The Importance of Fasting

By Dr. Bob McCauley

“The freedom and ease you experience during fasting enables
you to discover new undreamed depths to the meaning of life.” ~ Herbert Shelton

What naturally follows a discussion about water is a discussion about fasting.  Fasting is absolutely the best thing you can do for your health at any given time.  If you are sick, fasting is the quickest way back to health, a shortcut that allows the body to focus on one thing: not digesting food or taking in nutrients, but that of healing itself.  Digestion requires a lot of energy from the body. “Fasting is the great remedy.  The physician within!” [i] The best fast you can do is a water fast and the best water for fasting is Ionized Water.

Fasting is the only thing I am aware of that every health guru I have ever read or spoken to agrees on.  I do not know of a single health guru who denounces fasting or even suggests that we should not fast on a regular basis.  I often strongly disagree with many health gurus and raw foodists on various issues, but fasting is NOT one of them.  Everyone from Paul Bragg to Norman Walker to Peter Ragnar, all of whom promote distilled water which I disagree with, agree that fasting is necessary for a healthy life.

Fasting gives the body a chance to rest, cleanse and repair itself.  Every major religion in the world promotes fasting.  Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, the prophets and many other spiritual figures through the ages fasted regularly.

You can fast for any length of time over six hours, which would be considered a mini-fast.  Fasting one day a month is a great habit to develop.  I fast for 24 hours quite often by eating a meal in the evening and then not eating again until the same time the following day.  The habit of eating one large meal a day, usually in the late afternoon or early evening, was commonly practiced by ancient warriors, including the Romans, especially before a battle.  Fighting on an empty stomach was easier, in part because the body is not burdened with the energy demands of digestion.

The word breakfast means to break a fast.  Instead of eating something for breakfast, I continue my fast for as long as possible by drinking only water in the morning and often into the early hours of the afternoon.  Therefore, I fast for at least 14 hours each day.

Fasting cleanses the body as well as the brain.  Clear-minded thinking occurs when the stomach is clear; clouded thinking occurs when the stomach is full.

There are many types of fasting and many ways to fast.  For instance, one can fast with spirulina and chlorella, which is extremely cleansing and energizing.   I fasted on spirulina and chlorella for 10 days and never had so much energy in my life. A raw juice fast will produce similar results, but is not as intense or cleansing.  There are green-vegetable fasts and citrus-juice fasts, but these are not true fasts because we are still putting food into the body.  The only true fast is a water fast.

What you fast on will determine how quickly you expel toxins from your body.  For instance, a juice fast will remove 2 – 20 days of accumulated toxins in a day, whereas an Ionized Water fast will remove up to 100 days of accumulated toxins in a single day.

If you experience severe headaches, rashes, cramps, stomach or joint pain, dizziness or nausea, then you are detoxifying too quickly and you need to slow down.  The rewards of fasting are many, but it can be a rigorous and painful experience for those who are quite toxic.  If you don’t feel good while fasting or the pain becomes too intense, then eat something and the pain will subside.  You will know best when it is time to pull back on the reins.

Detoxification stops immediately when we eat cooked foods of any kind.  Cooked foods contain toxins that further poison the body.  By eating cooked foods the body has no choice but to stop ridding itself of substances that do not belong in it because more are being added to it.

If you don’t feel that you can go it alone, there are clinics and fasting retreat centers that will help you get through a fast.  Some people recommend that fasts be supervised.

While there may be various opinions of various subjects, fasting is the one thing that every health professional and health guru agrees on.  I have never heard anyone object to the practice of fasting other than the unlearned and the those ignorant of health.

For the record I believe the practice of dry fasting, fasting without drinking water, is dangerous for the average person.  Since there is no water hydrate the cells and the tissue toxins are forced out in the extreme.  It is quite an intense form of fasting from all reported.  I would only recommend it for the healthiest of all people.  I have never done it myself and do not plan to any time soon.   It don’t think it’s necessary anymore than running a marathon is necessary to get yourself in good physical shape.  Water is the foundation of health and to remove it from your diet is always a bad idea.

Never drink purified water (distilled water or reverse osmosis water), and of course NEVER fast with purified water.  “Fasting using distilled water can be dangerous because of the rapid loss of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and trace minerals like magnesium, deficiencies of which can cause heart beat irregularities and high blood pressure. Cooking foods in distilled water pulls the minerals out of them and lowers their nutrient value.” ii

However, if you decide to fast, try to get some support from those around you.  Ask them not to encourage you to eat something even though you may be hungry.  After fasting for a couple days, your hunger will disappear, although you will still miss the habit of simply putting something in your mouth.  Without a doubt, fasting is the best way to jump start your health.  The best recommendation I have for anyone who is sick, regardless of the disease, is to fast.

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