Is Fasting for You?

The practice of fasting has a long history, in the 5th century the “father of medicine”, Hippocrates was known to make recommendations for food abstinence for those displaying health conditions.

What is daily Fasting? To capsulize the concept, daily or intermittent Fasting is a practice we all engage without realizing it and is interrupted by your morning break-fast or first calories or caffeine.

In a recent episode, a medical journalist was inspired to author the "The Oldest Cure in The World” because of his own health issues and in his research made some amazing discoveries of which I hope to share with you in this blog.

An exceedingly popular concept would be the 16/8 cycle in which you fast daily for 16 hours, including your slumbering hours, and limit your eating cycle to a window of 8 hours beginning with breakfast, and it can be done safely. How do I know? I personally practice this cycle of fasting and as a result, I am benefiting. However, everyone owns their own chemistry, therefore, consult your health care provider that is familiar with fasting for direction, especially, if you take medication.

The tremendous benefits are noteworthy, such as burning fat, dropping unwanted pounds, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, reducing the culprit of many diseases brought upon by stress and inflammation in the body, improving heart and brain health, some believe to help prevent the dreaded cancer, and potentially increases longevity. I can attest, empirically, putting my ugliness aside which is another topic, fasting is a wonderful way to stimulate our mind and physical condition.

With that said, it would be superfluous to ask who would benefit from fasting.

Everyone who desires better health can benefit from the oldest cure in the world, the practice of fasting. Comprehensive research suggests that a fast will put in motion metabolic repairs that will make you healthier which equals in you living longer, unless you have a rare disorder that may cause harm to you by going several hours without food, again, consult your doctor before undertaking this potentially healthy endeavor.

Scientific research has discovered that people who extend their fast in a longer window are healthier, evidently because an extended fast provides the body more time for cellular repairs.

Have you noticed that after a good night’s sleep you feel great? Obviously, your biological makeup has performed a great deal of repairing, reconstructing, and cleaning up that is hindered from doing during our day because it is working hard in processing the nutrients from what we eat, as it should, to supply our brain with energy, supplying our muscles what it needs for mobility, and doing a whole host of other things in our state of consciousness. Hence, because of this distraction of eating, the body defers many of its deepest repairs until we retire for the night when we are no longer ingesting food or stirring around.

Think of it, our brain must get rid of waste products which some neurologists refer to as poop, and it does accumulate, because   of everyday chemical reactions brought upon by daily stressors. And if it is not given the time to repair, we may develop horrible neurological disorders like dementia. It is astounding of the untold performance of repairs that it does night after night to fight off carcinogens, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and a plethora of other harmful things. Logically, when you allow your body more time overnight for mending, the more we will realize better health.

We touched on the sixteen hours fast, but how long should it be for the maximum benefit?

To put it succinctly, most scientists agree that twelve hours at the minimum and up to around eighteen hours maximum. It was recently discovered that the body does not get to work on most of its profound repairs until six hours after ingesting our last calory. The understanding is the body hesitates because there is a metabolic expense in shifting gears from processing food nutrients to switching over to making repairs. Interestingly, our body does not want to make that expensive metabolic switch if we are just going to eat more, so it waits to make sure you are done eating. How amazing is that? It estimated that six hours after our last calory intake, our body is sufficiently confident that we are done eating to begin its gradual reconstruction. However, as time goes on from abstaining from eating, the rate of repairing increases exponentially with confidence that you will not disrupt it by eating again. Incidentally, 12 hours after our last calory intakes, the rate of repair goes into high gear with each additional hour of fasting.

Short of sharing my social security number, allow me to tell you my fasting cycle I practice. The last hour I will eat is at 1:00pm giving me until the next morning at 5:00am which is sixteen hours of natural body repair. That said, sometimes I prolong the fasting to 6:00am upon which I will have a cup of coffee. During that 7- or 8-hour window that follows, I enjoy healthy eating and stop at 1:00pm, just for your information in case you want to buy me lunch, and then I start the cycle all over again. However, there are exceptions like when you are invited for dinner later that day, simply, I push the window for eating further back the next day. And I must say, it does matter what you eat during those 8-hour window for optimal health affect. Please do not be like an acquaintance who indicated he takes cholesterol medication; therefore, he can get away with eating anything he wants, it does not work that way.

Have you ever been excited and gotten that “butterflies in your stomach” sensation? Or have you ever heard anyone say, "I have a gut feeling?" Our gut is intrinsically connected to our brain and the two are always communicating with each other to affect your physical and mental health for the better or otherwise, depending on your type of diet.

This emphasizes the importance The overnight mending. Every night our gut must repair large sections of its vulnerable-thin lining that were seriously affected as food passed through the lining during our wakening hours. If the gut lining is not repaired, we can acquire leaky gut syndrome, allowing bacteria and viruses to get into the abdominal cavity thus causing all sorts of serious issues.

The consensus by fasting scientists and fasting doctors recommends that every adult should eat in a 12 or down to a six-hour window. And, as to children who are not nursing can safely eat in a twelve-hour window, in fact, at one time children all over the world did throughout the ages before Thomas Edison illuminated the world and extended our bad eating habits for more than twelve hours. However, the verdict is still out whether it is also safe, and healthier for nursing children and pregnant women to eat in less than a 12-hour window. but, with that said, scientists believe that everyone used to, at one time, have their meals in a 12-hour window, pregnant and nursing moms should be fine so long as they receive the necessary nutrients within the interim.

Before my window of healthy eating expires while writing this blog, let me say that food translates into energy. So, why would we need that energy before we retire for the night? Common sense dictates we can do without it, thus allowing your body to begin rejuvenating the miracle of life, you.