Many people think about fasting for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you need to renew your body and soul. Did you gain weight during the winter season? Maybe you’re feeling sluggish or toxic and need to cleanse your body in short order. You may want to fast for spiritual reasons such as a breakthrough in your personal life (finances, relationships, purpose and destiny). Whatever your reasons to fast, this ancient discipline offers many physical and spiritual benefits.
Physical Benefits
Fasting offers health benefits that no other therapy can provide. It rapidly rids the body of waste and toxins–like changing old water in an aquarium or the oil in your car. It can eliminate edema and lower blood pressure. A study published the Journal of Alternative Complementary Medicine (2002), found that 90% of 174 patients with high blood pressure who incorporated fasting achieved normal blood pressure. Each of the participants who had been on antihypertensive medications were able to get off their drugs.1
Fasting also helps to rebalance your body’s pH. The typical American diet is mostly acid forming. A slightly acidic body contributes to weight gain, cancer, and a host of other diseases. Fasting facilitates weight loss—water weight first, then fat. This ancient practice appears to reset the metabolism, much like a computer reboot.
A fast also gives your digestive track a rest. This helps your digestive system heal, which can lead to significant health improvements. Allergy symptoms often improve. Autoimmune disorders may heal. Fasting also improves insulin sensitivity, lowering blood sugar, which helps diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
Spiritual Benefits
Fasting has been part of our spiritual heritage. It was an expected discipline in both the Old and New Testament. The Orthodox Church still has four main fast periods during the calendar year. However, fasting is one of the most neglected spiritual disciplines of the twenty-first century. It is rarely discussed in most non-liturgical churches. Yet, Scripture admonishes us to “fast and pray.”
10 Tips for Healthy Juice Fasting
Prepare your mind. Before you begin, think about why you want to fast. What do you want to achieve? It’s important to have the right mindset before you start or you may lose heart early on. Pray for discipline and a strong will to complete the fast.
Get prepared before you start. Shop for everything you’ll need before the day you begin. Not having everything you need on your first day is a sure way to fail. If you’re doing a juice fast, for example, look at the recipes you’ll be using and make sure your shopping list has all the ingredients.
Drink plenty of water. Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of purified water while you are fasting so you can flush away toxins and waste. This will also help you stay energized. Dehydration can cause you to feel tired and hungry.
Take it easy. Gentle exercise is good such as walking, but don’t overexert yourself. Your body is working hard to eliminate toxins, remove damaged cells, and restore vitality. This important work is often not completed when we eat regular meals. That’s because the body focuses it’s attention on digestion throughout the day. Fasting frees your body from this daily chore so it can work on cleansing, repair, and healing. It’s like taking a week’s vacation to thoroughly clean your home. While all this important work is going on inside, you want to give your body the rest it needs. Take more breaks. Avoid exhausting work. Go for walks. Get fresh air and sun. Go to bed early; powerful healing hormones are released while you sleep. Relax before bed–take a bath, read a good book, listen to beautiful music.
Choose your fast plan wisely. Many people think fasting means a strict water fast. Some people even try to follow the model of some Biblical heroes–no food or water, which can be dangerous. There is more than one type of fast. Choose the one that is best for you. Remember–any type of fast means denial of some food.
• Water fast. A strict water fast for more than two or three days is not recommended unless you can completely rest and are medically supervised.
• Juice fast. Freshly made juice is rich in antioxidants that bind toxins so they don’t damage cells. Unlike Biblical times where the air, soil, and water were virtually pure, we have thousands of different chemicals that pour into our atmosphere every year. Most of our food is sprayed with pesticides, and packaged with preservatives, additives, dyes, and fillers. (Choose organic produce.) Our water is treated with chemicals, and our air is assaulted industrial pollution and sprays. Toxins are stored mainly in our fat cells. When we fast, they will be released in greater amounts. Without antioxidants to bind up free radicals, our cells can be damaged.
On the juice fast, you can drink vegetable juices, purified water, coconut water, veggie broth, and herbal teas throughout the day. I emphasize vegetable juice because fruit juice has too much sugar, which can cause spikes and dips in blood sugar leaving you tired. However, you can use a little fruit to flavor and sweeten veggie juice recipes. This will keep you healthy, energized, and hydrated. To keep from boredom, try new juice and green smoothie recipes.
Fast according to your physical state. You may have a physical condition that would make water or juice fasting unwise or dangerous. Seek medical advice first. However, be aware that many doctors have little knowledge of fasting or training in nutrition. People who should not do a strict water or juice fast include: women who are pregnant or nursing; people who are anorexic or bulimic; anyone who is emaciated or underweight, and those who are on dialysis. Be aware of medications and their effects while you fast. For example, a vegetable juice fast can lower your blood pressure quickly; you would need to cut back on medication, so seek your physician’s advice. People with diabetes or hypoglycemia can modify a vegetable juice fast and include green smoothies made with avocado for extra protein and fat. This would also be my recommendation for anyone who is elderly or weak. During your fast, if you become so hungry you could eat the plaster off your wall, you may have parasites or yeast overgrowth. It could be freeloaders that are screaming for food. You may need to do a parasite cleanse or a yeast-control diet first to get this infection under control. Children under the age of 15 should not do a strict water or juice fast.
Length of the fast. You can fast from one day to five days. Most people can easily handle a 3-day fast. If you work, start on Friday. Then you’ll have the weekend to get a good start.
Be aware of detox symptoms. As your body releases toxins, you might get some detox reactions such as a headache, tiredness, foggy brain, or bad breathe. (Chew parsley for your breath.) This can be part of ridding your body of toxins that could cause disease. It’s is a good thing. Don’t quit your fast; the symptoms should pass rather quickly. Get a colonic or do enemas. This can help rid toxins quickly.
Pray. Fasting and prayer are linked throughout the Bible. Whenever we fast, we are admonished to pray, which facilitates our spiritual growth and renewal.
Break your fast the healthy way. How you break a fast is as important as the fast itself. Break it the first day with only vegetable juices, green smoothies, salads, raw fruits and vegetables, veggie soups, dehydrated vegan foods, and/or steamed vegetables. Never break a fast with a heavy meal like a burger and fries or steak and potato. You could do your body a great deal of harm and end up with terrible stomach cramps and digestive issues.
Following is a sample menu for Juice Fasting:
Morning fiber shake—mix 1 tbsp fiber in water of juice with a tablespoon of bentonite clay (for internal use)—either liquid or powder mix well and drink as soon as possible as it thickens.
Breakfast—juice & herbal tea; you may also have a smoothie if desired.
Mid-morning— juice and/or herbal tea.
Lunch— juice and/or raw soup.
Fiber shake.
Afternoon—juice and/or herbal tea.
Dinner—juice.
Be sure to drink at least 64 ounces of water each day.
Notes:
1 Goldhamer AC, et al. Medically supervised water-only fasting in the treatment of borderline hypertension. Journal of Alternative Complementary Medicine 2002;8(5):643–650.
Praise the Lord that someone does not think of fasting is all about loosing weight.
When I read above “A fast also gives your digestive track a rest.” that is right give the body a rest from always processing food, it can even cure reflux, indigestion, in 24 hours without medication as I did once.
One suggested way to cure reflux or indigestion without drugs. But first, if someone is a sugar burner and not fat burner. A “sugar burner” is someone that can not go a couple of hours without wanting to eat something. Have dinner, do not eat anything between diner and going to bed, have a drink instead about 90 minutes after meals. the next morning as soon as you get out of bed and the rest of that day every time you feel hungry have a glass of water, in the late afternoon you better stop drinking water or you will be making toilet visits when you should be fast asleep, have a light meal maybe with soft food that does not aggravate the system and see how you go, hopefully it might be the first meal from a while you do not get reflux or indigestion from a meal. I got reflux indigestion once in between the days I normally do a 24 hour water fasting or should I say from lunch to breakfast on the second day more like 42 hours.
I love it now I am a fat burner I never feel hungry again, just the urge to eat at a regular time each day.
Thank you so much for sharing this great information! Please continue to travel and speak to groups, churches, schools, universities, etc. This is vital information! God bless you!