Feasting and Fasting!

I thought I would have time to write a few notes yesterday before I left for Dallas, but it didn’t happen.  I left Houston around 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Dallas at 3:00 p.m. – it is usually a 3 1/2 hour drive, but She-Ra and I stopped a couple of time.  Trisha, my granddaughter has her colonoscopy this morning at 11:30.  It will take approximately 2 hours and then we come home and the first thing she thinks she wants to do is get something to eat.  She fasted all day yesterday and feels deprived because she has had no food for 24 hours.

Fasting is an interesting process.  I have done it several times, sometimes for just a day and sometimes for three or four days.  There was a time, a few years ago when I decided that I would try out my own version of a weight loss program – I would eat only 500 calories a day for six days a week and then on the seventh day I would eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted.  Guess what?  When the seventh day came around I found that I couldn’t eat very much and really didn’t want to.  I know that that is not fasting, but it was a form of depriving my body of the food it was used to, and, just like any other form of cutting calories, my body did reduce itself – but once I got back to eating a normal diet, the unwanted pounds came right back on.  The times that I really did fast, I found that my hunger subsided after the first couple of meals that I skipped and then I really didn’t want anything to eat.  If I fasted for more than one day, the only side effects I had was a bit of weakness and dizziness – I wasn’t able to think clearly or perform much physical activities. There were very few times I fasted for more than one day, and I didn’t do it for weight reduction – I did it because I felt so bloated and full that I wanted to get my body back to feeling good.

Fasting is a wonderful way to detoxify your body and get it back on the right track.  Here is a great website that gives some great information on the benefits of fasting – http://www.healthy.net/scr/Article.asp?Id=1996. Dr. Elson M. Haas writes, in his article Nutritional Program For Fasting:

“Fasting is the single greatest natural healing therapy. It is nature’s ancient, universal “remedy” for many problems. Animals instinctively fast when ill. When I first discovered fasting, 15 years ago, I felt as if it had saved my life and transformed my illnesses into health. My stagnant energies began flowing, and I became more creative and vitally alive. I still find fasting both a useful personal tool and an important therapy for many medical and life problems.

Of course, most of the problems for which I recommend fasting as treatment are ones that result from overnutrition rather than malnutrition. Dietary abuse problems, more common in the Western world than in Third World countries, generate many of the chronic degenerative diseases that I have written so much about; these include atherosclerosis, hypertension and heart disease, allergies, diabetes, and cancer. I believe that fasting is therapeutic and, more importantly, preventive for many of these conditions and more.”

He goes on to say: “Fasting (cleansing, detoxification) is one part of the triology of nutrition; balancing and building (toning) are the others. I believe that fasting is the “missing link” in the Western diet. Most people overeat, eat too often, and eat a high-protein, high-fat, rich-food, building and congesting diet more consistently than they need. If we regularly eat a more balanced and well-combined diet, such as my Ideal Diet, we will have less need for fasting and toning plans, although both would still be required at certain intervals throughout the year.”

While I really don’t think that fasting this time of the year is a good idea, because psychologically our bodies and minds will really feel deprived and the Holidays will not be happy because of this self inflicted deprivation – but—– it might be something that we think about for after the Holidays – that would be a great time to detoxify our bodies and start out the new year with look at how we want to treat our bodies for the next year.

As I stated before, I plan to eat whatever there is that I really want and not have any guilt about it, but I think I will begin a fasting program right after that and get my body back into the familiar mode that I have programed.  If you haven’t tried this, you could read Dr. Haas’ article and other information available about the benefits of fasting for a healthy body and mind and give it a try.  You could learn a lot about yourself.

Think Thin Thoughts!

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