Been reading lots of posts on this forum and the fasting weight loss forum on here and see so many of these posts that time to make a general commment.
Fasting and starving have one main difference. If you have fat to burn you can fast and live on the fat. If you don't have fat to burn you will eat up muscles and eventually more important stuff,organ tissue,etc .When you fast with no fat reserves you are into starvation not fasting.
fasting when you have no fat to burn is the same as anorexia not much difference.How much damage it will do and how dangerous it is depends on how low your fat storage is.
Prisoners in Ireland in a famous hunger strike were followed carefully and those with average of 15% bodyfat started dying at day 60 or so.
Also women need more essential fat than men do.
I see people on here ,mostly women who are already at good weight for their height,build saying how they want to drop 20,30 or more pounds. Mostly its due to bad body image they think they are fat. If you have had a few kids you are always going to have some skin,baby fat around your stomach thats just the way it is. Live with it.
I had anorexic first wife that weighed 80 pounds at her lowest she was 5ft zero and had three children with her.
She thought she was fat. she worked out like crazy and drank diet coke ate a salad a day and starved herself down to nothing. Sad. Not sure what she weighs now don't talk to her much anymore and haven't for years.But suspect she is still anorexic. But so far still alive.
Lesson here is that don't go on 40 day biblical fasts if you don't have much fat to burn. Try 7 maybe 14 and really if you have fat to burn you won't be hungry after day 2 or 3 ,fat people can go for a long time on their fat storage thats what fat is for. If you are really hungry still after 3 or 4 days you are likely skinny as heck and long fasting is stupid and unecessary. If you are trying to do a long fast to cure some disease well whatever but don't think fasting is that effective at curing disease. Some things respond well to it and some don't. Obviously if you are overweight and have health issues related to that it can help.
The jury is still kind of out on how good it is for other health problems.
At least if you are thin now keep the fasts to reasonable periods. If I hear one more skinny person say how they are going to go 40 days I may upchuck.There is no need to be biblical here. Jesus might have gone 40 days but really don't think everything in the bible is 100% true.
Now on the flip side shorter fasts like 7 days are likely still perfectly fine even for people that are pretty thin to start with. And don't think that 10 pounds lost in first three days or so is fat. Some get so excited about it.Its not fat its water. and it will mostly come back on re feed within week or two. Thats why people who really have to lose weight like me fast down extra 10 pounds or so to account for some rebounce.It will vary with person to person. Some really obese people or people with water retention issues can lose way more pounds and some lose not that much.
And don't want to hear all this whining about how you quit your fast on day 1 or 2 or even 3.
If you can't last 1 or 2 or 3 days then try juice fasting its easier. And you can transition to water after few days ,alternate juice and water ,etc. Or try intermittent fasting by say skipping breakfast for week, then skipping breakfast and lunch and then maybe one day food,one day fasting but find its actually easier to just go cold turkey and get thur the first couple days. After 2 or 3 days your hunger should be gone unless as said you are too skinny.
If you can't make it one or two or three days with no food you have no willpower. People all over the world and for millions of years were lucky to eat even once a day.
So suck it up ,if you are going to fast then fast not start,stop,start stop.
Sorry to be a bit blunt here but some of you need to hear this.
Oh and now seeing some of you doing long dry fasts. this is even more stupid.You can live without food for weeks maybe months if you have fat. You can't live that long without water. Long dry fasts more than a few days or so are dumb and risky. But hey its your body,your life.
It would be just so terrific if you would make the effort to learn about fasting before "teaching" on the subject. This post is wrong on so many levels as is this other masterpiece: http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1793697#i.
You really don't understand fasting anywhere near as much as you think you do and as such you are prolific in the spreading of false information. More facts and less guessing... pretty please!!!
You are just feeding anorexia telling some of these underweight people to fast for long periods.
Dry fasting is dangerous,fasting for long periods of time is dangerous if they are already underweight or have very low bodyfat.Especially since 99% of people on here are doing unsupervised fasting.
And many women have terrible self image poor things keep saying they are fat when the look just fine. I don't like underweight women. Maybe you do.Thats your choice. Fact starting to think you are pretty darn underweight.Whats your weight and height? Muscle mass and bodyfat.You seem to be doing constant fasts.If fasting cures all health conditions why do keep doing so many fasts? To detox, for some spiritual reason? Don't seem to be for weight loss you look very thin in your avatar picture.
Some of you want to fast off all your muscle whatever. Each to his own. I think the goal should be to be healthy weight and have reasonable amounts of bodyfat and muscle.
I could fast down to 100 pounds but that would't be a very good weight for my height and build. Some of you though would likely disagree.
And never said that fasting can't help some health problems but don't think its the cure all for every ailment .Some of these people might need real medical help for their conditions not just fast and hope they go away.
And before you totally jump on me I do believe that some fasting is normal,heck some starvation is normal for humans thruout history and even in many parts of the world today and a bit of starvation don't do that much harm the human body is pretty resilient.
But no sense pushing things for thin people too far.
Do you want to do a 90 or 120 day water fast Mighty and see if the 60 day thing that was talking about is accurate.I have a feeling you don't have much fat to lose or much muscle since likely you have fasted all your muscle away.Consider it an experiment.Fact you can dry fast 60 day if you think dry fasting is so safe.
Just trying to get people to be a bit careful and save more people especially healthy weight nice looking women from becoming anorexic little boneracks like my xwife.
ALB
Your have not educated yourself enough to be 'schooling' new fasters or telling others the fast how YOU want them to cause YOU likeit that way. Your original post on this thread is HORRIABLE and I hope that new fasters will dismiss what you have to say and take the time to research this on there own. Its guys like you that give fasting such a bad name. Just stop with the posting telling others whats okay and what is not. Fasting has cured an amazing amount of health issues and THAT RIGHT THERE might be the reason some do extended fasting. Your arn't even water fasting your using tea and sweetners in your fasts so for one your posting in the wrong section. And if you keep going about posting like this you could be removed from the site. If your not going to do your own research on fasting then at least take ten minutes to read the rules on posting because you are breaking some. If it does not matter to you thats fine I am sure there are a few people here that wouldnt miss you once your gone :)
Happy Fasting Curezone peoplez!!!
You are being negligent. Shelton did supervised fasting. You are telling rookies it ok to go 40 ,60 whatever days regardless if they have maybe very low bodyfat or are actual anorexics. Anorexics love to fast. Give them more encouragement to starve themselves and they will a lot of the time.
I am simply urging more caution. Dry fasting can be very dangerous, Long fasts for super thin people can be very dangerous. As tupernicious agrees with me many women are anorexic or borderline. Many have very distorted self image.Guys too but not as often can become anorexic as well.
I never said fasting didn't cure some health issues. Its obviously going to help overweight issues ,high blood pressure,cholestrol,sore back, and things like that and willing to keep an open mind on other "cures" attributed to it.
As for me not fasting because taking the occasional green tea or diet pop thats your opinion and you are mostly just parroting your God Shelton. Many other people have fasted with some green tea or coffee or diet drinks and got same results with regards to weight loss. As for spiritual benefits well not seeing any aside from mental clearness and some emotional mellowness. God never talked to me on my fasts yet and doubt ever will. As for detox jury is still out on that one too with many saying detox doesn't exist.
But again I am fasting my way and juice fasting is fasting as well , some of you are pretty pigheaded about your pure fasting.Whatever floats your boat.
I am willing to learn, so far having better results this fast by only drinking when thirsty can see why drinking too much water on first fast flushed out all my sodium and potassium giving me super low blood pressure and muscle cramping.
Understand more now than did before. Bought blood pressure monitor if it gets really low will take salt pills or drink some salty juice or break fast to solid food.
Your ideas on re feed from many of you are junk too. I ate meat almost on first day of re feed think it was second day. No problems at all .Meat is 100% natural for men to eat and as hunters we ate it much more often than vegetables or fruit which were much more seasonable. We can digest meat just fine. And super long re feeds are not needed. and thats personal experience.
Once again you guys are telling rookies to just go ahead listen to god or whatever and fast as long as they want.Dangerous advice but hey its a free world.
Shelton fasted thin people with pretty good results and longer than he thought he could he said sometimes. But still after all fat is gone you burn up muscle then vital stuff. The human body can gain back muscle pretty quickly after fast and the human body can survive being starved without too much long term damage but still some caution is advisable on unsupervised fasting.
Mighty said a lot of pretty good info in his reply to mine. Some good points in there and he told me a lot about himself that helps me understand stuff.I am not closed minded just more scientist than many of you and want to try things,see things proven not just believe some guy from decades ago. Shelton is seen as a quack and pretty sure was sued but that don't necessarily discredit everything he says. His natural whatever it is has some really stupid ideas but that is another story. Pretty sure he is against innoculations and all that. And there are some weird ideas about food and diet out there.
I am happy to be mostly on the weight loss board and could care less really about the " pure" fasting water board. Seem to be full of bunch of snobs anyway.
Feel free to find " god " on your fasts and be sure to say hello to him or her for me. Feel free to cure all your diseases from fasting but blind faith only goes so far.
Great post. I am sure anorexics do come here.
Really you are suppose to only do a long water fast once every few years. I see people on that water fasting forum who are doing never ending long fasts over and over again. They are addicted to it and are abusing fasting and actually make fasting look like some OCD thing, instead of a healing practice.
Your Rule: Really you are suppose to only do a long water fast once every few years.
Where are you getting you're information from? Who made up this rule? What are the arguments for it? In your opinion should people abide by this rule even if they are benefiting by not abiding by it? Or, should people break this rule if they are benefiting by breaking it?
This "rule" comes from Dr. Joel Fuhrman M.D. Fasting and Eating for Health, and other fasting literature.
(You'll have to look it up yourself, I'm not going to dig up those books and retype passages for you.)
Although you may have enough fat reserves to fast "forever" you can still run out of nutritional reserves and need time to rebuild those nutritional reserves, more than just a couple of weeks of just eating a few slices of fruit or whatever.
My point however was about the OCD behavior of some of the fasters here. Doing never ending long fasts over and over again, neurotically. The human body can put up with a lot, but at some point that kind of abuse is going to catch up with you. Reasonable fasting is healing, I'm sure, but that's not what I'm referring to.
So the bottom line is if you do not run out of nutritional reserves it is safe to fast and continue healing. Dr. Fuhrman is not God, although he does contribute a lot of good information. I would say that if one is taking frequent long fasts to heal, it is best to have their nutritional reserves monitored by a fasting doctor, although many choose not to do this for various reasons. That is their choice. I do believe that you are accusing people who are taking frequent long fasts for healing, to have OCD neurotic behavior when they do not have this condition. They are trying to heal their bodies. Of course, some may have the behavior, but how can one judge over the internet. The water fast board is a support forum for folks who are fasting for healing. It is not the place to judge people. I see people who take frequent long fasts very conscious of building nutritional reserves between fasts. I do not agree with Dr. Fuhrman's rule unless someone is nutritionally deficient. It would take testing on the people in question to prove it. Other fast doctors would disagree as well. I have studied the subject too. I have found no one perfect in thinking be it a fast doctor or me. I have found that even the experts disagree with one another. If people on the water fast only forum are healing their bodies by frequent long fasts, then they must be doing something right. Why should they have to obey some rule that would obviously be working against them? Moses did two forty day fasts back to back with only one meal in between. This was all for good. It's a good thing the rule was not around then or he may have broken it to follow God's leading.
You can fast as long as you want, it's your body and life, I don't care.
Well said. In the end I find that very few people really do care about my health. Many of them care about them being right even at the expense of others. Ego does get in the way of sound advise sometimes. It is best for a person to do their own research and seek God for guidance. No one cares as much about my health as I do, except for God. It is the end result that I am after. It is the end result that is important. This may mean not following the ideas of an expert. I have done enough studying to know that even the experts do not agree with each other all of the time. How are we suppose to know which one is right? If a person is going to undertake a long fast and can get supervision from a trusted doctor, knowledgeable about the subject, that would be ideal. Since we do not live in an ideal world many choose to supervise themselves for various reasons. I believe they know there are risks involved, but they believe it is a risk worth taking. Not doing so is also a risk. Yes, I am indeed free to make my own decisions regarding what I feel is best for me. It is a God-given right. Thank you for your reply.
"You are just feeding anorexia telling some of these underweight people to fast for long periods."
You confuse lean people like blaise fasting for their health with anorexics. Anorexia is about distorted self image and eating to starvation as a result, not about people who know the benefits of fasting and want fast to get well and are well aware that they need to gain some weight back after they are done. Did you notice that blaise gained back 16 pounds in 13 days after he broke his fast?
This is what Dr. Shelton (who fasted tens of thousands more patients than you) has to say about: "Fasting By The Emaciated"
"Shall emaciated persons fast? By all means. Emaciation is rarely due to a lack of food, but almost always is a result of sickness. Dewey, Carrington, Macfadden, Rabagliatti, Sinclair and many others have pointed out that in numerous instances, the first gains in weight some of these emaciated individuals make, despite much effort and many different kinds of weight-gaining diets, comes after a fast. I have seen many such cases in my own experience. It is easily possible to exaggerate the importance of weight in any consideration of fasting. Some extremely emaciated patients surprise us by the length of fasting they can safely and profitably undergo.
Great emaciation is not a bar to fasting. I have fasted numerous very thin people. One man, an asthmatic, who was veritably "skin and bones" when reaching my institution, fasted seventeen days and became practically free of asthma of nine years' standing. A subsequent fast completed his restoration. This man actually grew stronger during the fast.
...
Sinclair records the case of an Episcopal clergyman who, "was so emaciated that he could hardly creep around" and was contemplating suicide. "He fasted eleven days and then gained thirty pounds."
Dr. Eales says: "If you are thin and below normal weight, a fast will help you. Do not think that fasting is beneficial only for fleshy people. [Alb let me repeat this just for you: "Do not think that fasting is beneficial only for fleshy people".] Thin people, as well as fleshy people are in an abnormal condition, and will derive great benefit from a fast. Numerous instances are on record of thin people fasting and gaining rapidly in health and weight after a fast."
I had one case to gain thirty pounds in four weeks, after a fast of nine days. This gain was made on a diet that few people would consider sufficient to meet their needs. This patient had suffered with gastric hyperacidity, gastro-enteritis, colitis, gas, constipation, poor circulation, emaciation and mental depression for seven years before consulting me.
The fast, particularly a complete fast, remedies both emaciation and obesity. After a complete fast the body tends to attain and then maintain its ideal weight. Formerly fat patients do not regain their excess weight; whereas, those who were thin often gain a pound or more a day for a month or longer.
...
Great emaciation is due to impairment of health and the degree of emaciation is commonly proportionate to the degree of impairment. Such cases frequently make no gains in weight until after a fast...
Emaciation may be so extreme that only a short fast is possible; but we are often surprised at how well the emaciated person holds up under a fast that goes much beyond the time we think is possible..."
"Dry fasting is dangerous,fasting for long periods of time is dangerous if they are already underweight or have very low bodyfat..."
Dry fasting is safe for people who listen to their body and drink when thirsty. Trimnut2 and Fonty are both able to dry fast for 7 days and still have a moist mouth at the end of it and no signs of thirst or dehydration whatsoever. Me on the other hand, 2 days seems to be my safe limit then i become exceedingly thirsty.
"And many women have terrible self image poor things keep saying they are fat when the look just fine."
Again, anorexic thinking is not to be confused with thin people who are fasting for their health. If a thin woman with a terrible and distorted self image says she wants to fast for weight loss i will discourage her from doing so. By contrast, if a thin person wants to fast for health reasons i will encourage that person.
"I don't like underweight women. Maybe you do.Thats your choice. Fact starting to think you are pretty darn underweight.Whats your weight and height? Muscle mass and bodyfat.
Thanks for your concern. I am 5'11", 170 pounds. Good muscle definition, decent muscle mass and about 10% body fat. I train my muscles every other day, do moderate to intense cardio 5-7 days a week and eat for health including muscle support, lots of veg and fruit, some organic beef, organic eggs, salmon and beans among other foods.
"You seem to be doing constant fasts."
Constant may be a bit of an exaggeration, but i did do 2 majors (30+36.5 days) in an attempt to allow my severely damaged heart to be repaired. About 8 months after the 36.5 i did another 17 days. Currently i am doing 16 hours per day which i don't consider fasting at all since each day within the 8 hour window i am introducing full, not partial nutriment.
"If fasting cures all health conditions why do keep doing so many fasts? To detox, for some spiritual reason?"
Actually i don't believe the body is able to heal every possible ailment in a fast and never made that claim, but i do believe it's the nearest thing to a cure all we have. My severely damaged heart has been amazingly improved over these 2.5 long fasts, but even still it is not 100% healed. However, I have gone from getting a strained heart walking up my driveway to being able to run sprints without strain, so with great thanks to fasting i have come a long way and I am confident that eventually the combination of healthful eating combined with muscle training and intense or moderately intense cardio with periods of fasting in between will continue to bring healing and eventually my heart will be 100% better.
"Don't seem to be for weight loss you look very thin in your avatar picture."
No i am not fasting for weight loss. It is for the healing of my heart along with all of the other benefits that are taking place. As well i don't mind burning fat as fuel each time i fast while preserving muscle mass fantastically. The avatar picture is me in the midst of a fast so i'm probably 10 pounds or more temporarily light from the water loss.
"Some of you want to fast off all your muscle whatever. Each to his own. I think the goal should be to be healthy weight and have reasonable amounts of bodyfat and muscle."
Some of who? Certainly not me. I fast knowing that muscle is extraordinarily well preserved and the minimal muscle that i do lose in a fast i am eager to regain it once i begin re-feeding (and i always do). The goal for me is indeed healthy weight and muscle mass with fairly low body fat. 10% is fine, 7% would be even better. But no, i don't want 2%. As well i seek optimal functioning of my body, mind and soul, 3 benefits i strongly believe that fasting helps to provide.
You confuse low fat with "no" fat. Low fat burns as fuel in a fast just the way high fat does and once the body decides fat levels are too low to keep burning it as the primary fuel source, it sends the outrageously powerful signal that genuine hunger has arrived. It doesn't just switch over from "fat as fuel" to "muscle as fuel" without alerting and alarming us. You feel too hungry to resist diet coke and sweetened tea in the absense of genuine hunger, right? Just imagine how hard it is to resist eating once something 100 times stronger arrives.
"I could fast down to 100 pounds but that would't be a very good weight for my height and build. Some of you though would likely disagree."
Some of who? Certainly not me. But if you were thin and sick, fasting down to a very low weight (how low depends on your frame and muscle mass) as a very temporary low point (blaise went down to 94) could according to Dr. Shelton be the best thing for you under the circumstances to get well then rebuilding and getting back to a more ideal weight.
"But no sense pushing things for thin people too far.
Do you want to do a 90 or 120 day water fast Mighty and see if the 60 day thing that was talking about is accurate."
No when i went 36.5 days i felt that was my safe limit at the time. I came through a bout of nausia and when i finally emerged feeling good i jumped on the opportunity to break.
"Consider it an experiment.Fact you can dry fast 60 day if you think dry fasting is so safe."
haha, purely mo*onic :). Dry fasting is only safe until thirst kicks in. For some people (like you perhaps) that's hours, for others (like me) it's a day or 2 and for others yet (like Trimnut and Fonty) it's 7-10-14 days.
"Just trying to get people to be a bit careful and save more people especially healthy weight nice looking women from becoming anorexic little boneracks like my xwife."
Thin women wanting to fast for their health are not to be confused with your anorexic ex wife.
Thanks Alb for your excellent post. You are so right about women and their body images (when they are thin they still think they need to lose 10 or 15 pounds). I have been in unhealthy weight of 105 lbs to very high weight 190 lbs. At the low end, when I was a teen, I thought 115 was big and in my 20's weighed 105 to 110. Even then, I still thought I was big when compared to some women I saw in public -I don't know how they ever get that thin. Now I still don't have any idea just how much I need to weigh 120, 130, 140? I am just going to go with how I feel and definitely working on getting to around 130 though (I am close). Still realize that it's a fine line between fasting and anorexia. More men like you Alb, need to tell women that they NEED some fat on them and not be a bonerack. I am not trying to impress a man though, just myself. Oh and to stop my kids and mom from calling me "fat".
PM ALB,
I agree with the consensus of opinion here in this thread in that you do not really know what you are talking about: the advice and comments you have made are incorrect.
For example, there is only one distinction between fasting and starving: in the former you are living from food reserves of all kinds and not just fat, whereas starvation is where these have run out or nearly so, and where the body will then begin to feed on itself; that is the internal organs. Fasting is constructive and beneficial to the body, whereas starvation is destructive.
If you investigate Yeos Physiology and losses in starvation, you will discover that the muscles and other vital organs are hardly touched; the nerves for example are not touched at all. Muscle loss in the fasting state is approx' 0.2 Kg per day as the bodys way of conserving protein. Dr Joel Fuhrman MD refers to this as "Protein Sparing"
The losses you refer to only occur in the state of starvation and NOT fasting.
Also even the thinnest individual has ample fat and other reserves to live off for anything up to 24 to 25 days in Dr Sheltons vast experience of fasting supervision.
It is true to say the females have more fat reserves generally than males
You are also confusing Anorexia with Anorexia Nervosa: the former being just loss of appetite which occurs for differing reasons such as illness or the onset of ketosis which is the bodys way of suppressing appetite/hunger on a water-only-fast. The latter is an emotional/mental state which needs treatment in a psychological way by health- professionals.
The length of a fast is determined by the reasons for undergoing one and the developments that occur during its course, but most anyone can fast safely and only with benefit, for up to 30 days and beyond.
Fasting not that effective at curing disease? means that the fast is a very useful tool to allow the body to self-heal and rid itself of toxemia, whether this is derived endogenously or exogenously. Most if not all diseases respond very well to self-healing and therfore the fast, and where sometimes one long fast is insufficient and after a careful period of refeeding another subsequent long fasts will finish this process.
"The jury is still kind of out on how good it is for other health problems".
Read up on the literature of fasting and especially the books by Dr Joel Fuhrman MD and you will discover the value of fasting in most all diseases.
Shorter fasts are less effective as the time allowed is insufficient to allow full healing and detox to take place.
Dry fasting is beneficial to a point, we just have to listen to our body in its wants and needs; if no water is called for then it is not needed.
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