Chapter 12
Just Grin and Bear It
“I want to fast because I believe it would do wonders for me, but how can I fast and yet escape the great feeling of hunger that the first 3 days of fasting produces?” That is the question asked us many, many times when I discuss the Miracle of Fasting at our Bragg Health Crusade lectures all over the world. We can give only one answer “Just Grin and Bear It – Your Cleansing!”
“I tried a fast once, but I got weak and felt miserable, I just had to start eating.” We often hear this excuse.
Nowhere in this book have I stated that fasting is easy. Eating regularly has become such an ingrained part of people’s lives that, if you take food away from them, they experience many mental, emotional and physical reactions. That is the strong reason why fasting is not very popular. Humans are creatures of strong habits! Most people automatically eat 3 or more meals every day and not because they have earned their food with physical activity. They have been brainwashed to falsely believe everyone should eat at certain hours for three regular mealtimes.
Patricia and I had the pleasure of being invited to the grand opening of the fabulous Mauna Kea Hotel, on the Island of Hawaii. It was an American-plan hotel, which means the cost includes meals. Breakfast started at 7:30 am, luncheon began at 12:30 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. We passed the dining room at these hours, the guests were all eagerly waiting for the doors to open so they could get at the expansive buffet.
Were they hungry at exactly these hours? How could they be? Most of the guests did nothing but relax on the beach, socialize, drive golf carts, play cards or read!
Don’t Live to Eat – Eat to Live & Be Healthy!
The hotel guests did absolutely nothing to earn all these meals, but they paid for them and felt they should be there to eat them. The same thing happens on cruise ships. There is always a crowd waiting for the dining room to open so they can over-eat what they paid for.
Food! It can be a blessing to man, but also a curse! The body can take a lot of abuse from wrong food and overfeeding. But there comes a day when the body’s digestive system becomes over-stuffed, overworked and overwhelmed – it’s then that health problems begin!!!
Digestive troubles plague modern man. Constipation heads the list of his miseries. Tons upon tons of pills, powders and liquids are sold to try and flush out the waste packed into people’s intestines and colon. Modern man packs food into himself faster than the functions of digestion and elimination can handle it! This is very much like trying to race your car with the brakes on!!!
There is scientific reasoning that constipation is the foundation of many other body ailments. The reasoning behind this conclusion is sound. If constipation means retention of waste, here’s a simple test you can take. Prepare your next meal, made up of everything you would ordinarily eat, but don’t eat a mouthful of it. Instead, put it in a pot; then place the container with the food in a temperature around 100 degrees, the same as inside the body. See that there is a liberal quantity of moisture. Now watch what occurs over next 8-12 hours.
The very first things you will notice are the bad odors and rancidity. Then the food will mold, ferment and bubble with gas. This gas pressure causes many miseries in the body. If the gas presses upward against the diaphragm, you may even have stimulated a heart attack. As it presses against the back muscles, it can cause terrible backaches. This fermenting, putrefying mass is always throwing off toxins which can cause pounding headaches, stomach gas, mysterious body aches and pains.
Elementary microbiology tells us that, to produce germs in quantity, keep food fermenting in the colon and the bacteria will obligingly multiply. So, right in our bodies, we breed all kinds of “bugs” that can cause trouble. If you are prone to viruses such as colds, chronic sinusitis and other ailments, a constipated condition creates a favorable environment for the presence and growth of unfriendly “bugs” involved in such ailments.
The toxic poisons generated by overeating or too much of the wrong foods, can damage one of the body’s most important organs – the liver. Few people realize how important their liver is to life. It’s a great chemical laboratory with many functions. It not only gives forth bile, but it is the body’s greatest garbage disposal.
The liver and intestines are partners in the whole entire digestive process! If one is sick, the other tries to come to its aid until it too, breaks down. When the liver and the digestive systems break down you are in serious trouble! This is why you often find a swollen sensitive liver, a pasty complexion and many times, jaundice and chronic fatigue in conjunction with ongoing constipation.
Give Your Vital Force a Chance to Clean House!
So it’s plain that when you stop eating to give your body’s Vital Force a chance to clean house . . . you will miss the food habit the first few days of your fast! It could be uncomfortable if you allow it! Think positive!
When you fast, your Vital Force loosens the waste in your body and gathers it up to be discarded. As long as this goes on you might feel some discomfort. But once the waste is discarded through the kidneys, you will begin to feel better. As you fast, conditions change from day to day. When your body is eliminating heavy amounts of toxic poisons through the kidneys and other organs of elimination, you could feel some discomfort. But it should also be clear why you may feel better on the 7th day of a 10 day fast than you did on the 3rd day. Many of the toxic poisons that gave you trouble have been flushed out of the body! Many people who fast under my supervision felt far better and stronger on the 10th day of the fast than they did on the 1st day.
This always happens when I take a 7 or 10 day fast. I always feel stronger at the end of my fast than I did at the beginning. The cleaner you are inside, the more Vital Power you have! So at the beginning of the fast, just grin and bear the discomforts that may occur as you purify the body. You know that as you get cleaner, you are going to feel stronger. Again I say, to be a good faster, you must, “Just Grin and Bear It!”. Whatever brief discomforts you may experience during a fast are well worth the great rewards you are going to receive!!!
BAD NUTRITION #1 Cause of Sickness
People don’t die of infectious conditions as such, but of poor malnutrition that allows the germs to gain a foothold in sickly bodies. Bad nutrition is usually one of the main causes of the degenerative, noninfectious, or fatal conditions. When the body has its complete vitamin and mineral quota plus precious potassium, then it’s impossible for germs to get a foothold in its healthy bloodstream and tissues! We greatly admire our friend, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop who, in his famous 1988 landmark report on Nutrition and Health, made this revealing, strong statement:
Diet-related diseases account for 68% of all United States deaths!
