I desire, from morning rise until midnight. On the NO days food does not exist, and I am so stuffed from the day before that I don't want anything anyway. The highlight of the NO days is shopping for the feast to follow.

The secret is not to cheat on the NO days by eating a little bit, with the justification that you will eat slightly less on the GO days. That blows the weight loss benefits to an amazing degree.

As another poster mentioned, restricted calorie diets and alternate days of eating have signficantly increased the lifespan of lab rats in many respected tests.

[Nlighten1]

15. Indeed.

And high fat, carb filled diets have resulted in an epedemic in obesity.


Character Ass - how about a link?

[Awsi Dooger]

28. Here

http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030429lifehealthp2.asp

Let's see, at DU we dispute the benefits of depriving our bodies of processed crap every other day, but are certain that the guy who purchased the rifle, snuck it to work, fled the scene, killed a cop, etc. had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination. Pure genius.

[Spirochete]

16. I did it once...

it was the longest day of my life.

[SmileyBoy]

21. I fasted at the beginning of Ramadan, but I had to quit...

...because I found out I have an ulcer in my lower stomache. I'm Muslim, BTW.

[indigo32]

22. I did years a go

as part of a progressive group I joined in college. We fasted to bring attention to the war in Eritrea. It wasn't that hard... and they made sure we were careful upon breaking it.

[amazona]

27. i think most fasting is unhealthy

I was probably borderline eating disordered when I experimented with fasting, and the only reason I'm responding to this thread is because I think it's important to weigh in on the dangers. I'm not sure what you consider fasting, but if it's doing 24 hours or more without food, I could not do that successfully without drugs. Most girls and women I've known who played with fasting also played with appetite suppressing drugs; legal or illegal, these substances have very real dangers. Young girls and women who experiment with restriction certainly do not live longer; playing with this stuff is playing with the deadly disease of anorexia. I wasn't overweight, and I'm still at the same weight, and I think if I had kept on with the fasting, I could well have ended up with serious health issues.


I'm happy for Dr. Walford's lab rats but I frankly think he is mad as hatter to think what happens in a lab, to rats, has any bearing on human lives. We already know what happens when human beings severely restrict their calorie intake; they die in their 20s and 30s of heart disease, instead of dying in the 50s, 60s, and 70s of heart disease like fat people! Yes, fasting develops discipline -- anorexics have to be the most disciplined people in the world in order to starve themselves to death. We have decades and decades of real-life girls and women dropping dead and dying from not eating; if Walford's studies have any applicability to humans at all (which I doubt), the calorie restriction would have had to occur before puberty.

If it's healthy for you and it's working for you, that's great. From what I've seen, infinitely more harm than good is caused by fasting and calorie restriction, even if it isn't assisted by various substances of dubious legality that are known to repress appetite.

I'm sorry to be so negative but once I totally believed I needed to fast for whatever reason, to look like Twiggy or something I suppose, and I also believed the nonsense being put out in the fashion magazines of that era, that a woman 10 pounds underweight lives 10 years longer than a woman who is 10 pounds overweight -- a blatant lie, which probably promoted countless cases of anorexia/bulimia. I was making myself ill to be underweight but at least I snapped out of it before I killed myself. Many women can't snap out of it once it becomes a compulsion.

[Nlighten1]

29. Maybe it isn't for everyone

Although I doubt that. It sounds like you are dealing with some other issues that fasting may have exacerbated. Too much of anything is bad for you, including fasting.