My 24 hours Fasting experience

Fasting is one of the most ancient healing traditions in the world. Hippocrates of Cos (c 460 – c370 BC) known as the father of modern medicine, prescribed and strongly advocated the practice of fasting. “To eat when you are sick, is to feed your illness”. Also ancient Greek thinkers Plato and his student Aristotle were also big supporters of fasting.

When your cat or dog do not feel good they stop eating. This sensation is certainly familiar. Do you remember the last time you were very sick, without doubt the last thing you wanted to do was eating. right?

Fasting has been also widely practiced for spiritual purposes and it remains part of virtually in every major religion in the world. Jesus Christ, Buddha and the prophet Muhammed all shared the same belief fasting has an healing power. In Buddhism, food is often consumed only in the morning, and followers fast from noon until the next morning daily.

I have done as many people some Intermittent Fasting. But after reading and learning about the health effects of long fasting. I wanted to try it. But fasting is a little bit scary. So I decided to try 24 hours first.

How the fasting works? Our body needs energy. The major source of energy is glucose from grains, some vegetables, some fruits, and the sugar you add in our coffee. The liver and the muscles store the glucose and release in the stream blood when needed.

During fasting the process is different. After 8 hours of fasting the liver is starting using the last glucose reserves. This is when the body enter the fasting mode. Then the body runs out of energy sources, the metabolism slow down.

Here are some points about long fasting:

1. Improves the blood sugar control/ Actually studies show that people with diabete 2 type decreased their blood sugar
2. Helps decrease levels of inflammation and help promote better health.
3. Enhance heart health , improving blood pressure, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels
4. Boost brain function and present diseases such as
   as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s 
5. Aids weight loss by limiting calorie intake and boosting Metabolism
6. Increase levels of human growth hormone (HGH), an important protein hormone that plays a role in growth, metabolism, weight loss and muscle strength.
   

There are many different types of fasts, you can adopt making ( test) the method that fits your lifestyle.

Here are a few of the most common types of fasting:

• Water fasting: Involves drinking only water for a set amount of time.
• Juice fasting: Entails only drinking vegetable or  fruit juice for a certain period.
• Liquid fasting: Entails only drinking vegetable or  fruit juice, water, or broth for a certain period.

To get started, try experimenting with different types of fasting that works best for you. Experiment. Of course you may want to discuss first with your MD to see if it is recommended or not. In case you take medicines sometime fasting is not recommended.

Fasting is more a prevention.

In my case I decided to go with filtered water and organic vegetables broth for 24 hours . See recipe below

Each ingredient must be organic.

• 1 leek, well cleaned, sliced
• 4 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 3 stalks celery, cleaned sliced
• 1 onion peeled sliced
• 5 cloves garlic peeled
• sea salt.
• some fennel seeds
• some cumin seeds
• 10 cups of water.
• 1-2 pieces of fresh ginger root peeled

In a large pot add the water then all veggies. On a high heat bring to boil. Then cover and simmer for at least 3 hours.

Drain ( keep the broth), keep the veggies for future a soup or a salad.

This broth needs to be drink warm. Never reheat a beverage within a microwave. Reheat on the stove at low temperature. My broth was on the stove all day and I was alternating water and broth during the day.

On Friday evening I had my last meal at 8 pm. The meal was a light meal.

The next day , Sunday, I prepared my family’s breakfast -some French toasts, then their lunch. The smell of food did not distract me. I also took my dog for a long walk when my family was eating.

In the afternoon I took it very easy. At the same time,I decided to detox myself from my iPhone and Social Media. I took a nap during the afternoon and read a lot of magazines and cookbooks from the local library. I had a very light headache. Around 5 pm I went to the grocery store to get our week grocery. When I came back for the first time I felt hungry. But it was not too hard. I made myself a carrot , celery, apple and ginger juice. The next hour I prepared the dinner. We had our dinner at 8 pm. I had 2 large steamed artichokes and a little piece of homemade pizza that my family had.

So overall it was a good experience. I was not too hungry and was able to have a regular day. You feel stronger and feel in charge of your body and your actions.

My next challenge will be 48 hours fasting. Then I will do 3,4 and 5 day fasting…Stay tuned, since I will report all details for each fasting.