RE: More benefits from fasting, something you might not have concidered!
I'm lucky to have just seen this reply from you now!
I was thinking this yesterday morning after having a spontaneous "random" conversation with a stranger, that I should do another fast but for atleast 7 days.
He explained to me he was very much into fasting and just did a 9 day fast on water and he did it with a friend who on the second night felt he had to keep spitting.. and in one evening whilst they sat and just watched tv, he filled up 2 cups with saliva, and on the 5th day was spitting out some kind of black stuff!
Sounded well weird! Yesterday I ate quite a lot of vegan food and then in the evening in celebration of finally finding some smokey, I decided on a junk food night and movies.. Its well hard anyway to choose junkfood when you have reprogrammed the mind to hate sugar lol, so it was just a pizza and soya bread with cream cheese in the end. I went to sleep stuffed, and woke up 6 hours later with very bad heart burn, and almost diarrhea!
kept me up some hours, and now I just woke up, had a coffee, and will now start another fasting.
I see how my body rejected that processed food, the pizza, and thinking about it since the first fast, my diet changed naturally dramatically in regards to how much i wanted to est everyday, and then what I was eating was all unprocessed foods.
My stomach is hating me for bringing even on just one pizza, so I will clean it again!
I'm heading over to your post, as its been the third day of your fast!
I just completed my three day fast. I have a social evening tonight. You're no fun when you've been invited for dinner and are fasting. =)
Maybe you should have eased yourself back into a more rich diet. Something I noticed on my fast, my sense became sharper (Where's the food!?) with my smell in the last day or so becoming acute. This is what the fasting process does, it put's your body into reset mode and we are quicker to notice the messages it sends us. So normally we ignore its feedback and end up unhealthy and unwell, and on top of that resort to all sorts of chemicals to make ourselves feel right again.
A friend of mine suffered from digestion problems for years, having tried all sorts of treatments, academic medicine and alternative medicine, the former while helping often had side effects, the later of course takes a long time and is tricky to navigate because it requires in depth knowledge. She was at her wits end, and so I suggested fasting. She did a four day fast and is over the moon with her body's response. She stepped up slowly and cautiously on different foods again. She is now eating things that she couldn't for years.
Regarding the person with black saliva, is he a smoker. That's what it sounds like to me.
I'm going to definitely be doing this more regularly. It has also had a positive effect upon my state of being. I have found more discipline (well you have to be to do this), more clarity a greater drive to organize my life.
Some further thoughts I had while fasting was that few health professionals, academic or alternative, are going to recommend fasting to you because they simply won't make money out of. If more people realised that their bodies are built to take care of themselves, then that would be bad for business.
I also realised that the fasting would have a major effect upon bacterial or yeast infections, such as candida. If you are putting no nutrients in, then there is no supply for such organisms and your body can get to work with purging them.
I did a herbal tea and water only fast, for the above reason, no extra nutrients, and thus letting my body sort out what it does and doesn't need.
I'm also intending to engage in a much longer fast.
Let me know how you go with yours.
Isn't great to know that there is an easy reset function for the body. =)
Fasts 4 days or longer are best because it takes 2-3 days for your body to go in to "stress" response or survival mode and slow or shut down certain processes. Certain hormone levels change and after that turning point we attain a better sense of well being.
And this was your first fasting also?!
It will be interesting to see what inspiration it gives also (or takes away from) what you feel like painting, did you research on any "fasting artists?" :)
I haven't heard of candida, but in a west african language I was once speaking, it means "Hot" !
My fridge here is now as bare as the markets, and thats a good help hahahah!
I actually just did yoga aswell concentrated for the root chakra, for balance aswell, and i must get disaplined to to it every day!
I am aiming to get a rhythm in daytime of waking up, taking a bath, then one full hour mediation, and then of to the sauna, then come back for yoga. So around just 4 hours from morning until midday, and to do this at least whilst i'm here in Poland. I want to also complete a good 8 hour meditation, and here the dogs are in appartment mode and so it can be possible to shut myself in the bathroom and sit without them coming to lick my face and interrupting, which happens anyway when i sit on the floor and they are there!
I think I'm going for a full 7 days, with tea and water! Feels good and the mind is saying "easy" hahah
Edit: I decideded to try out alternate day fasting and so I will do 24 hours not eating and then 24 hours eating whenever, mainly because Ive started to go out with people who want to eat hahahahaha
I have fasted once before.
Regarding your 24hr fasting, it won't help you. Here's why.
24 hrs - body uses up its glucose reserves.
48 hrs - starts to use a tiny amount of protein, starts detoxing, which is why people feel terrible on the second day.
72 hrs - third day, body's natural stress/emergency/protection response kicks in and starts consuming fat reserves. You can survive off this quite well for the next 100 days. It is in the third day and onwards that you will get the benefits of fasting, as hormone levels change, breathing, heart rate and blood pressure drops. Digestion, of course shuts down. The immune system goes to work and starts cleaning up and repairing the body.
Studies have shown that longer term fasting:
So the absolute minimum fast you should be doing is 4 -5 days to get any benefit. You should only be drinking water or (weak) herbal tea, with no soups and definitely no fruit juices.
When you end your fast (which might be your break-fast =) ) start with lighter foods such as soups and slowly build it up again. Pay careful attention to how each food affects you as you reintroduce it into your diet. This will give you clues as to what foods you have issues with and may need to eliminate.
There's plenty of research out there to school you up on how it works.
Turn on the auto translate feature (English) for this video.