FOLLOWERS OF FASTING
FASTING THROUGH HISTORY
Fasting simply means extending the time between meals when we don’t eat, and is something that humans have practised since they first walked the planet. It’s only in recent times that we’ve had access to food 24 hours a day. Before then, we typically went for extended periods without eating. Fasting’s no passing “fad” – unlike the modern trend of “grazing”, the notion that we should constantly be ingesting small amounts. Interest in when and what we eat and drink has been increasing steadily and is set to continue. Nutritional knowledge helps us understand how our bodies and minds work, and nutritional intervention has a major role to play in the lives of everyone, from Olympic athletes to busy mums and people with medical conditions. No longer seen as something “alternative”, nutritional therapy has now gone mainstream.
THE ANCIENT GREEKS
The Ancient Greeks were great believers in fasting. Spiritual masters such as Pythagoras (c.575–c.495BCE) are known not to have admitted any students to the higher levels of their teaching unless they had first “purified” themselves through fasting. The philosopher Plato (c.429–c.347BCE) said that he fasted for greater mental and physical efficiency, as did his pupil Aristotle (c.384–c.322BCE).
Hippocrates (c.460–c.377BCE), effectively one of the founders of modern medicine, realized the role of fasting in weight loss:
“…those desiring to lose weight should perform hard work before food. Meals should be taken after exertion and while still panting from fatigue. They should, moreover, only eat once per day.”
He also made the observation:
“Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.”
Hippocrates believed that the bulk of diseases are caused by “autointoxication” and that fasting gives the body the chance to “repose” and auto-generate – in other words, to get a much-needed rest for the digestive organs to recover. For illnesses and fevers in the “acute crisis stage”, he prescribed a strict fast with nothing but supportive water or medicinal teas, or a very light juice cleanse. The physician Galen (c.130–c.210CE) also advocated fasting for his patients, and the philosopher Plutarch (c.46–c.120CE) took a similar view:
“Instead of using medicine, rather, fast a day.”
AYURVEDA
The Hindu system of traditional medicine, Ayurveda, has been popular in India for 2,500 years. Ayurveda teaches that light fasting stimulates the digestive fire (agni in Sanskrit), which in turn burns your body’s fuel more efficiently, producing less toxic waste (ama). In Ayurvedic medicine, a fast is considered an effective way to cleanse accumulated toxins from the body and mind, improve clarity and increase energy. If you were to try an Ayurvedic-style fast, you would fast once a week using salt-free liquids, such as fresh vegetable juice, water, yogurt mixed with water and cumin powder, or milk boiled with spices such as ginger.
Similar to the practice in juice-fasting retreats in spas all over Europe and the USA, Ayurvedic fasting is often combined with a detoxification programme (panchakarma) where supportive therapies are customized for an individual’s constitution, age, physical health, immune status and a host of other factors. Even though juice fasting retreats and body builders may claim the science of fasting as their own, they owe much to Ayurveda and, more recently, the fields of natural hygiene, nature cure and naturopathy, all of which use fasting as a core treatment in healing.
These healing traditions, ancient and modern, have one thing in common – they support the body to heal itself, rather than turning to medicines or to invasive treatment to treat illness or create positive change. In Germany, fasting is even referred to as “awakening the physician within”. Indeed, there’s a wealth of historic and emerging research that we’ll draw on in this book to illustrate the value and efficacy of fasting as a therapeutic and valuable medical intervention.
Learning to work with this natural approach can take just as long as learning a conventional medical approach. For example, in India, training to become an Ayurvedic doctor takes five years of study – as long as it takes to become a medical doctor in the UK – and, in the USA, naturopaths are now able to qualify to doctorate level.
There are a mind-boggling number of faiths and religions that have a version of fasting within their sacred texts. These include but are not limited to Sikhism, Baha’i, Judaism, Jainism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Christianity, Greek Orthodox, Catholicism, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam. Unsurprisingly, given this historic role of fasting in many faiths and civilizations as a means of achieving spiritual awakening, fasting has inspired a number of works of poetry and prose, the best known of which is from the 13th-century Persian Muslim poet and Sufi mystic Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273), better known simply as Rumi. His poems have been widely translated throughout the world and in 2007 he was voted the most popular poet in America. Here’s one of his poems:
“There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry. Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you’re full of food and drink, Satan sits where your spirit should, an ugly metal statue in place of the Kaaba. When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give it to some illusion and lose your power, but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them. A table descends to your tents, Jesus’s table.
Except to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.”
Rumi (as translated by Coleman Barks, 1997)
FASTING TODAY
Celebrities are usually the first to focus attention on any technique that involves the body beautiful, and fasting is no exception. So, as part of my research for this book, I went in search of some of the world’s most famous celebrity personal trainers to ask them if they use fasting with their clients.
The most logical place to start was to think of whose body I most admire. Easy – my ultimate body icon is Gwen Stefani. She’s honest about the fact that her incredible physique is down to hard work and she’s a real inspiration, especially for women who’ve had children – a mother of two, and yet look at her abs… Respect! I finally tracked down her personal trainer, Mike Heatlie. He has an impressive CV to go with an even more impressive body. He holds three degrees, including two Masters – in Medicine & Science in Sport and Exercise, and in Strength and Conditioning. Here’s what he had to say:
“The vast majority of celebrities such as Gwen Stefani work their ass off to get in that type of condition. Gwen is the most hard-working client I’ve ever trained, and the results show it. If people saw the work she puts in to look as good as she does then people may say, ‘well that’s not for me, that’s too much hard work’. Other celebrities such as Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman and Hilary Swank all developed their physiques through sheer hard work. Of course they have Personal Trainers to help them but they have to put the work in themselves and diet properly.
I’ve used intermittent fasting on many occasions – notably when people need to lose those last 2–4.5kg [5–l0lb], or in order to stimulate stubborn fat loss. I have one client who fasts every Wednesday, just drinks water, green tea, some amino acids, and that’s it, and that works very well for her. There are many protocols for fasting and each individual can use the one that works best for them. As with all diets though, the protocol needs to be sustainable so it can be implemented into a lifestyle.”
If you still believe that fasting is just another passing diet fad – here today, gone tomorrow – think again. As I mentioned in the Introduction, I predict that fasting will not only become the next big global health trend but that it’s here to stay. From a professional point of view, a technique that gets results without compromising health, that helps restore a sense of calm in the mind, and that costs nothing to do, kind of has it all.