There is probably not a single adult on the planet who does not know what to eat properly, not to overeat, and not to get involved in foods with an excess of preservatives, dyes, and stabilizers.
Fried and fatty foods are also harmful. People who know the whole "charm" of the consequences of such abuses are often fond of diet food in one form or another.
Really, the rejection of many familiar products leads to better health and even the treatment of certain diseases. Having felt a similar effect, many people want to strengthen it, accelerate the "cleansing" of the body. This is exactly what the developers of therapeutic fasting methods are counting on.
The principle of fasting, what are the benefits for the body
According to the adherents of fasting, interruptions in nutrition help the body get rid of harmful substances that enter the body with various foods. The nutrients from the products are used for energy, growth and renewal of the body. By taking full advantage of the products that enter the digestive tract, our body gets rid of excess, waste and toxins, removing them accordingly.
But not all products are equally useful - it’s difficult or impossible for the body to get rid of some - more and more harmful substances come in with food that remain in us for a long time. Fasting of various durations pauses in these processes, and the body can concentrate on removing existing troubles.
Adherents of the theory, despite the benefits and harms of starvation, lead as evidence, the following facts:
• religious fasting, austerities, when believers refuse food completely, but feel good at the same time;
• starvation of animals during the period of illness.
After refusing food, searches begin for alternative ways to replenish energy, and the body uses the available reserves, starting with carbohydrates, ending with fats. Allegedly, first of all, lifeless cells are removed, after them - weakened and incapable of existence. As a result the body cleans itselfleaving only healthy, full-fledged cells.
Avicenna, Plutarch, and many ancient healers claimed the benefits of therapeutic fasting, but for about a century people have been starving by the method of Paul Bragg. The author of the best-selling book “The Miracle of Fasting” called the denial of food “Doctor Post,” and the masses themselves accepted the book as a guide to action. Bragg, in addition to starvation, promoted cleansing with vinegar and many other methods, to which both official and alternative medicine are skeptical to this day.
According to Bragg, the body will benefit from daily fasting once a week, and once a quarter advised to fast from a week to ten days. At this time, you need to limit physical activitybut regularly go out for walks.
A healthy body to cleanse or lose weight is enough to starve for ten days. Medical starvation is practiced for a duration of 21 days, and with the advanced stages of obesity, skin problems, hypertension and other diseases, having studied the benefits and harms of starvation, with the support of doctors, you can begin to abstain from food for 30 days or more.
Types of starvation
The basic principle of fasting is a complete rejection of food. Some methods suggest not even drinking water:
• absolute (dry) fasting lasts a maximum of two days, and prohibits eating and drinking (even water), do not perform water procedures other than rinsing the oral cavity;
• combined it lasts no longer than a week, while the days alternate - two with water, two without water. Recently considered the most effective;
• complete (wet) - you can drink water throughout the entire period per day - at least a liter of clean water, the maximum period of complete fasting is 40 days.
Before fasting need to go through the preparation phase. Protein (except fish), fatty and floury foods are strictly prohibited the day before fasting. From the fact how you go into fasting depends on the success of the undertaking as a whole. During the week before fasting, you only need to eat fruits and vegetables. Refusal of food involves drinking plenty of water (if you have not chosen absolute starvation) of pure water. No juice, no milk, no tea - you can only drink water during fasting (ideally, distilled).
On the evening before the first day of fasting, you need to take laxatives or cleanse the intestines with an enema.
How is therapeutic fasting beneficial, the opinion of doctors
Mainly adherents talk about the benefits of cleansing and restoring the body during prolonged (more than three days) fasting. But there are many “buts” in such a statement.
The benefits and harms of fasting directly depend on the cause, method of fasting, the correct observance of all stages. Healing starvation in order to improve health is called official medicine "RDT" (fasting and dietary therapy). Before confidently recommending this treatment to patients, doctors tested its methods on thousands of patients for several decades.
Science has proved the benefits of short-term abstinence from food (not water!) in case of bronchial asthma, autoimmune diseases, metabolic disorders, neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular pathologies, for regulating the hormonal background, and in many other cases.
Before complete exhaustion, it is enough for the body to lose about 45% of the initial weight, while the organs and tissues undergo irreversible (degenerative) changes. If weight loss from the initial (normal or excess) weight during complete fasting was no more than 20%, then in most cases there will be no significant harm.
With an RTT prescribed by a doctor and under his strict control, fasting for a month leads to a weight loss of not more than 15%, which is even useful for many patients. To each patient need an individual approach - not everyone is satisfied with complete short-term fasting, often doctors prescribe additional juices, fruit or vegetable fasting days.
The benefits of fasting for healing will not be if you are not involved in the excretion of decay products from the body.
Doctors recommend without fail:
• regular water treatments (contrast shower and hot baths, pool),
• massage
• gymnastic exercises and exercise therapy,
• sunbathing and plenty of fresh air,
• psychotherapy courses.
All RTD treatment methods are performed after a full examination and under the supervision of qualified doctors.
End of fasting, "exit"
During prolonged fasting, the digestive tract “forgets” what to do with the food that gets into it. Lack of enzymes, secretion of glands and weak peristalsis leads to serious complications if, after prolonged starvation, a person begins to eat large portions of often not very useful foods.
Not less than half of the time that the hungry "recovery" itself lasted from "starvation" came out of starvation. Stop fasting by consuming a small amount of vegetable and fruit juices, and after a couple of "juice" days, vegetables and boiled fruits begin to be added and steamed. After a week, you can eat protein foods - poultry or fish. Bragg recommended eating meat no more than once a week. Starchy, flour and sweet food - under the strictest ban, salt is also unacceptable.
At first, you need to eat by the hour, in compliance with the intervals. The basis of nutrition in the process of overcoming starvation is milk and vegetable food, and meals should be fractional. Be sure to supplement the food with a plentiful drink.
What is the "catch" and the harm of starvation
Daily fasting does not really bring harm (if there is a sufficient supply of liquid), but if you do not eat longer, then after a couple of days the first signs of acidosis appear. During the period of acidotic crisis, the amount of uric acid in the blood rises sharply for 7-10 days, which subsequently often leads to the formation of kidney stones. Starving in this period has a hard time.
Acidosis may be accompanied by:
• gray coating on the tongue;
• nausea;
• vomiting;
• a change in the color and smell of urine;
• headache;
• abdominal discomfort;
• irritability;
• insomnia;
• bad breath of acetone from the mouth.
At this time, weight loss is up to one and a half kilograms per day, but the weight is not “fatty” but “liquid” and glycogen stores are lost.
After the crisis, metabolic processes slow down, breathing and pulse become less frequent. One of the main requirements of fasting is the constant maintenance of heat, in no case should supercooling be allowed.
The cessation of the acidotic crisis in people usually leads to a tipping point and not only does not feel like eating, but food begins to cause disgust.
Further starvation leads to a lack of glucose for brain function and the production of red blood cells, and its synthesis begins from all sources available to the body - first protein, and after adipose tissue, and vital organs. Each day of fasting is accompanied by the breakdown of 300 grams of one's own protein reserves in the body.
Even short-term refusals of food lead to a lack of vitamins and minerals for the full functioning of the body, and they are restored only after a couple of months.
Starvation for weight loss: benefit or harm
Recently, a way to lose weight by fasting on water has come into fashion, popularly called "7 kilograms in 7 days". The technique provides for a complete rejection of food, but with plenty of drink.
Indeed, weight loss in this mode occurs very quickly, up to 2 kilograms per day. But the benefits of fasting are doubtful. In the treatment of obesity, a qualified doctor will never prescribe a prolonged abstinence from food. Even with the correct exit from such a restriction and with a low energy value of the diet in the future, a person restores the initial body weight very quickly, usually even exceeding the starting mark.
Confirmation is the starvation of athletes for an urgent transition to a higher weight category. Fasting Stimulates Fast Weight Gain.
Even one day of complete uncontrolled refusal of food can greatly harm with:
• cardiac arrhythmias;
• diabetes;
• stomach ulcer and 12 duodenal ulcer;
• pregnancy and lactation;
• active mental and physical activity;
• hypertension;
• after surgery or a serious illness;
• cirrhosis;
• kidney stones;
• parasitic diseases;
• oncological diseases;
• active pulmonary tuberculosis;
• nervous and mental pathologies.
For weight loss, it is effective to use short courses of RDT and a therapeutic rational diet.
