Fasting An Introduction - And One Way to Try

FASTING AN INTRODUCTION

It is important while fasting to maintain one’s muscle mass. It is important that while fasting helps one to loose weight (fasting has been used to loose fat), it is very dangerous to become obsessed with that idea. Starvation diets cut vital nutrients and you may end up doing everything except loosing fat. If bodies don’t have proper energy sources the muscles are cannibalized, and muscle mass decreases. Not only is this counterproductive, it is also dangerous.
Fasting can be used as the ancients did, to be drawn closer to God. There are many good books on various topics related to fasting that can be accessed through the Library or Health Food Store, and your priest, minister or rabbi. Some research will yield better results.
Jesus in Holy Scriptures said to His disciples that some demons could only be cast out with prayer and fasting.
Use a Concordance and see how scriptures are connected with the word "Fasting", and see how they applied it, and contemplate what it means to you in that light.
Research has shown that gaining and loosing weight are counterproductive to effectively building or maintaining muscle mass from year to year, and don’t really allow one to get into top shape.
For anyone wanting to loose and keep fat off then exercise will need to be considered, and weightlifting is of one of the top calorie burners of all time. Some may be intimidated by weightlifting, but once you start you will not likely want to stop. It has many great benefits to muscle and bone mass, and is another subject that one ought to research into.
This article is simply "Food for Thought" on how to prepare for a good fast and what that can look like. This is not the final word on the subject, but an opening to start from.
We are going to outline a dietary routine that is far healthier than the starvation diets of the past. By following these guidelines you shouldn’t have any trouble fasting, loosing fat and maintaining muscle mass. For most people this will be an experiment to see how well they do fasting. If you carry a lot of body fat, you may want to see a physician and start preparing for this long before you attempt it. Every individual is going to react differently.
The body is a delicately tuned machine that functions best under stable conditions. It likes to maintain a fairly regular level of body fat, fluids, and electrolytes. When any one of the homeostatic mechanisms which help maintain these levels is disturbed, the entire metabolism begins to undergo changes. The essential difficulty with fat, weight lost is that too many of these factors are in a frantic state of change due to starvation diets, extended zero sodium intake and the like.
It is easier to fast if you maintain a relatively low body fat level year round, it has also been shown that the body is much more reluctant to put on muscle when a high body fat level is maintained. So as we begin, think about the benefits of maintaining a low body fat level year round. The following is a plan for a nutritional blueprint that will allow you to find out what works best for your body.
Step One is detoxifying your body in preparation for resetting the metabolism.
Step Two tells you how to reset the metabolism to induce a fat burning state.
Step Three is the holding pattern that will allow you to lose fat while putting on muscle mass (weightlifting helps to burn lots of calories while adding muscle when combined with fasting and maintenance diet).
Step One: Detoxifying Your Body
(first 9 days of month 1)
The object of the first step is to clear out the toxins and chemicals that have been building up in your body. We are essentially going to rebuild your metabolism from the ground up, and we don’t want the foundation to have any hidden mysteries.
If you have been living (training and exercising) without regard to your diet, you have probably accumulated large quantities of toxins in your body. These toxins build up in the liver and kidneys and prevent them from performing some of the functions which are vital to building muscle, maintaining energy levels, and removing natural toxins that occur. It is nearly impossible to perform at your best in life if your energy level is not at its peak.
In addition to these toxins, your liver and kidneys are also responsible for the removal of dead cells. The sustained presence of these dead cells and toxins can prevent the natural replacement and rejuvenation of healthy cells. The importance of this process is obvious. It is impossible to make gains in new muscle tissue and maintain energy levels when your body is clogged up. In addition, many of these toxins will interfere with the normal functioning of your metabolism, and will, in short, keep you from losing fat effectively.
This is why many suggest fasting to detoxify the body every spring and or fall. The quickest and most effective means of ridding your body of these toxins is a fast. Many will shy away from this process because they think that in not eating for three days they will do irreparable harm to their physiques. This is just not so. Regular fasting can do more positive things for your physique than three months in the gym. Because the toxins in our bodies are accumulated over such a long period of time, most people fail to see the effect that these toxins have on our daily lives. In spite of the fact that your stomach may start to grumble after a couple hours without food, by the time you have finished you will probably not even notice the hunger, and you will feel a renewed sense of energy that nothing can match.
The benefits of a fast are due to the body’s natural tendency to feed on itself. While this can be a real liability over an extended time, a three-day fast will do little to harm your physique. When the body is no longer deriving nutrients from its diet, it immediately attacks non-vital cells for energy. The first cells to go are the ones which are dead, old, or sick. As your body begins to feed on these cells, it removes them and the toxins which they carry from the body. By the time you have returned to food, you should have removed a large portion of this dead weight.
One other vital component of fasting is water. By and large, most people do not drink nearly enough water during the day. Water is the means which toxins are normally removed from the body, and this does not mean water based drinks. This means pure, clean water. Not pop, coffee, tea or juices. If you are not drinking eight 8 oz. Glasses of pure water a day, we highly recommend that you begin doing so immediately. While on your fast, your body will be eliminating large quantities of toxins, so it is vital that you drink water to help the elimination process along.
Now that you have a general idea of what the fast is going to do for you, here are the steps.
Three-Day Preparation for the Fast
You have two objectives in the period of preparation for the fast. First, you are attempting to psychologically ready yourself for the fast. More than anything else, the success of your fast will be determined by how well you are able to adhere to it. In today’s world, very few of us are accustomed to going three hours without some sort of food, let alone for three days. In general, we eat when we are hungry, and often when we are not. This is the kind of behavior that leads to poor health. The eating habits you have acquired over the years are automatic responses. This is your worst enemy. In the preparation stage, you should attempt to become aware of when you are hungry and the times when you want food but aren’t hungry. Once you have become aware of these facts, you will be less likely to break your fast.
The second objective is to physically shrink your stomach. In this preparation stage you will be easing yourself off of the kinds of food you normally eat, as well as the quantities in which you eat them. The stomach is an extremely pliable organ. It can be stretched when large quantities of food are eaten, and in times when it is not in such prevalent use, it shrinks. Much of the hunger we feel comes from an awareness of the stomach being empty. After two days of preparation, your stomach will have begun to shrink, and by the time you have been fasting for two days, you will hardly be aware that you are hungry.
Day One
Begin preparing by cutting all sources of protein from your diet, which include meats, poultry, fish, and dairy products. This also includes any protein supplements that you are taking. You should also cut out a large portion of the fat you are eating. This means that you should be eating only fruits and vegetables. It is a good idea to continue to take in complex carbohydrates on this first day. It will ease you off the protein. A suggestion: eat melon for breakfast instead of apples or citrus fruit since the excess acid may disturb your stomach first thing in the morning.
Suggested menu:
Breakfast: cantaloupe or honeydew melon, banana. Mid-Morning: apple or orange. Lunch: rice and beans. Afternoon: grapefruit or orange. Dinner: baked potato or yam (without topping!) salad with lemon juice. Evening: banana or grapes. Snack list: raisins, nuts, and dried fruit.
Day Two
Today you will cut all complex carbohydrates from your diet. This means you will be eating only fruits and vegetables, which have simple carbohydrates or none at all. This means that your approved list will include any and all fruits (apples, bananas, oranges, grapefruit, avocados, grapes, pears), green leafy vegetables and members of the cabbage family (lettuce, kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, celery, spinach, cabbage).
Suggested menu:
Breakfast: cantaloupe or honeydew, banana. Mid-morning: apple or orange. Lunch: guacamole. Afternoon: grapefruit or orange. Dinner: salad with lemon juice. Evening: banana or grapes. Snack list: raisins, dried fruits, and celery.
Day Three
This is going to be your last day of solid foods, but don’t try to gorge yourself on fruits. You want your stomach to be as small as possible. If you try to pig out on apples and oranges, you will be feeling hunger pains the whole next day. Try to limit yourself to three or four pieces of fruit today. It will keep your energy level up without bloating you.
The Fasting Days – Days Four, Five & Six
These are the days of your fast. You ought to be trying to drink at least eight 8 oz. Glasses of water a day. You ought to be also drinking fresh fruit juices. Fresh squeezed orange juice is available year round in most places so try to avoid frozen fruit juices. Carrot and Tomato juice are also good ideas. These juices are going to help keep your energy levels up without interfering with your body’s breakdown of dead cells. They are also going to supply minerals, which are vital to keeping your muscles in good working condition for work (and training – some take time off to do the fast).
Returning to Food – Day Seven
These are probably the most important days of your fast. Your first instinct will be to run out and stuff yourself with every kind of garbage you have been missing for the last week or so. Tough luck, that stuff is off limits and these days will be most beneficial if you stick to the program. You will be returning to solid food in the same way you went off it. On the seventh day you will be eating only three or four pieces of fruit. Continue to drink fruit juices and your water.
Day Eight
Suggested Menu:
Breakfast: cantaloupe or honeydew melon, banana. Mid-Morning: apple or orange. Lunch: guacamole. Afternoon: grapefruit or orange. Dinner: salad with lemon juice. Evening: banana or grapes. Snack list: raisins, dried fruit, and celery.
Day Nine
Suggested Menu:
Breakfast: cantaloupe or honeydew melon, banana. Mid-Morning: apple or orange. Lunch: rice and beans. Afternoon: grapefruit or orange. Dinner: baked potato or yam (without topping) salad with lemon juice. Evening: banana or grapes. Snack list: raisins, dried fruits, and sunflower seeds.
Three day fast * two day return to food * begin training cycle. Optional: you can stop here or carry on with rest of suggestions.
Step Two: Resetting the Metabolism
(The remainder of month 1)
As we stated in the introduction, the failure of most dieting is the due to the constant reduction of calories. The mechanism that causes this self-destruct mode becomes increasingly well documented as the days pass. In the first phase of your preparation, we suggested that you fast. In doing so, you forced your body to feed on its own dead cells for energy. The tendency of your body to feed on itself is precisely the mechanism that is responsible for two problems with extended periods of dieting.
First, the constant reduction of caloric intake causes your body to feed on itself for energy. This process may go on in spite of the fact that you are taking in enough energy to supply your body’s needs, but not necessarily enough for its protein needs as well. Many continue to cut calories and needlessly reduce their muscle mass by causing the cannibalization of their own muscle tissue. What’s more, this process begins a spiral of muscle reduction. As more cut in caloric intake are felt, the body begins to utilize the protein intake for energy. Then, in order to supply its own need for protein, the body strips muscle tissue. As muscle mass declines, so does the metabolic rate. Muscles burn more calories every minute, but if you continue to lose muscle mass, your metabolic rate will continue to drop. Hence, you will need to further reduce your caloric intake. This "metabolic reduction" can be a nightmare because it makes losing fat more difficult.
The second problem is just as complicated and more difficult to correct. When you undergo extended periods of severe dieting, your body begins to suspect that times of famine are coming. As a result, it will seek to protect its stores of energy, or fat. This means that rather than burn its ample supplies of fat, your body will first begin to suppress its metabolic rate and use less energy. So as you continue to diet, your metabolism slows and forces you to further reduce your caloric intake, and before you know it, you are stuck in a cycle of "metabolic reduction".
The essential problem is that in order to maintain your metabolic rate, you must maintain your muscle tissue and not force your body to suppress your metabolism. The more you "diet" the smaller you get! So the trick is to diet without dieting. By not maintaining an extended period of low caloric intake, you can lose more fat with less muscle loss. In fact, once you become familiar enough with your own body’s metabolism and this process, you will be able to virtually set your own metabolic level through careful manipulation of your diet.
The only equation that describes weight loss states that the calories taken in must be less than the calories you burn. However, this does not take muscle loss into account. In order to prevent your body from using muscle tissue as an energy source, you must supply it with enough food to prevent a suppression of your metabolism. The easiest way to accomplish this is to continually raise the amount of energy you are consuming; your body does not react to the overall reduction in calories, but rather senses that energy is in increasing supply. When this is coupled with heavy-duty weightlifting training sessions and aerobic exercise, your weight loss will come fairly quickly, and without muscle loss.
Be aware that the first five to ten pounds that are lost on any diet is excess water. Generally, this water comes from muscles. This can also account for a loss of muscle size. Once you have gone into this holding pattern, this water weight should return without the fat, but we advise that you try to minimize this effect by continuing to drink plenty, and we do mean plenty, of water. Many toxins are stored in fat cells, and as you burn fat, these toxins are released into the blood stream. So make sure that you are providing your body with a means of eliminating this waste (lots of water). The mineral, which is responsible for regulating fluid levels in the body, is potassium. If you supplement potassium into your diet you should find that your water loss will be minimized.
OK, now you know what we intend to do. This is how we are going to do it. As you come off your fast, on day ten begin to count your calories. You should eat 1,000 calories. You should also resume any protein supplementation you were previously using. Given that you were fasting, your intake should be roughly double what it had been over the course of the previous nine days. Every day you should add 50 calories to your diet. So on day eleven of your preparation, you should eat 1,050 calories. As you continually boast your intake, your body will continue to boost its metabolic rate. You will be burning fat off at an incredible rate. By the end of a month, you should be taking in 2,000 calories and still losing weight.
The length of time, which you will want to spend losing fat, is going to be determined largely by your own body. As a rule of thumb, you should attempt to lose no more than fifteen pounds in one month! You may find that you don’t have as much fat to lose as you thought. Your only objective is to come into as good of shape as possible.
If you find that you still need to lose more fat after the first month, repeat the cycle. Starting at 1,000 calories again, add 50 calories a day again until you have reached your desired body fat level.
Step Three: Holding Pattern
(Months 2 – 9)
The human body makes muscular gains much more effectively on low body fat levels. You won’t feel lethargic because you will have been taking in a high level of carbohydrates and protein. You will be getting the most out of exercising and weightlifting and enjoying it. The holding pattern that you will be in from this point on is going to allow you not only to make gains, but also to take off some more remaining fat. As in the previous phase we are going to keep your metabolism stimulated so that if you are losing too much muscle mass, you should simply raise your caloric intake.
Your dietary schedule is geared to fit a seven-day cycle. Five days per week, you will be on a diet of 1,500 – 2,500 calories a day. On the remaining two days, you should take in 200 – 300 extra calories. The reason that the range of potential caloric intake is so large (1,000) is that every body is going to react differently. The object of this phase of your training is to hold your weight at a constant level. So if you are losing weight at 1,500 calories per day, just increase it by 100 calories during the next cycle. Or try starting out at 1,800 calories. Allow two full cycles to find out what this level of intake is doing to your weight. If at the end of two cycles you are losing weight or have not gained any, then raise it by 100 calories. Once your weight is stabilized, continue to try raising the level of your intake. The more you can eat, the better. Your goal should be to continue working your way up in calories without gaining weight so that at the end of this phase you are eating 2,500 calories during the first five days of the cycle and 2,700 on the last two.
The key to this plan lies in the two days at the end of the cycle. So long as you continue to take in that extra 200 – 300 calories, you should be able to maintain a stable weight and make muscular gains. Feel free to experiment with a larger jump on the last two days of the cycle. Every body will react differently, so you are going to have to find the correct levels of intake for your own body. Once you have determined how your body reacts, you will have a game plan for the future.
The food that you are eating should be taken in the following proportion: 25% protein, 60% carbohydrate and 15% fat. Avoid simple carbohydrates that come in the form of refined flours or sugars. Most of your carbohydrates should come from complex carbohydrate sources such as whole grains and beans. Any simple carbohydrates you take in should be in the form of fruits.
Final thoughts: (Months 9 – 12)
If you have been sticking to your training and diet, you should be in fairly good condition. By now you should be fairly familiar with how your body reacts to changes in caloric intake. You should know exactly how much you will have to cut to be in great shape. You now the capacity to be at any body fat level that you desire. You may find that based on your progress over the last phase and your current level of caloric intake, you will be in exactly the condition you desire. If so don’t do a thing to your diet. This is exactly the kind of position you want to be in. At this stage you will be in the last 3 months of a year cycle, you may start the cycle over again if you want to make further improvements.
Some fast spring and fall, or just every spring to begin the yearlong cycle over again. Do as you see fit.
All discipline and motivation ultimately comes from within, and you will draw on the resources you have been putting within yourself when you fast and stick to a certain calorie level. Your Spiritual condition and the offering of this fast to God plays a huge role in the accomplishment of fasting and dieting.
Depending on your health and condition and whether you have fasted before or not, you ought to have medical supervision. There may be physical and psychological stress to be contended with, it is different for everyone, and is an individual adventure.