EAT, FAST AND LIVE LONGER
THE HEALING POWER OF FASTING
What started as a personal experiment in an ashram in the Himalayas went on to become my number one method for treating age-related concerns, skin complaints, weight problems and digestive problems. Over the last decade I’ve seen my clients achieve amazing results with fasting. Getting to the optimum weight for your body frame is as much about health as it is about looking and feeling good. Fasting improves health alongside helping to shift the pounds and, just as importantly, it can help heal somebody’s relationship with food, which is often at the heart of the struggle with weight.
I firmly believe that what I can achieve with a client during a week of fasting would take me months or possibly years with a conventional nutrition approach. In fact, I’ll stick my neck out and say that fasting can and will change how we as a society view healing – if someone told you there was a pill that could reduce the risk of diabetes, cancer and heart disease and keep you looking and feeling young, you’d be tempted to take it, wouldn’t you?
Unlike medication, so long as you’re sensible about it (see the “Fasting Safely” chapter), there are no harmful side-effects of fasting. Contrast this with the side-effects of common prescription and over-the-counter drugs – even if the chance of side-effects is small, the risks are still real. One study published by the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal into the side-effects of statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs), confirmed cases of increased risk of muscle weakness, cataracts, acute kidney failure, and moderate or severe liver dysfunction. Of course, if disease has taken hold, the benefits of medication will often outweigh the risks. However, we need to be working toward a model of preventative action.
WHY WE NEED A NEW APPROACH
According to the World Health Organization, 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. We’re all getting heavier, and in the past 30 years, obesity rates have almost doubled. Estimates of the direct National Health Service (NHS) costs of treating overweight, obesity and related morbidity in England alone have grown from £479.3 million a year in 1998 to £4.2 billion in 2007. The indirect annual cost to the economy, including lost productivity, is estimated at as much as £15.8 billion.
In 2008, two-thirds of all deaths worldwide were the result of non-communicable diseases – predominantly cardiovascular disease and cancer. Eighty percent of all cardiovascular disease is thought to be caused by poor lifestyle choices, and some of the risk factors, such as high levels of fat and sugar in the blood and being overweight, can be improved through fasting.
High blood sugar is also a risk factor for type-2 diabetes. The number of people with diabetes worldwide is rising at an alarming rate. In Britain, 1 in 20 people have already been diagnosed with diabetes, and 400 people are newly diagnosed every day. As there are no obvious signs and symptoms, it’s been estimated that 850,000 Britons and 7 million Americans have diabetes and don’t even know yet.
Of course, fasting isn’t the only way to tackle these conditions – improving your diet generally, getting a bit more active, quitting smoking, drinking in moderation and limiting stress are all important – but fasting might just be the secret weapon you haven’t yet discovered.
The great news is that fasting is going mainstream. Studies and research are beginning to prove what some people have known for a long time – that fasting not only prolongs life, but results in a marked degree of regeneration and rejuvenation. In fact, one of the amazing proven side-effects of fasting is that it helps to slow ageing at a cellular level. Yes, ditch the lotions and potions, there’s a much more effective anti-ageing strategy that costs you nothing!
HOW FASTING PROMOTES HEALING
Nothing in the body, or mind, works in isolation, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that fasting creates a healthy “ripple effect” of sorts.
The over-arching theory is that fasting helps to de-stress the body. When you fast you give your body a break and a chance to catch up on its inner “to-do” list. We all know how good it feels to have a well-earned holiday and return rested, rejuvenated and with a renewed joie de vivre. Well, fasting has a similar effect on your body.
Around 70 percent of your daily energy is spent maintaining internal functions, such as digestion and detoxification. If you’re a busy, on-the-go person and don’t give your body the best conditions to rest, digest and ultimately heal, ill-health will catch up with you sooner or later.
Have you ever had that sluggish feeling, much like a slow hangover that’s really difficult to shake off? Just as your home or office can become dusty and dirty, so your body can become clogged up with toxins and waste matter from the environment around you (more about this later in the chapter). When your body is clean and strong, it’s able to eliminate toxins efficiently, but when it becomes overloaded it can become sluggish, overweight (or underweight in some instances) and more susceptible to disease. The result is that “toxic signals”, such as aches and pains, irritable bowel, skin complaints, mood swings and fatigue, start to kick in. If these signals are ignored, they allow longer-term chronic health problems to take hold.
Cue fasting. Thousands of studies or observations of both man and animals have established the fact that when the body goes without food, the tissues are called upon in an inverse order of their importance to the organism. What this means is that when you fast, fat is the first tissue to go. And, contrary to expectations, instead of food deprivation causing a debilitating loss of nutrients, in short-term fasts the body retains the majority of these.
When you fast, the body is also given the time to identify and get rid of damaged or defective parts. This process is called autophagy. The term was coined by a biochemist in the 1960s and means “self-eating”, which sounds like something from a zombie B-movie, so it’s better to think of it as a spring clean for your body. For example, when mitochondria (the cellular generators responsible for energy output) progressively lose function and become damaged due to ill-health and bad diet, this intensifies the rate of cellular ageing and the onset of death. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been linked to a variety of illnesses including diabetes, heart disorders and neurological problems. Autophagy enables the cells to get rid of the dysfunctional mitochondria, allowing them to be replaced by more “energy efficient” new ones. It also helps the body to fight infections and recover from injuries.
This makes even more sense when you consider that at any one time only about half of your cells are at the peak of development, vitality and working condition. A quarter of them are usually in the process of development and growth and the other quarter are in the process of dying and being replaced. During a fast the process of elimination of the dead and dying cells is speeded up and the building of new cells is accelerated and stimulated. At the same time, the toxic waste products that interfere with the nourishment of the cells are effectively eliminated and the normal metabolic rate and cell oxygenation are restored.
Fasting is now considered an acceptable treatment or approach for promoting longevity, improving insulin response, reducing inflammation, boosting cardiovascular health and even for supporting cancer treatment. Fasting may deliver health benefits and more, without many of the unpleasant side-effects produced by other treatments, and, again, without an extortionate price tag.
FASTING AND ANTI-AGEING
Ageing is inevitable. Everything that keeps us alive from one day to the next can be called your metabolism, and running your body has side-effects. Those side-effects accumulate and eventually will cause problems. Welcome to the reality of ageing… But reality is ever changing and there’s good reason to be optimistic. Like looking for the proverbial pot of gold, we seekers of health are all out there, trying to find the elixir of youth.
You’re as young or as old as your smallest vital links – your cells. Ageing begins when your normal process of cell regeneration and rebuilding slows down. At a cellular level, the hormone insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) has both positive and negative effects. Like insulin, it’s anabolic, meaning that, in effect, it tells our cells to grow and multiply. If IGF-1 is kept high, our cells constantly divide and multiply, which is good if we’re trying to build big muscles and not so good if those cells become damaged and cancerous. High levels of IGF-1 have been linked to prostate cancer and post-menopausal breast cancer. When IGF-1 levels drop, the body slows production of new cells and starts repairing old ones, and DNA damage is more likely to be permanent.
What does all this mean for adding years to our life? Headed by gerontologist Valter Longo, researchers at the University of Southern California in the USA have focused for the last decade on the effect of calorie restriction on the functioning of cells. When Longo and his researchers began exploring the links between food intake and longevity, research on mice found that restricting calories extended lifespan by up to 40 percent. Genetically engineering the mice to have low levels of IGF-1 did the same thing.
Other research on our monkey cousins has shown that, in most cases, both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting helps them to live longer. In fact, it appears that the more they fast and the less they eat, the longer they live. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? After all, we’re much more used to hearing ourselves say we’re going to “starve to death” or that we’ll “waste away” if we go a few hours without a decent meal.
Lower levels of IGF-1 work for people too. During the Great Depression there were food shortages and drought, yet life expectancy actually rose by six years from 1929 to 1933. Intrepid scientists have also found populations of people where the rules of ageing don’t apply. Settlers in a remote region of Ecuador who have low levels of IGF-1 seem to be “immune” to diabetes and cancer, despite their very unhealthy lifestyle. However, it’s not something that can be bottled, or not yet anyway. The Ecuadorians who have demonstrated this mind-boggling immunity have a pre-existing condition called Laron Syndrome (this comes with growth problems, so it isn’t the magic answer). In fact, the only way you can naturally reduce levels of IGF-1 these days is by choosing to fast, rather than waiting for life to force it upon you. The benefits come quickly – within just 24 hours of fasting, IGF-1 falls.
BLOOD SUGAR CONTROL
The truth is that with a typical Western diet it’s easy to be hungry all the time. Many of you will smile ruefully at the feeling. Think about it – the “low-fat” foods that fly off the shelves every diet season are full of sugar and artificial sweeteners which are addictive and increase cravings for more of the same.
The idea of eating little and often, which is promoted by so many diet plans, is about preventing your body from releasing too much insulin at once and only giving it the nutrients that it can immediately put to use. But in order to burn off body fat, your insulin levels need to be low. So, if you eat little and often, your body will always be releasing a little insulin. If you’re someone who eats all the time, you may have chronically high insulin levels. Insulin provides the signal to your body to store energy from your food so that it can be accessed later. It basically acts by unlocking cells and allowing individual molecules of glucose to enter. It also tells the cells to make more protein and fat and to keep the existing fat locked away inside. This is all designed at keeping the levels of blood sugar within a tightly controlled range. Any sugar that isn’t immediately required for energy has to be stored in the muscles or liver. High levels of insulin in the body can increase the risk of insulin resistance (those locks get “broken” and start having difficulties recognizing the “key”). Over time, insulin resistance increases the risk of diabetes and has also been linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer and other inflammatory health conditions.
Most studies on fasting suggest that it has a beneficial effect on blood glucose control. Increasing the gaps between meals through fasting means that you get a spike in insulin after eating, then a longer period of time where insulin isn’t involved at all. The idea is that this not only encourages your body to burn fat, it also helps to maintain its natural sensitivity to insulin.
FASTING AND INFLAMMATION
Inflammation is the body’s normal response to injury, and is aimed at removing whatever’s causing the injury and kick-starting the healing process. Too much inflammation can obviously be dangerous, as is the case in inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, atherosclerosis and even eczema. If you or someone you know has a condition that ends in “-itis”, it’s linked to inflammation.
High levels of body fat are associated with increases in inflammatory markers such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNFa) and C-Reactive Protein (CRP). Studies on several different fasting formats show that these inflammatory markers tend to reduce during periods of fasting. This is the case during Ramadan (when Muslims practise a daily fast of 12–18 hours throughout the ninth month of the Islamic calendar), and also for a single daily meal versus three meals a day, and for alternate-day fasts. Intermittent fasting has been specifically shown to reduce the symptoms of asthma, another condition in which inflammation plays a key role.
REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE
NAME: Lorraine Elkins
Lorraine’s health took a dramatic turn for the worse in the spring of 2009. Within a few months, symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a debilitating autoimmune condition, turned her from a high-flyer in banking to someone who could barely walk. RA is known as a particularly difficult condition to treat, and the normal method often has onerous side-effects. There is no proven medical cure as yet. Lorraine describes how she felt:
“It was a really difficult time. I had no energy to do anything. It was even difficult to sleep when the pain was at its worst. I couldn’t even manage to hang my washing out or walk around a local shop without having to stop and rest. I was unrecognizable to myself and was incredibly down about it all. I remembered Amanda from her TV show, “The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses”, and decided to get in contact – although if I’m perfectly honest, I didn’t hold out much hope as my symptoms were just so awful.”
Lorraine visited me initially for a clinic consultation. As she described her symptoms, my heart went out to her. I knew that small changes wouldn’t work – the effect of nutrition can often be subtle and long term. So, I recommended the only course of treatment that I believed could help – a juice-fasting programme which was starting on a retreat the following week.
“I checked into Amanda’s retreat feeling like a lump of cement. I was exhausted, miserable and sore. I didn’t really believe it would work but was willing to try anything. The first two days were really hard. Bizarrely, on the second night I had the strangest dreams I can remember of my adult life. They are still vivid even now. When I woke up, I remember feeling like something had changed. It was like energy dust had been sprinkled over me. I had forgotten what this felt like. I‘m a black-and-white, traditional person, yet I’m not ashamed to say I cried. It was a glimmer of how I used to be.
“I called my husband and he said, ‘You’re back’. It was so profound, even my voice sounded like me again. I went on from there and gained confidence. I believed the fasting programme worked with the drugs, not against them. When I went back for my weekly blood test the results were amazing! The overall measure of inflammation had dropped to near-normal levels and my immune system marker (which had been three times the healthy level) was back in the normal range.”
Luckily, the doctors have been incredibly supportive. Lorraine’s medical team even asked her to tell their other patients about her experience. They acknowledge that this kind of approach is outside the realm of what would normally be prescribed on the NHS, but the results have been so undeniably positive that they fully support the approach.
Now, several years on, Lorraine’s RA is really well managed – to the extent that her condition is no longer a day-to-day concern. She calls the juice-fasting programme “The Big Boys” – the tools that can be deployed if she ever goes off track. She believes that the fasting approach helps her body to create an internal “shift” that then allows the more traditional treatment approach to work much more effectively. It’s the perfect example of a collaborative approach.
KEEPING THE HEART AND CIRCULATION HEALTHY
Inflammation is involved in cardiovascular disease, in concert with high levels of “bad” fats in the blood. Most studies on fasting show that it reduces triglyceride levels and improves the ratio of triglycerides to “good” cholesterol (that is, high-density lipoprotein [HDL] – the transport protein that helps remove excess cholesterol from the bloodstream). In animal studies, resistance to what is known as “ischaemic injury” – the type of artery damage that’s associated with the build-up of plaques and hardening of the arteries – has been seen.
All in all, although the findings are far from clear and lots more research is needed, fasting seems to give the body an internal tune-up and to increase resistance to age-related illnesses.
Going back to those scary statistics from the beginning of this chapter – cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and something that affects us all. In Britain, NHS statistics show that in England in 2007, people aged over 60 were prescribed an average of 42.4 prescription items each. Each time you receive a prescription for an individual drug from your doctor, it counts as one prescription item. That’s a whole lot of drugs! Unsurprisingly, medication that treats cardiovascular disease and its risk factors is the most commonly prescribed. I often meet people who want to change their eating habits, not just because they’d like to look and feel better, but because they’re shocked by the amount of medication that their own parents are on. As fasting becomes more popular, people are becoming attracted to it as a lifestyle choice that might help their heart and circulatory system stay healthy for longer.
REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE
NAME: Claire Skinner
After Claire’s 72-year-old mother suffered a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) on a flight to Hong Kong, electrocardiogram results showed that she had suffered a heart attack about 20 years previously. As a result her left ventricle was barely pumping. The cardiologist warned that Claire and her brother had at least a 10 percent chance of having heart problems.
On hearing this and having watched a TV documentary about the benefits of fasting, Claire felt she owed it to herself to at least give fasting a try.
“Fasting wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be and I felt great. Within a few weeks of starting, I requested via my GP to have a heart health screen because of my mother’s findings. I had an electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood tests. My doctor was extremely pleased with the results, stating that whatever I was doing, I should continue with it! In my family there’s significant history of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, so I’m more than willing to do (virtually) anything to decrease my chances of developing these diseases. I don’t weigh myself – I prefer to go on how I feel and how my clothes fit. In the first week, I lost 6cm [2½in] and after eight weeks I’d lost 6cm [2½in] from my chest and hips, and 5cm [2in] from my waist – a great bonus for doing something that’s health motivated.”
FASTING AND CANCER
Fasting is considered to be an alternative or complementary treatment for cancer in certain sectors of complementary medicine, and has been popularized by a naturopathic doctor called Max Gerson. However, my focus is not on fasting as a stand-alone treatment but rather on exciting evidence about fasting in cancer prevention and the encouraging results from trials involving fasting during cancer treatment, particularly chemotherapy.
There’s evidence that intermittent fasting, and calorie restriction more generally, fights the growth and spread of cancer cells in animals. Often when we read about research on animals, it seems so compelling that we want to see if the same thing will work for us. However, research is so much less likely to be done on humans as, rightly or wrongly, ethics committees are often reluctant to approve the same types of study that are done on animals. As discussed above, in experiments on laboratory animals, diets with 25 percent fewer calories have shown a positive link with longer, healthier life spans. So far there’s little empirical study evidence to show the same effect in humans, yet anecdotal evidence is growing that restricting calories, and fasting, activates cell-protecting mechanisms. Research is also underway to find out whether alternate-day fasting can help reduce the risk of breast cancer.
In studies on mice with cancer, fasting appears to improve survival rates after chemotherapy. Hearing of the effects of these animal studies by Valter Longo, ten cancer patients took it upon themselves to try fasting before chemotherapy. The results were published in the medical journal Aging. Of these ten, the majority experienced fewer side-effects as a result of fasting than those eating normally, and the authors concluded that fasting for two to five days before chemotherapy treatment appeared to be safe. This work has yet to be taken to a truly meaningful empirical testing on humans, but it’s understandable that cancer patients are excited by the potential of calorie restriction and fasting, not least by it helping the body to mitigate the effects of cancer treatment and specifically chemotherapy.
DETOXING
Personally, I no longer like the word “detox”. It’s been used and abused by marketeers in their quest to sell, sell, sell fancy products, when, in fact, detoxing is something that the body does naturally every hour of the day. However, until someone comes up with a better word, “detox” will have to do.
HOW WE BECOME TOXIC
A toxin is anything that has a detrimental effect on cell function or structure. Toxins are materials that our bodies cannot process efficiently. Over time they build up and, as a result, our systems function below par, leaving us drained, tired and frequently ill. People become “toxic” in many ways – through diet, lifestyle and the environment, as a natural by-product of metabolism, and through genetic lineage. Stress and harmful emotions can also create a kind of toxic environment.
Toxins include, but are not limited to:
•Food additives, flavourings and colourings.
•Household and personal cleaning chemicals, which are both inhaled and absorbed via the skin.
•Agricultural chemicals, such as pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.
•Heavy metals, which occur naturally but are poisonous.
•Oestrogens, which enter the environment due to human usage of the contraceptive pill and HRT.
•Xeno-oestrogens, which are chemicals that mimic oestrogen.
…And here are the most common ways people become toxic on the inside:
•Eating a poor diet. This includes low-fibre foods, fried foods and foods tainted with synthetic chemicals. Unlike live foods (fresh fruits and vegetables), these lack the enzymes that assist proper digestion and assimilation, and the fibre or bulk that assists proper elimination. They’re also void of essential vitamins, minerals and other basic nutrients.
•Eating too much. Over-eating puts a great amount of stress on our digestive system. The body must produce hydrochloric acid, pancreatic enzymes, bile and other digestive factors to process a meal. When we over-eat, the digestive system finds it hard to meet the demands placed upon it. The stomach bloats as the digestive system goes into turmoil. Foods aren’t broken down properly and tend to lodge in the lower intestine. Vital nutrients are then not absorbed.
•Inadequate water intake. When the body isn’t receiving enough water, toxins tend to stagnate, hindering all digestive and eliminative processes.
•Exposure to synthetic chemicals in food and environmental pollutants. A clean, strong system can metabolize and excrete many pollutants, but when the body is weak or constipated, they’re stored as unusable substances. As more and different chemicals enter the body, they tend to interact with those already there, forming second-generation chemicals that can be far more harmful than the originals.
•Being stressed. Stress hinders proper digestion, absorption and elimination of foods.
•Overuse of antibiotics. Antibiotics have a damaging effect on the intestines, especially if they’re taken for extensive periods of time. Reducing the use of unnecessary antibiotics will also help minimize the very real danger of bacterial resistance.
•Lack of exercise. This lowers metabolic efficiency, and without circulatory stimulation, the body’s natural cleansing systems are weakened.
•Eating late at night. The human body uses sleep to repair, rebuild and restore itself. In essence, the body uses the sleeping hours to cleanse and build. When a person goes to sleep with a full stomach, the body isn’t at rest but is busy digesting and processing food. In addition, the body requires gravity to assist the passage of food from the stomach down the digestive tract.
QIf the body detoxes itself anyway, why bother to do anything further?
AJust as your home or office can become dusty and dirty, so your body can become clogged up with toxins and waste matter from the environment. A healthy body is able to disarm toxins by breaking them down, storing them in fat tissue or excreting them. However, here’s the crux – many, if not most, people are depleted in the nutrients needed to detox optimally, and chronic health problems, sluggishness and weight gain are common results.
If you’ve never given your digestion much thought, don’t beat yourself up about being neglectful. Unlike the head or the tips of the fingers, the gut contains very few nerve endings. What this means is, we’re not so aware when things aren’t working well. When you have a headache you feel every throbbing pulse and do something about it. In contrast, gut problems go unresolved and uncared for over long periods.
The good news is, when you improve digestion, a whole range of seemingly unrelated health issues can improve. For example, it’s not only the job of the white blood cells (the leukocytes) to defend your body since the digestive system forms the basis of your immune system with the action of beneficial bacteria. Improving the ecology of the gut can be achieved with a juice fast and healthy diet.
USING A JUICE FAST TO DETOX
A juice fast stands head and shoulders above other fasting techniques in its self-healing effect and is often mentioned in the context of detoxing the body.
Juice fasting is based on consuming juices and broths only, whereas intermittent fasting adds lean protein and fat for the feeling of fullness. Studies have shown that eating as little as 10g (¼oz) of essential amino acids (found in high-quality proteins) can switch off autophagy. Therefore, a juice fast is best placed to give your body a good “spring clean” because juices are typically very low in protein.
The simple act of juicing a fruit or vegetable will help you absorb more of the nutrients from it. The caveat here is that you should make the juice fresh rather than drink pasteurized fruit juice from a carton or bottle. The process of juicing eliminates a lot of the fibre that needs to be digested. Cutting out the bulk and drinking only the juice means that you can very effectively hit your antioxidant targets in one small cup. Juice provides tiny “particles” of nutrients that are readily absorbed into the bloodstream.
Fresh juices provide a highly effective fast-track and – importantly – easy delivery mechanism for the body to absorb and process key vitamins, minerals and plant chemicals (phytonutrients) that are so beneficial to our health. A fresh juice contains a concentration of nutrients that have been separated from pulp, making it easier to consume what’s required to assist the healing process. In essence, a fresh juice should be considered more of a body tonic than a tasty drink.
QWill I get withdrawal symptons on a juice fast?
AThe folklore of fasting is littered with stories about the dramatic side-effects of a juice fast. This is usually because the contrast between the diet and lifestyle before and after is simply too great. Or, in some cases, the enterprising individual has decided to “retox”, that is go on an almighty bender before entering detox – not a good idea.
One of the most dramatic side-effects I ever witnessed was when a client was coming off a 20-year-long diet cola habit during a juice-fasting retreat. Her symptoms were akin to what you’d expect from coming off a class-A drug. The rest of the detox group watched mesmerized at her descent from bubbly, bouncy guest on arrival to a sweating, vomiting, pale-faced shadow of her former self after just 24 hours of juicing. Even I was a little worried. Luckily, her troubled time was followed by a rapid and dramatic improvement two days later, at which point she declared that she felt “reborn” and would never touch a drop of cola again.
So, learn from my diet cola story and start with a transition diet. Fasting can be a challenge physically and psychologically. I recommend having at least three days on the Countdown Plan (see page 178) to prepare. Juice fasting should be undertaken for between one and five days for optimum results – usually once or twice a year. Any longer requires more management and should only be considered when there are adequate reserves (body fat) or if there’s a specific medical condition. Some people find that weekend-long juice fasts four times a year are helpful.
QWhat are the most common side-effects of a juice fast?
ALet me be frank – a juice fast isn’t a good idea for a romantic break or naughty weekend away. During a juice fast the capacity of the eliminative organs – lungs, liver, kidneys, and skin – is greatly increased, and masses of accumulated metabolic wastes and toxins are quickly expelled. It’s like pressing the accelerator button on your body’s waste disposal unit. As part of the eliminative process, your body will be cleansing itself of old, accumulated wastes and toxins. This typically throws up symptoms such as offensive breath, dark urine, increased faecal waste, skin eruptions, perspiration and increased mucus. As I said, it’s not exactly romantic!
Your digestive system is the star of a fasting programme. Poor digestion can be a hidden cause of weight gain, or more accurately, water retention. For example, if your body’s responding to an allergy or intolerance it will often retain water. So, when fasting, there’s often a “quick-win” water loss that equates to an extra kilo being lost.
QWhat about fibre?
AThe process of juicing extracts the pulp (fibre) of the fruits and vegetables so on a juice fast it’s a good idea to restore some bulk to maintain a healthy transit of waste matter through the gastrointestinal tract. Psyllium husks, a soluble form of fibre, do just the trick as, when taken with adequate amounts of fluids, they absorb water to form a large mass. In people with constipation, this mass stimulates the bowel to move, whereas in people with diarrhoea it can slow things down and reduce bowel movements.
Some recent research also shows that psyllium husks may lower cholesterol. It’s thought that the fibre stimulates the conversion of cholesterol into bile acid and increases bile acid excretion. In addition, psyllium husks may even decrease the intestinal absorption of cholesterol.
Psyllium comes from the plant Plantago ovata and is native to India. It is readily available in health food shops and online stores, either as husks or in powdered form. In non-fasting, normal dietary conditions, whole grains provide dietary fibre and similar beneficial effects to psyllium, so a supplement isn’t needed unless recommended by your health care practitioner.
QCan colon cleansing help?
AYour bowels are not just “poo pipes”. Toxins and metabolic wastes from the blood and tissues are discharged into the intestinal canal to be excreted from the body. Not surprisingly, one of the long-established techniques to support the body’s elimination organs during a fast is colon hydrotherapy or enemas. This is a technique that involves taking in water into the large intestine, also known as the bowel, to assist the removal of waste.
Colon hydrotherapy is not a new procedure. Enemas and rituals involving the washing of the colon with water have been used since pagan times. The first recorded mention of colon cleansing is on an Egyptian medical papyrus dated as early as 1500BCE. Ancient and modern tribes in the Amazon, Central Africa and remote parts of Asia have used river water for bowel cleansing, usually as part of magic-medical rites of passage performed by priests or shamans. Colon-cleansing therapies were an important part of Taoist training regimens and these therapies still form one of the fundamental practices of yoga teaching. Hippocrates, Galen and Paracelsus, who are recognized as the founding fathers of Western medicine, described, practised and prescribed the use of enemas for colon cleansing. In Europe and the USA, colon-cleansing treatments were popular in the early decades of the 20th century and were often performed on patients by doctors practising in sanatoria (health spas) and hospitals. From the 1920s to the 1960s, most medical practitioners were in favour of regular enemas, and these were often used as part of hospital treatment.
Having moved to the fringes of mainstream medical practice, colon hydrotherapy is now a popular holistic treatment. As with all treatments, colon hydrotherapy should be undertaken only by a professionally trained and insured colon hydrotherapist who uses disposable equipment. If you want to try it alongside a fasting programme, do your own research and find who you’re comfortable with. In most spa-based fasting programmes, colon hydrotherapy or a self-administered method of colon cleansing such as enemas will be offered as a support to the core programme.