Chapter 3: Activating the natural healing mechanisms of the body (How to have better health to better serve Krsna)
Continuation of the 3rd part: Intermittent fasting, how to do it, and how it can help us to solve and prevent many health problems.
One time per day?
Since most of the benefits of intermittent fasting, including autophagy, increase in the levels of growth hormone, cellular regeneration, detox and so on start only after 12 hours of fasting, why not try to reduce the eating window and thus maximize the benefits of the daily fast? What if someone would have a very short eating window of, let's say, two hours, and would fast the other 22? Should he not get more benefits than someone doing 16:8 or 18:6?
Actually, this is a very common idea, and many people indeed follow it. It's called OMAD (one meal a day) and indeed it potentialize the benefits of intermittent fasting. There are different versions of it, like the warrior diet, but they are all based on the same principle: eat healthy foods, eat less, and eat in a narrow time window.
This is also the diet traditionally followed by renunciants in our line. As described in the Jaiva Dharma and other works of our acaryas, renunciants would practice their sadhana in the morning, go to beg from the grihasthas at lunchtime, and eat only once at some point in the afternoon. This would allow them to keep good health (despite their austere living conditions), help them control their senses, increase their mental clarity, and help to situate themselves in the mode of goodness. According to different accounts, even Srila Prabhupada was following this system when he was living alone in Vrindavana, before coming to the west. As he mentions:
“Generally those engaged in spiritual advancement take food only once, either in the afternoon or in the evening. If one takes food only once, naturally he does not become fat.” (SB 7.13.18)
"Regarding the temple management, one man can be left behind, while the others go out, to take care of the Deity. And, you can come home at night and take prasadam sumptuously. Once eating sumptuously is enough to maintain body and soul together. In the daytime you may not take, and at night you can take. As a matter of fact, a devotee may take only once in a day either in the day or night, and whenever you eat, you must first offer. But I do not mean you should neglect temple life. Do not misunderstand this. But, one man can remain, and so far the other devotees are concerned, they can eat once in the day or night, after having kirtana, then six hours of sound sleep, and this will maintain their health properly." (Srila Prabhupada, letter to Sri Govinda Prabhu, 06 December, 1974)
From a health perspective, OMAD doesn't necessarily mean to strictly have just one meal, but simply to eat in a time frame of two hours. One can eat one time at noon and eat a little more a little before 2 p.m., for example. The idea of starting with something light (and easy to digest) and taking the main meal shortly afterward works well with this system. That's what I do most of the time, starting with some fruits and after a short break going for the main course.
The best time to eat fruits is exactly when you are breaking the fast, since that’s the time when the glycogen reserves are low, making sure that the sugars present in the fruits are going to be used to replenish the glycogen reserves, and not to be stored as fat. Being light, the fruits sit well in an empty stomach, and because they are digested fast, they quickly leave space for the main course. If you are at all going to eat fruits when doing OMAD, that’s the best time.
Another point of consideration is what to eat. Most people that follow the OMAD system tend to adopt a diet with more healthy fats and less carbohydrates. One reason is that fats are more satisfying than grains and other foods rich in carbohydrates, and they keep one full for longer. The other reason is that fats are much more caloric, therefore one can get the necessary calories without having to eat too big of a quantity of food (this also helps to leave space for vegetables and fruits). As we examined, there is no problem in eating more fats, as long as one eats healthy fats (butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, nuts, avocados, cheese, etc.), and avoids refined vegetable oils.
My personal recommendation is to also include a good deal of beans and legumes, according to what you can digest. They are very nutritive, low GI, low on calories (compared to nuts and fats), and very filling. Chickpeas are especially nutritious and go well with most dishes. One of my favorites is roasted chickpeas. This is a simple recipe that is very easy to make and can be stored for several days in the fridge. You can make a good quantity of it and eat it for several days.
The recipe is easy: leave 1/2 kg of raw chickpeas soaking in water overnight. The next day, throw the water and put the chickpeas on a tray. Bake at medium temperature for 10 minutes (to dry it), add one or two spoons of coconut oil, ghee, or any other health oil, mix well, and bake for 20 to 30 minutes more at high temperature. Mix again in the middle so it roasts evenly. At the end, add salt and other spices you may like. The chickpeas become crunchy, a very nutritious and satisfying addition to any meal.
Many like the OMAD system because of the convenience, and because it makes it easier to follow a healthy diet when one has a hectic lifestyle. To eat two or three meals per day takes a lot of time, not only to cook, but also to eat and clean. By changing to just one meal, it’s easier for one to find time to cook a proper meal and eat peacefully. Another advantage of eating just one time is that one doesn't have to control how much he eats, since the possibility of becoming fat when eating just one time per day is very remote. He can just enjoy his meals and eat until satisfied, without fear.
If you want to try, the secret is to be gradual. Start by fixing your eating habits and eating healthy food, up to the point where you can start following the 16:8 system. After a few months, when the body starts to get used to it, you may start to gradually reduce the eating window until you reach the desired schedule.
One observation is that women are more sensitive to fasting than men. Most men can feel very well doing 20:4 or even OMAD, but ladies should be more careful with these more rigorous modalities of intermittent fasting. Women have more of the hormone kisspeptin, which makes them more sensitive to fasting. Although women can benefit from intermittent fasting as much as men, a regimen that is too rigorous (especially if combined with caloric restriction) can throw off their hormones and mess with their cycle. Due to that, it is more recommended that ladies restrict themselves to the 16:8 or 18:6 systems, avoiding 20:4 or OMAD, which may be too rigorous for their bodies. These more rigorous systems are more recommended for men.
Concluding, there is the issue of the best time for the daily meal when one is doing OMAD. The ideal time, according to my research and my personal experience is in the mid-afternoon, anytime between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. That’s a time when the body is prepared to digest a good amount of food, and the time that we are used to having lunch. Eating at this time, one can still attend many professional and social events that require one to eat, there is sufficient time to digest the food before bedtime, and even if on some days he needs to eat again later in the day due to hunger or social pressure, it’s not a big deal, since he will still eat at an interval of 6 or 8 hours. In short, this system consists in skipping breakfast, having a satisfactory lunch a little later than usual, and skipping dinner.
Many prefer to have the main meal in the late afternoon, at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., or even 8 p.m. This time is not ideal from the perspective of digestion, but it can also work in the case of persons that go to sleep late. However, this is less effective from the perspective of weight loss and insulin control, since this is the time we tend to just sit on the couch and don’t move much. If one eats a big meal in the mid-afternoon and continues to move and do his normal activities after that, part of the glucose from the meal is going to be used by the muscles, and therefore the impact on the blood glucose levels is going to be less severe and a lower percentage of the glucose is going to be stored in the form of fat. If one eats the same meal in the late afternoon and just sits on the couch, however, both the rise in the blood glucose levels (and the consequent insulin response) and the amount of fat stored are going to be higher. This can be minimized however if one adjusts by reducing the intake of carbohydrates, eating instead more fiber (especially in the form of cruciferous vegetables) and healthy fats. The main observation is that one should not have his main meal right before bedtime: it should be at the very least three hours, and ideally six hours before.
The third possibility is to have the meal in the morning, something that I did for a long time due to my particular routine. It’s more challenging in the sense that you need to have self-control to not eat for the whole day, and that it’s difficult to eat a big meal early in the morning. However, it also has an advantage: if you do it correctly there is a chance of getting better sleep (after the body gets used to it at least), since by the time you go to sleep the body will be already in a fasted state, with very low levels of insulin. It happens that insulin makes it harder to fall asleep and to reach deeper levels of sleep. With low insulin, the chances of having a good night of sleep are higher. My experience, however, is that it only works if you have your meal early in the morning (before 9 a.m.), and eat meals very low on carbohydrates and high on vegetables and fat. If one eats a meal high in carbs at this time (even slow carbs), he will be ravenously hungry by late afternoon. If he eats later in the morning, the body may not have time to enter a fasted state by the time he goes to bed, and he may have difficulty sleeping. In general, eating in the morning can be considered a “pro” version of OMAD: it has some strong advantages, but it’s difficult to get it right.
Water fasting as a healing aid
Intermittent fasting offers some impressive health benefits, countering insulin resistance, helping to lose weight, and improving many different types of conditions, favoring health and longevity. The combination of intermittent fasting and a nutritive diet, free of refined carbohydrates is also capable of promoting a certain level of autophagy, allowing the body to do a little bit of cleanup every day, bringing thus noticeable improvement to one's health. People start to notice improvements in digestion, a general increase in energy, and clearer skin after just one or two weeks - and that’s just the beginning.
Intermittent fasting is especially important especially for the ones that have insulin resistance or obesity, since the higher level of insulin suppresses autophagy more than in healthy individuals, which contributes to their declining health. As mentioned, insulin resistance is behind most chronic diseases (from tiredness to diabetes, contributing even to cancer). As shown in the works of Dr. Jason Fung, intermittent fasting is also capable of reverting many cases of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and even helps to reduce the growth rates of most types of cancer.
However, intermittent fasting by itself is not sufficient to put the body in the deep stages of autophagy, which are desirable for the healing of serious conditions. Longer fastings result in much higher levels of autophagy, and can thus offer benefits that can go well beyond what one can attain with daily short fasts. The best is thus to combine both techniques, combining intermittent fasting with sporadic water-only fasting.
A study from 2010 (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/) show that fasts of 48 hours or more are capable of dramatically increasing the number of autophagosomes inside the cells (an indication of autophagy), which has effects that go well beyond the duration of the fast. In other words, by doing short fasts of two, three or four days, one can considerably increase the levels of autophagy in the cells even during the time he is not fasting.
One thing we can keep in mind in connection to that is that the scriptures very strongly recommend that one fasts two times per month during Ekadasis. The way we are recommended to do it is to eat a meal on the day before at around midday, then fast completely on the Ekadasi day, break the fast with something very light at the appropriate time of the following day (Dwadasi) and them take the main meal at around noon. As we can see, this advice from the scriptures result in a fast of 48 hours, wich is very in line wich what modern science is rediscovering.
As mentioned, there are a multitude of repair processes in the body that start only twelve hours after the last meal. These processes intensify after 18 hours and reach a peak after 48 hours when the body enters a state of deep autophagy, where the rate of repair in damaged tissues increases dramatically, existing cells are repaired, new neurons grow in the brain, accumulated toxins are thrown out, defective immune and blood cells are reabsorbed (and later replaced), and different alien organisms living inside the body are attacked and digested. Even eventual cancer cells have a hard time, since not only are they being deprived of their main source of nutrition (glucose), but are also attacked by the body that wants to use them for energy.
The Ayurveda explains that all disease comes from the accumulation of Ama, a heavy, sticky, toxic waste that accumulates in our digestive tract and can eventually overflow into our channels and tissues. Ama is a byproduct of bad digestion, generated especially when one frequently eats again before the previous meal is properly digested. Fasting is, according to Ayurveda, a very effective way to reduce Ama, therefore we have yet another situation where traditional wisdom and modern science agree.
Fasting also gives mental and spiritual benefits, calming the mind and helping one to connect with the divine. It’s not a coincidence that great philosophers in the past used to fast regularly, and there are many instances of holy persons fasting to achieve divine inspiration. Fasting is very useful for one that practices meditation and desires to increase his concentration levels, or for practitioners of any spiritual process.
Once one can develop sufficient mental control to regulate his eating, learning to fast when necessary without becoming anxious, he becomes also capable of controlling his mind and senses in other areas, which makes his meditation or spiritual practice much easier.
It's not a coincidence that different religious books prescribe a number of days for fasting. Both the Old and New Testament, as well as the Vedas and the Koran, prescribe fastings on a number of days. Christ was teaching it, Buddha was teaching it. The Muslims even follow a type of intermittent fasting for 30 days in a row during the Ramadan every year (when they eat only after sunset).
The main point about fasting is to use common sense. If one decides to fast the whole day and eat twenty pieces of pizza at night, or to fast one day and eat double in the next, this will do much more harm than good. When breaking the fast, and in the subsequent days, our meals should be healthy. If one eats healthy food, it will be difficult to overeat, and the result will be positive.
As time passes, the tendency is that we start to slowly gain weight. This extra weight, in turn, makes us feel tired and lazy, and this is not considered very favorable for our physical, mental, or spiritual health. Fasting allows one to break the cycle, resetting his cravings and bad dietary habits, thus having a fresh start. One that was addicted to Oreos and ice cream before, may be perfectly satisfied with a bowl of steamed vegetables and a few nuts after a fast.
There is a physiological mechanism that makes fasting difficult for one who is not used to it. Our bodies can work on two types of fuel: carbohydrates and fats. Once the body becomes accustomed to receiving food at short regular intervals, it gets used to burning only carbohydrates and becomes sluggish at burning fat. Therefore, the day we don’t eat, we feel hungry and weak. Once we can successfully fast for a few times, the body becomes better at burning fat from our bellies, and we don’t have so much discomfort when fasting.
Normally, we think that we need to eat more on the resting days to regain energy but, most of the time, what the body really needs is a break from the hard work of digesting all the food we eat. To digest food takes a lot of energy. Actually, the days when we don’t eat are a rest for the body, since without the need for spending energy for digesting food, the body becomes free to take out the toxins and recover. The extra energy is used for healing.
It’s important to drink water when fasting. Not only does this help the body with its cleansing process, but it avoids many of the unpleasant effects of occasional fasting. Normally, our bodies need from two to three liters of liquids daily. We generally don’t need to drink so much because we get a lot of water from the food. When we are fasting, however, we really need to get it all in the form of water. It's also important to be careful when breaking the fast, as we are going to discuss later.
If water fasting is too difficult, there is the option to start with partial fastings, taking only steamed vegetables, only salads, or only vegetable juices, and from there see where to go based on the responses of the body. As in many other things in life, it’s much better to do things slowly, in a way that is sustainable, than to try to do things in abrupt ways.
For someone who has never fasted, a fast may sound scary, but if one gets used to it, fasting becomes relatively easy. The body gets used to burning fat for energy, therefore when the time for a fast comes, it is well-prepared. Fasting is only difficult the first few times.
Naturally, fasting is recommended only for ones in a healthy condition. If someone is diseased or in any kind of debilitating condition, he should first deal with the immediate problem before attempting to fast. In general, fasting is not recommended for:
a) Pregnant women or mothers that are breastfeeding.
b) Young children and teenagers.
c) People that are underweight or have type 1 diabetes (for type 2 diabetes, check the work of Dr. Jason Fung).
d) Individuals that are going through periods of heavy stress due to external demands or obligations.
e) People with a history of eating disorders (fasting can make their condition worse).
There are also certain types of bodies that may be less favorable for fastings. According to the Ayurveda, one who has a vata constitution will have much more difficulties (and probably less physical benefits) than someone who has a kapha constitution, for example (usually, this type is energetic and skinny, therefore the body has fewer reserves), as well as cases of persons with certain health conditions. It’s normal to feel hungry, but if one becomes too weak, it’s more prudent to start with a partial fasting and slowly progress from there.
Fasting and hunger
When we speak about fasting, one important subject to understand is hunger. We usually have the impression that if skipping just one meal is hard, fasting for two or three days can be exponentially more difficult, but actually that’s not how hunger works.
Hunger is regulated by a hormone called ghrelin. Studies show that the body releases ghrelin at the time one is used to eating according to an internal clock. If one has the habit of eating at 8 a.m., noon and 5 p.m., for example, he will feel hungry precisely at these times. However, the action of the hormone is not linear. One will feel hungry at 8 a.m., but if he doesn't eat, the hunger will pass after one hour or two, and will come back only at noon, the time for the next meal. If he doesn't eat again, the hunger will eventually go away, until the time of the next meal, and so on. On the second day, he will again feel hungry at 8 a.m., but this time it will be less severe than on the first day. The hunger will be less intense on the third day and even less on the fourth day. In other words, hunger will be present, but it will come and go, it will not just increase indefinitely.
When fasting, you can expect that the first two days are going to be the most difficult. This is the phase of the fasting where the body is transitioning from an anabolic state (where it is "building up", using nutrients from the food) to a catabolic state (where it is breaking down fat and using other reserves). During these first two days it’s normal to feel all the symptoms of a fast, including hunger pangs, tricks from the mind or even headaches. The mind may start telling you that you are starving, but actually in this state the body is not even close to that.
In the first two days, the body is not even burning much fat, it is still using the glycogen reserves in the liver and muscles. In the third day (typically) it finally switches to fat burning, the digestive system switches off and the hunger pangs diminish or almost completely disappear. From this point, the fast becomes relatively easy. There is going to be some discomfort, but nothing like ravenous hunger. In general, after the first two or three days one will feel happy and relaxed, and his problems and challenges will start to look smaller. In this state, sleep tends to be better and we wake-up feeling energized. However, it is a different type of energy that can go away fast if we start doing physical activities. The mental clarity is very conducive to spiritual or intellectual activities (it’s not by chance that sages and great thinkers from the past used to fast when they had to make difficult decisions, or were seeking divine inspiration). One can read, listen to classes, write, or do some other creative work.
As soon as the body enters a fasting state, one can continue fasting for several days without much hunger. There may be a desire to eat (which is a different thing), but not much physical hunger. Once one passes the third day, there is not so much difference in fasting for 4 days or 7 days, for example. This can continue until the body starts to exhaust its reserves (which will vary depending on the person). At this point, the hunger will come back in force, indicating that it is time to end the fast.
Similarly, when we do intermittent fasting, we may feel hungry during the times we previously used to eat for the first few days, but eventually the body will adjust its eating windows to the new schedule, and hunger will come at these new times.
Before I started doing intermittent fasting, I used to eat in the morning and in the late evening, and naturally I would feel hungry at these times (especially in the evening). When I started my regime of intermittent fasting (due to lack of experience I started by doing OMAD in the mornings, which is actually the hardest option) I continued to feel hungry in the evenings for a few days, but gradually I started to feel less and less hungry in the evening, up to the point that I would not feel hungry at all. In exchange, I started to feel very hungry in the mornings, at the usual time of the meal. As I mentioned previously, I had to pass through a period of adaptation, but the general idea is that the body can easily adapt to a new eating schedule, we just need a little bit of patience.
One important technique to make water fasts easier, especially for someone that is not used to it, is to take a little bit of salt. It happens that sodium is an essential electrolyte, essential for the function of the heart and cell-to-cell communication. The levels of salt in the organism are strongly connected with the insulin levels, since insulin makes the body retain sodium. When we fast, the insulin levels in the body decrease, liberating the retained sodium that is thus eliminated through the urine. The body responds to this loss of sodium by releasing insulin (to try to hold what is left) and, as we learned, insulin makes the blood glucose go down, making one dizzy and hungry.
This is a mechanism that can make fasting exceptionally difficult in the first times one tries. However, by eating a small quantity of salt (one or two grams per day, on the first few days) we can replenish the sodium reserves, compensating for the loss due to the lower levels of insulin. This avoids the release of insulin, making the fast much easier. You can just put in your hand and lick it little by little, or you can dissolve in a liter of water and drink during the day.
If even with the salt a water fast is too difficult for you, there is still a third option. According to research by Dr. Valter Longo (cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(14)00151-9) it is still possible to get most benefits of a water fasting if one eats less than 200 calories per day. It will not work if one eats a bar of chocolate, but by eating very low-glycemic foods, one can stay under the 200 calories and in this way still get most of the benefits of a water fast, but at the same time manage to eat something and replenish some nutrients. One can make a light broth with vegetables, salt, and spices, can make a light salad (lettuce, raw carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers, for example), can drink chia water (put one spoonful of chia seeds in a liter of water and wait for one hour), etc. If you have a juicer, you can even drink some juice made of vegetables (fruit juices however are a no-no, since they can easily provoke a strong insulin response).
In fact, some clinics that conduct supervised fasting usually have protocols that include ministering supplements of electrolytes and a few essential vitamins, or giving the patients small amounts of low-calorie but high-nutritious foods (like vegetable broths) that can replenish essential nutrients without stopping the burning of fat and autophagy. In this way, they create a situation where the patients can fast, but without serious depletion of nutrients, which reduces the risks of fasting for longer periods.
Concluding, another point about hunger and appetite is how nutritive is the food we eat. We can understand this practically. Let’s say a person is used to eating rice, beans, and vegetables for lunch, in a total of about 1200 calories. This is the amount he is used to eating every day, and by eating this much he feels satisfied until dinner time. If one day he would eat the same amount of calories in the form biscuits and soda, he would not feel satisfied. He would have to eat much more to feel that he has eaten enough, and still it’s probable that he would feel hungry again much before dinner time.
The body is very sensitive to the nutrients we eat. In fact, the body doesn't have any mechanism to count how many calories there are in the food we eat, but it is capable of estimating how much of different nutrients are ingested. For example, if one eats buckwheat, he will feel satisfied much sooner than if he eats only white rice, because buckwheat has a good amount of nutrients and complete protein, while white rice is basically only starch. When we eat food that is not nutritious, the body gives us signals to eat more. Appetite is thus much more connected with the amount of nutrients in the food than with the amount of calories.
When we become critically deficient in certain nutrients, the body responds by creating a strong impulse to eat more, which manifests itself in the form of cravings. When one is deficient in magnesium, for example, he can have a strong impetus to eat sweets, which is the way the body tells him to eat more fruits. The problem is that frequently we don’t understand the signals from the body and just eat more junk food, which exacerbates our deficiencies, creating a vicious circle.
As one improves his diet, going from junk food to a nutritious diet rich in vegetables and other nutrient-dense food, he will notice that his cravings are going to diminish and eventually disappear completely. Not only that, but by eating nutritious food he will feel satisfied after eating much less calories, creating a balance. The normal tendency is that a person starts to lose weight without much effort, and this continues until he reaches his ideal weight, a point where the weight stabilizes.
Fasting is not a panacea
Fasting acts as a mild stressing factor to the body, much like exercise. It creates challenges to the body that activate different processes that make the body stronger afterward. However, fasting should not be seen as a miraculous cure for all diseases, nor as something that is good in all situations. If one is in a healthy state, fasting will offer a range of benefits, as previously discussed, making the body and the immune system stronger. However, if one is in a debilitated condition, fasting may not be a good idea. For example, if one is stressed from work, suffering from a deficiency of nutrients caused by a bad diet, and with a weakened immune system, adding a fast to the equation will just make his body suffer more. In such cases, it’s better to first try to treat the underlying problems (taking a vacation from work and improving one’s diet, for example) and then, when one is in a normalized condition, try to fast.
To fast in the right measure will make the body much stronger, but too much fasting can debilitate the body. As the saying goes, too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and this certainly applies to fasting. For most persons, the optimal combination will be a combination of some form of intermittent fasting (16:8, 18:6, or whatever is comfortable) with regular short water fasts of one, two, three, or at most four days. The most adventurous can try longer fastings, but these shorter fasts offer all the important benefits in a much safer way.
In general, any fast of more than five days should preferentially be done with medical supervision, and all types of fasting must be combined with a nutritious diet on the days you are not fasting, so the body can replenish the lost nutrients. If you start to feel unexpectedly unwell at some point, it’s prudent to go to see a doctor.
Another question is if one should try to fast when he is sick. This is an old controversy: many of the old thinkers recommended fasting as a cure for all diseases, and many doctors in the field of alternative medicine follow this opinion. However, most allopathic doctors are vehemently against it, and ayurvedic doctors are mostly in the middle.
Fasting is capable of strengthening the immune system due to the process of autophagy and other factors we have been discussing. Therefore, it is a fact that fasting can be used in combination with a good diet as a precaution to strengthen one's immune system so it may be at its peak when an infection comes. However, to fast when one is already sick is a more complicated matter.
Fasting can help greatly in certain conditions, especially when one has a bacteriological infection. As mentioned, fasting deprives the bacteria of the nutrients they need to proliferate, making their reproduction much slower and thus greatly helping the immune system to cope. We can see that one of the symptoms of bacterial infections is a lack of appetite, which is the body telling us that it is the right thing to do. To eat during a bacterial infection means, most of the time, to just feed the disease. Our bodies can survive for several days without food, but the bacteria can’t, therefore they starve much sooner than we do.
However, in viral infections the situation is different. Viruses are not exactly alive and therefore they are not affected by lack of nutrients as bacteria. As long as the other cells of the body are alive and operational, the virus will also continue to replicate and do its damage. The only real defense we have against viruses is our own immune system: in most cases, a viral infection is only controlled when the immune system develops and produces a sufficient quantity of antibodies against the virus. Just as antibiotics and most other medicines are ineffective against viral infections, fasting is also not going to be of much help.
According to a study from Yale University (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27610573) fasting during viral infections can actually do more harm than good, depriving the body of nutrients that the cells and the immune system need to fight the virus. Thus, in a viral infection, the best measure would be to have light and nutritious meals, without trying to artificially restrict eating.
Naturally, apart from viral and bacterial infections, there are several other conditions that can make us feel sick. For example, one can feel under the weather because of inflammation, or because of some chronic pain. Fasting is very effective in reducing inflammation and pain in general, therefore it can also be helpful in such situations. There is also the possibility of using a ketogenic diet (a diet that mimics fasting by restricting the intake of carbohydrates and protein) as a treatment for chronic pain. Fasts can also help to improve allergies, which is not a surprise, since allergies are caused by the immune system, and fasting has a profound impact on it.
There are also many conditions that can be caused by reactions to particular foods. Even something you have been eating for your whole life can later start to cause you trouble because of changes in the gut microbiome or other events. Many people become intolerant to lactose (and consequently to milk and most milk products) as they become older, others become intolerant to gluten or to certain grains or vegetables, some people develop allergies to certain foods, and so on. One can suddenly start to feel sick because of certain foods, and of course, a fast would also help in such conditions, since a fast is the ultimate exclusion diet. In such cases, a fast can help you to understand that your condition is a reaction from the body to certain foods, and in some cases, it can help to treat it, by healing the digestive system.
The conclusion is that fasting can help with many health conditions, but not all of them. A fast (especially long fasts lasting more than two or three days) is not advisable in a viral infection, and can be dangerous if the body is already in a debilitated state, just like heavy exercise is not advisable when one is sick.
How to start?
Before starting to think about fasting, the first step is to fix our diet, increasing the amount of vegetables and fruits, reducing or eliminating sugar, replacing refined carbohydrates with whole grains and legumes, replacing refined vegetable oils with butter and other healthy fats, adding high-quality foods, such as nuts, nutritious seeds and so on.
Many people try to go directly from a diet of sugar and refined carbohydrates to a multi-day fast, which is not advisable. Not only is it very difficult to do (one will feel very hungry and have other symptoms like lethargy, headaches, etc.) but it is also not very healthy, because the body will be forced to start the fast from an already debilitated state. By first changing one's habits and following a nutritious diet for a few weeks, one will reduce his insulin resistance and allow the body to build up reserves, which will allow him to fast in a much easier and healthier way.
A second point is to not try to start with a long fast. It's much better to go gradually, allowing the body to adapt, starting with a single-day fast, eating normally for one week, then trying a two-day fast, and so on. In the meantime, one can try a regimen of intermittent fasting, starting with 12 hours of eating and 12 hours of fasting, and then progressing to 16:8 or 18:6. Intermittent fasting is actually the main aspect of this protocol, since it's what you can do every day, it is what gives you most of the benefit. Longer fasts are also important, but they should be seen more like a secondary measure. When one becomes experienced in doing intermittent fasting, longer fasts are going to become surprisingly easy, since the body will be adapted to burn fat, and thus no abrupt change will be needed.
During the fast, it's important to sleep well and drink plenty of water. Don't be afraid of taking a little bit of salt if needed, it will not break the fast and can be really helpful. Also don't try to do heavy exercises, better to just walk and do other light activities. Many are afraid to fast, thinking that they are not going to be able to sleep at night, but actually, the opposite happens. When we fast the levels of insulin go down and this makes it easier for the body to enter into deep and restorative sleep. One may have problems sleeping the first time, if the body is struggling with the fast, but as soon as the body is prepared, he will actually have better sleep. Generally one will start having problems to sleep only after fasting for many days, if he fasts to the point that the body starts to enter into starvation (which is not a stage we want to reach). As long as the fast lasts for just a few days, or up to a week, the sleep should actually improve, and one will be well-rested with fewer hours of sleep.
How to break the fast?
After going on for several days without eating, our instinct when we finally break the fast is to eat everything and anything, probably some kind of survival mechanism, where the mind thinks the body is starving and tells us to take the chance and eat the most as possible.
However, it’s crucial to check this impulse. Different from a short fast (like we do when practicing intermittent fasting) that just lasts for a few hours and doesn't demand special precautions, a multi-day fast requires one to be very careful.
After a few days of fasting, the body will be working in a very different way, in a profound state of healing. In this state, the body is just not prepared to receive a big quantity of food. If one starts to eat too much and too fast, he can have serious problems. Just as it is necessary to have the self-control to do a fast, one must have the self-control to break it in the proper way. It’s necessary to start with something very light and then progress very gradually to heavier foods. High glycemic foods, like bread, pasta, rice, or even bananas must be strictly avoided in this period.
The first problem is that, as we fast, the levels of electrolytes like magnesium, potassium, and phosphate decline, as the body gradually uses its reserves. As the decline is gradual, the body can adapt to it. Normally, the lack of electrolytes only starts to become a serious problem in the second week of fasting.
However, if one eats a bowl of pasta to break his fast, the insulin response will make the cells instantly start to absorb these already depleted electrolytes from the bloodstream (since they need it to burn the glucose and produce energy), and the levels can drop to dangerously low levels, creating symptoms like fluid retention (edema), muscular fatigue and mental confusion. In the most serious cases, it can even provoke heart problems, it’s not something to joke about.
This is called refeeding syndrome, a phenomenon that became prominent in the second world war, when starved prisoners from concentration camps would quickly die after starting eating again. The longer one fasts, the more he needs to be careful. Short fasts are relatively safe (since the levels of electrolytes are not going to decrease so much), but when fasting for five days or more, one needs to be very careful to avoid negative consequences. That’s why long fasts of five days or more should be preferably done with medical supervision. A physician can do tests to check periodically your levels of electrolytes and other essential nutrients and supplement it if necessary.
Another problem is that with a long fast, the intestines become low on digestive enzymes, and similarly the stomach gradually loses its strong acidity. If one eats something heavy too quickly, he may have digestive problems.
I recommend that you start with a little bit of lemon juice with some salt. Apart from having some vitamins and electrolytes, the lemon is going to increase the acidity in the stomach and stimulates the secretion of digestive enzymes in the intestines, helping the digestive system to come back in order. After one hour, you can take a small quantity of yogurt, or some other probiotic. This will help to repopulate the intestines with good bacteria.
After another hour, you can start your refeeding process with something liquid, low on carbs but with a good amount of vitamins and other nutrients. A very good option is to make a vegetable broth, cooking a quantity of vegetables with water, salt and a little bit of some healthy fat and then start by taking just the liquid without the vegetables. After a few hours, you can start eating the cooked vegetables that were left and go slowly from there. In general, one should consider the first two days after the fast as part of the fast, eating frugally. The longer the fast, the more one needs to be careful with the refeeding.
A rule of thumb is to eat about 50% of the calories one would normally eat in the first two or three days, and avoid carbs, focusing on vegetables (except potatoes and other starchy options), healthy fats (in moderation) as well as avocados, a few nuts, etc. You should focus on ingredients that you are well accustomed to, avoiding new additions that may upset your digestive system.
A great advantage of avoiding carbs in the first days is that we can keep the body burning ketones and thus prolong the effects of the fast. One can thus fast for four days, avoid carbs for the next three days and thus have a great part of the benefits of a seven day fast, without having to really fast for so long. After that, one can reintroduce carbs gradually, being careful not to overdose, since the intestines will need some time to raise the levels of the enzymes used to digest carbs.
How to make fasting easier?
The main principle when we speak about fast is that the human body can work by burning two types of fuel: glucose and fat. Apart from sweets, bread and biscuits, we get glucose from grains, starches, roots, and to a smaller degree also from fruits. The body is happy to work by burning glucose, the problem is that since it can store only a very small quantity of it, we need to eat frequently. If one usually eats three times a day (or more), without a long interval between the last and first meal, it means that his body is mainly running on glucose.
The second type of fuel is fat that we get from food and also from our bellies. The fat that the body stores is meant to be used as an energy fuel when we fast, just like a generator that is meant to be used when the lights go out. The problem is that if we never fast, this emergency system is never used and the body becomes very sluggish in activating it. The result is that when we don't eat, we become weak, in a bad mood, etc. The body simply doesn't know what to do and we suffer if we try to fast. The solution is to practice, just like exercise. The first time is going to be difficult but the progress can be surprisingly quick.
The first step is to improve the quality of our meals, increasing the quality of our food, and especially the amount of vegetables that we eat. Try to eat more salads, steamed vegetables, nuts, legumes, milk products, and healthy fats and at the same time eat less carbohydrates (especially starches and grains).
The second step is to start a regimen of intermittent fasting, as previously explained. It's not about eating less: you can eat exactly the same, the process consists in simply shifting the time of the meals. This works as a training, forcing the body to adapt to use fat. Not only this will bring great health benefits, but will make fasting much easier.
After a few months practicing the first two steps, your body will be ready to start fasting for longer periods. You will notice that a water fast will become surprisingly easier. At some point, you may actually feel more energetic on the fasting days (when we fast frequently, the body starts to break the fat into ketones, which is a very efficient type of fuel).
On the day before the fast (or at least in the last meal before) try to eat vegetables and foods rich in fats (nuts, olives, cheese, some butter or cream, avocados, coconuts, etc.) instead of grains and other options rich in carbohydrates. This will stimulate the body to start burning fat, making the fast much easier. Don't carb-load. If you have a big meal rich in high glycemic carbs, you will have a ravenous hunger the next morning, and it will be very difficult to fast.
Regular fasts ramp up the process of autophagy, helping the body to clean itself and become more efficient. This can do miracles for your energy levels, resulting in a stable influx of physical and mental energy without the need for coffee or other stimulants.