Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health
Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health

Fasting

What is fasting?

Fasting outcomes

Fasting preparation

What is fasting?

Fasting is an effective cure for many diseases. Fasting has been used in every tradition for thousands of years. Humans evolved with regular shortages of food. Never in the history of humanity has food been so cheap, so sweet, and so easily available. Food is raining down on us 24 hours every day. In this age of pervasive food and pollution, fasting is more important than ever in warding off premature aging and degeneration of your body.

Fasting need not mean total abstention from all food. If you are eating a poor diet, high in processed or fast foods, then a seven-day detoxification fast that includes all the major food groups can be a delight to indulge in. Such a fast would include mostly non-sweet vegetables, bone broth or a source of minerals, and some acids such as apple cider vinegar or sharp citrus fruit like lemon. Fasts should always include sufficient quantities of clean, mineral-rich water.

Interestingly, you should include a little protein in foods taken while detox-fasting. The full detoxification process requires certain amino acids.

If you are doing a stricter fast for several or more days, it is advisable to fast under the supervision of an experienced health practitioner.

No-food fasting should normally be done regularly, and for short periods. Long periods (several days or more) of fasting are harsh on the body, especially for gaunt, underweight, older and sick people.

It is important to note that fasting is not a process of severe hunger and deprivation. Be gentle on yourself. If the fasting feels uncomfortable or stressful, then stop.

Ketogenic fasting is when most of your energy comes from (good) fats rather than sugar and carbohydrates, and your body converts from using mostly glucose as a fuel, to using ketones as a fuel. The ketones are made from the fats. Paleolithic humans evolved with animal fat in their diet so our bodies can use ketones as a primary fuel. When food was scarce, evolutionary selection would have favoured those who were able to continue with their lives, resisting infections and other diseases and having sufficient strength in reserve to hunt, gather or fight as required.

Time-restricted eating. There are several different ways of eating in a time-restricted window every day, which are discussed in my ebook Grow Youthful. This form of fasting is gentle and easy once you adjust to it, and provides most of the benefits of strict fasting including autophagy.

Fasting outcomes

Fasting increases your energy level in the short-term (like missing one or a few meals) because digestion requires a lot of energy. Within twelve hours of reducing your food intake your body starts to break down waste matter such as dead and damaged cells, metabolic wastes, salts accumulated in joints, various cysts and lumps, cancerous cells, pollutants, and harmful microbes (autophagy). After 16-24 hours this process is in full swing. Your organs and glands get a much-needed rest, during which the enzyme power that would have been used for digestion is instead available for repair, detoxification and healing.

Fasting preparation