Less-rigorous-than-water Fasts

Categories: Fasting
Sources: How And When To Be Your Own Doctor

There are gradations of fasting measures ranging from rigorous to

relatively casual. Water fasting is the most rapid and effective

one. Other methods have been created by grasping the underlying

truth of fasting, namely whenever the digestive effort can be

reduced, by whatever degree, whenever the formation of the toxins of

misdigestion can be reduced or prevented, to that extent the body

can divert energy to the heali g process. Thus comes about assorted

famous and sometimes notorious monodiet semi-fasts like the grape

cure where the faster eats only grapes for a month or so, or the

lemon cure, where the juice of one or more lemons is added to water

and nothing else is consumed for weeks on end. Here I should also

mention the "lemon juice/cayenne pepper/maple syrup cure," the

various green drink cures using spirulina, chlorella, barley green

or wheat grass, and the famous Bieler broths--vegetable soups made of

overcooked green beans or zucchini.



I do not believe that monodiets work because of some magical

property of a particular food used. They work because they are

semi-fasts and may be extremely useful, especially for those

individuals who can not or will not tolerate a water fast.



The best foods for monodiet fasting are the easiest ones digest:

juices of raw fruits and nonstarchy vegetables with all solids

strained out. Strained mineral broths made of long-simmered

non-starchy vegetables (the best of them made of leafy green

vegetables) fall in the same category. So if you are highly partial

to the flavor of grapes or lemons or cayenne and (highly diluted)

maple syrup, a long fast on one of these would do you a world of

good, just not quite as much good as the same amount of time spent

on water alone. If you select something more "solid" for a long

monodiet fast, like pureed zucchini, it is essential that you not

overeat. Dr. Bieler gave his fasting patients only one pint of

zucchini soup three or four times a day. The way to evaluate how

much to eat is by how much weight you are losing. When fasting, you

must lose weight! And the faster the better.



Pure absolute water fasting while not taking any vitamins or other

nutritional supplementation has a very limited maximum duration,

perhaps 45 days. The key concept here is nutritional reserves. Body

fat is stored, surplus energy fuel. But energy alone cannot keep a

body going. It needs much more than fuel to rebuild and repair and

maintain its systems. So the body in its wisdom also stores up

vitamins and minerals and other essential substances in and

in-between all its cells. Bodies that have been very well nourished

for a long time have very large reserves; poorly nourished ones may

have very little set aside for a rainy day. And it is almost a

truism that a sick person has, for quite some time, been a poorly

nourished one. With low nutritional reserves. This fact alone can

make it difficult for a sick person to water fast for enough time to

completely heal their damaged organs and other systems.



Obese people have fat reserves sufficient to provide energy for long

periods, but rarely can any body, no matter how complete its

nutrition was for years previously, contain sufficient nutritional

reserves to support a water fast of over six weeks. To water fast

the very obese down to normal weight can take months but to make

this possible, rather diverse and concentrated nutrition containing

few calories must be given. It is possible to fast even a very slim

a person for quite a bit longer than a month when their body is

receiving easily assimilable vitamins and minerals and small amounts

of sugars or other simple carbohydrates.



I estimate that fasting on raw juices and mineral broths will result

in healing at 25 to 75 percent of the efficiency of water fasting,

depending on the amount of nutrition taken and the amount the juices

or broths are diluted. But juice fasting can permit healing to go on

several times longer than water might.



Fasting on dilute juice and broth can also save the life of someone

whose organs of elimination are insufficiently strong to withstand

the work load created by water fasting. In this sense, juices can be

regarded as similar to the moderators in a nuclear reactor, slowing

the process down so it won't destroy the container. On a fast of

undiluted juice, the healing power drops considerably, but a person

on this regimen, if not sick, is usually capable of working.



Duration of juice fasts can vary greatly. Most of the time there is

no need to continue fasting after the symptoms causing concern have

been eliminated, and this could happen as quickly as one week or

take as long as 60 days if the person is very obese. Fasters also

lose their motivation once the complaint has vanished. But feeling

better is no certain indication that the need to fast has ended.

This points up one of the liabilities of juice fasting; the person

is already eating, their digestive system never shut down and

consequently, it is much easier for them to resume eating. The thing

to keep in mind is that if the symptoms return, the fast was not

long enough or the diet was not properly reformed after the fast.



During a long fast on water or dilute juice, if the body has used up

all of it's reserves and/or the body has reached skeletal condition,

and the condition or symptoms being addressed persists the fast

should be ended, the person should go on a raw food healing diet. If

three to six months on raw food don't solve the complaint then

another spell of water or dilute juice fasting should be attempted.

Most fasters are incapable of persisting until the body reserves

have been used up because social conditioning is telling them their

emaciated-looking body must be dying when it is actually far from

death, but return of true hunger is the critical indicator that must

not be ignored. True hunger is not what most people think of when

they think they are hungry. Few Americans have ever experienced true

hunger. It is not a rumbling in the stomach or a set of

uncomfortable sensations (caused by the beginning of detoxification)

you know will go away after eating. True hunger is an animal,

instinctual feeling in the back of one's throat (not in the stomach)

that demands you eat something, anything, even grass or shoe

leather.



Seriously ill people inevitably start the cleansing process with a

pre-existing and serious mineral deficiencies. I say inevitably

because they likely would not have become ill had they been properly

nourished. Sick fasters may be wise to take in minerals from thin

vegetable broths or vitamin-like supplements in order to prevent

uncomfortable deficiency states. For example calcium or magnesium

deficiencies can make water fasters experience unpleasant symptoms

such as hand tremors, stiff muscles, cramps in the hands, feet, and

legs, and difficulty relaxing. I want to stress here that fasting

itself does not create deficiencies. But a person already deficient

in minerals should watch for these symptoms and take steps to remedy

the deficiencies if necessary.