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ltcc7
Raw Newbie
Hi,
I want to start water fasting. I wonder has anyone in this forum did that before.
And I would like to get advice and support.
Thanks
Wheatgrass
Raw Jr. Superstar
There are loads of inspirational authors on the subject, but the best book is by Dr Joel Fuhrmann, who wrote the book after guiding over 10,000 patients to 60 days of water only fasting. Even after 35 years of water only fasting, annually for last 16 years (22-41 days continuous) I refer to his reference book every fast...it is invaluable.
16 years ago I did a 49 day water only, but my favorite is 25 days or less, I do not have the drop in metabolism that takes months to regain, and do not have the 10-14 days of agonizing, painful re-feeding, waking up the digestive and eliminative system.
Unless you have 10 or more years of experience, I definitely recommend not exceeding 5-10 days to start, and do several before attempting 20 days unless professionally supervised.
Most important!!! Do NOT ingest anything with flavor, including brushing with toothpaste, or you will convert the water fast to a “starvation diet”. Everyone can benefit to 60 days of water only, but people start dying in 14-16 days of starvation diet.
Dry fasting needs even more education, I have NOT attempted one. 16-24 hours is maximum recommended on that subject...which can be “hard” or “soft” depending if shower or bath is allowed. Some religions do dry fasting, Mormons once a month (though most are unaware of this tenant of their religion) and Ramadam is a month of dry fasting during daylight hours...though health is severly compromised withnthe gluttonous over-feasting after dark and pre-dawn...
Answers
Ive done both dry fasting and water fasting. I love both but it can def amp up the detox symptoms and it's important to listen to your body. Especially with the dry fast. Longest dry fast I did was 72 hours. I had water fasted prior and I definately expelled some gnarly toxins on the day 3 of the dryfast. I think sulphur after reading it looked kinda like rust. Anyways I felt really good after the dryfast. I find it easier then water fasting actually but maybe cuz the length of time for a water fast. Much luck
Hi Itcc7,
Lot's of great testimonies and advice here. I know your post is old, but I'd like to share my experience.
I started fasting in 2014. Began by going to a German clinic (clinic is a loose word as it refers to a hotel-type facility with in house doctors for weekly check-ups). TBH I had no idea what I was doing, just wanted to loose weight, having gained 16kilos (I think that's about 35 pounds?) in the course of two years. I "fasted" for 21 days on 1carrot juice in the morning, 1 vegetable broth at lunch and 1 herbal tea+2 teaspoons of honey in the evening. I ended up loosing 15 pounds...which I regained over 3 months, since I hadn't changed my God-awful junk diet.
If you're still a newbie, I'd like to elaborate on why I put quotation marks on the term fasting there. In the 5 years since and after loads of research, I've realized we use the word fasting for just about anything, from eating just once a day to drinking fruit of vegetable juices. But really in my humble opinion fasting is drinking pure water, with no additives for a certain length of time, from one day to two weeks or more. But again, speaking from personal experience, you can get the same weight loss benefits from any of those methods, if that's what you're after.
My suggestion to you is to be kind to yourself and patiently try out different approaches to figure out what works for you.
Alternatives to the German fasting I listed above and that I have tried myself are:
- bone broth fasting (1 bowl of home-made bone broth 3 times a day). Personally made me hungry like crazy :)
- juicing (1 green juice 3 times a day). Personally made me bloat to no end, but it helped me realize I've very reactive to raw food so I need to manage my intake carefully. I also did the mistake of adding fruits to my juice, which gave me sugar ups and down throughout the day.
- 1 and a half liters of filtered water with half a teaspoon of Himalayan salt and 1 teaspoon of potassium powder is what worked for me. I can go on for up to 3 weeks on this method and loose up to 30 pounds. Now the reason this works for me is because over the course of all my testing, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, so I have to make sure my already very low blood pressure doesn't drop to insane levels where I can barely get out of bed.
So to end this very long post (sorry about that) try out stuff and listen to your body, can't stress that enough. Maybe start by 48 hours, then 72, or more. If you're having heart palpitations, something's wrong. If you can barely walk, something's wrong. And if you're having headaches for more that 48 hours, I'd suggest something's wrong too.
Appologies for the spelling errors (I'me French) and best of luck to you.