I don't recommend any long term fasting as the above user noted. I think it's an extremely bad idea. Reason being that I've suffered damage for years after doing a long fast. I've also known other individuals who fasted for a long time and ended up going into the hospital with heart failure. This is not due to magical noted "toxins" nor is it from "retracing" back to a state of sickness. Your body already has detoxification mechanisms that it is always using. It's more likely that you're malnutritioned. Just read information on starvation and you will understand.
I’m sorry that those terrible experiences happened as a result of fasting, as I do have compassion for anyone who has suffered through anything. There was no indication whether those experiences were from a water fast, juice fast or some other type, or the duration.
If a fast continues beyond the point when the body’s nutrient reserves are exhausted, starvation would begin. Not eating past that point could cause severe damage to the body or even death.
I did not state that I recommend a “long fast.” I did mention it’s helpful to take a 2-3 day break in a week during a detox, unless doing a fast. I did not suggest a recommended length of time to do a fast. Perhaps it was irresponsible of me to leave so much open to interpretation. I apologize for that. I see how it would have been better to delve into this subject more thoroughly from the beginning.
I made a distinction between water and juice fasting, and my original post mentioned that I do
not recommend water fasting. I understand very well this would be too harsh for most people, which is why I don’t recommend it.
I did, however, bring up the subject because water fasting does work for
some people. I’ve done a 4 day water fast myself, with good results, and I know someone who did one for 10 days who was very pleased with the results. Her results were having more clarity and energy, and her problem with acne completely cleared up. She also fulfilled her nutritional requirements prior to and after the fast, following a strict water fasting protocol.
My experience was not as dramatic, but I did have more clarity, energy and an overall better sense of well-being after the water fast. I was feeling sluggish and toxic prior to the fast, and it cleared that up for me. I reveal this now, not to inspire anyone to do it, but just to share some real life experiences that did work well. It wasn’t a bad idea for either of us, but it may be unsuccessful, or even damaging for others.
If one chooses to do a water fast, a person should understand what pre-existing conditions could make it damaging. Ideally, it would be best to be in a fasting clinic or under supervision of a doctor or competent health professional.
Of course, we are not always living under ideal conditions. The book
Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease was written by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., a board-certified family physician. It gives detailed information about water fasting by a doctor who has supervised thousands of fasting patients.
When he was a young man before becoming a doctor, Fuhrman was an ice skating athlete who had a severe leg injury, causing him to be in pain and unable to walk for a year. While in the hospital, his doctor planned a surgery without patient consent. Only after Fuhrman demanded to know why, it was revealed that an
experimental surgery was required for his foot to heal. Fuhrman refused, and his doctor told him if he didn’t do it, he would never walk again.
Since he had read books and articles about fasting, and his own arthritic father restored his health from fasting years earlier, he decided the technique was his best chance to recover. At the end of his fast, he was able to walk again, and after a year he placed third in the World Professional Figure Skating Championships.
A practice that could be damaging for one person may be healing for another. Dr. Fuhrman’s water fast was long, and may be a bad idea and unnecessary for most people, but it worked for him.
In the book
Healthy Healing, Naturopathic Doctor Linda Page offers a different perspective from Dr. Fuhrman. She states: “A traditional water fast is harsh and demanding on your body, even in times before huge amounts of food and environmental toxins were part of the picture. Today, it can even be dangerous. Deeply buried pollutants and chemicals from our tissues are released into elimination channels too rapidly during a water fast. Your body is essentially “re-poisoned” as the chemicals move through the bloodstream all at once.”
Dr. Page is instead in favor of juice cleansing because vegetable and fruit juices are alkalizing, so they neutralize the uric acid and other inorganic acids better than water, and increase the healing effects. She explains that metabolic activity slows down during a water fast as the body attempts to conserve dwindling energy resources, so juices support better metabolic activity. Juices are easily assimilated into the bloodstream and easy on digestion, and they do not disturb the detoxification process.
