I’ve been on a journey of discovery concerning fasting and I’m surprised how wrong my perspectives on fasting were.
My mind has been blown by reading the secular book the Complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung and other books and articles that reveal how wrong our perspectives on nutrition and dealing with type 2 diabetes have been.
There’s a better way! It’s called fasting.
Whenever I discover something in the secular world that confirms God’s word found in the Bible, then I can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s trustworthy truths to be found there.
See the link here for my first article on 5 Mindboggling Benefits of Fasting.
I share a whole list of benefits that fasting brings to our physical health.
After sharing with our church the scientific benefits of fasting and addressing a bunch of misconceptions around fasting, we’ve been hearing many breakthrough stories of our people beginning to fast and actually enjoying it!
We were made to fast.
Did you know that the world record for fasting is 382 days!
A 27-year-old Scottish man fasted for 382 days, in the 1970s on noncaloric fluids, a daily vitamin and various supplements.
He went from 200 kg to 80 kg, and was still only 85 kgs five years later! He kept his weight down as his body discovered a new “normal” weight. A physician monitored him during the fasting period and determined that there were “no significant deleterious health effects”.
In other words, the fast wasn’t bad for him at all.
We were made to fast!
Did you know that every one of us are fasting daily?
Every night, while you sleep, you are fasting food. If you ate at 6 pm the previous night and eat again the next morning around 8 am, then you’ve fasted for 14 hours and you broke your fast with what is called “break fast” or breakfast.
Why not simply stretch that gap between eating? It’s not as hard as you think it is.
“I don’t have much fat, I’m actually quite thin, should I fast?”
They have determined that endurance athletes with only 5 to 11% body fat can go for 40 days without eating.
We all have more than enough fat on our bodies to fast!
More and more endurance athletes are training their bodies to move into the fasted state so that the body switches from burning glycogen (sugar) to burning fat of which there are almost unlimited supplies in our bodies.
We were made to fast.
“I can’t skip a meal, I feel like I’m going to die!”
Hunger is partly a learned phenomenon and otherwise it is simply a hormonal signal telling you to eat. You slept, you woke up having ate 10 or 12 hours ago, yet you’re not starving?
Most people aren’t hungry when they wake up in the morning. Much of our eating habits have been learned over the years. We’ve been taught that you better eat three meals a day and snack in between or it’s bad for your body. It seems that we were wrong.
Hunger is a state of mind, not a state of the stomach.
Hunger pangs are hormonal, and they come in waves. When the wave comes, simply drink a bit of water or other fluids and let the wave pass! You will feel good to go in a few minutes.
“Practical experience with hundreds of patients shows that while they’re on an intermittent fasting regimen, they most often see their hunger diminish, not increase. Eating less than half their usual amount of food on a daily basis, yet they feel completely full. For most people, this is the most pleasant surprise of fasting.” Jason Fung
Where to start?
- Change your perspective on fasting. You are made to fast.
- Give it a try! You won’t discover the benefits of fasting unless you give it a try.
- Ease into it. Don’t jump into a long fast immediately, rather start with fasting for 20 hours or 24 hours once or twice a week so that your body gets used it.
- Drink lots of water and maybe some tea or other fluids if you’re battling with water only.
- Use the times you would have been eating to pray. Strengthen your body and spirit!
- You could still train on days that you are fasting. Your body is designed to simply switch from burning glycogen (sugars) to burning fat.
Let’s fast and pray!
André
PS: What has your experience of fasting been like? Have you experienced the benefits of fasting?
5 Comments
This is really good information! I’m doing my first 21 day fast in my 25 year walk with The Lord! (I’m on day 20). I never in a million years imagined it could be like this! Unbelievably liberating! Completely unhindered! The Word is coming alive like never before!
Hi Glory, that is amazing. Well done for pursuing the Lord through fasting and prayer. May you move deeper and deeper into the Lord and His word. Blessings, Andre
Excellent. On day 6 of a 22 day fast for healing. Praying to God to heal a cancerous lymph node during this time.
Hi David, trusting with you for your healing in Jesus’ mighty name.
Amazing article and thanks for posting. I am a health and nutrition professional and coach men and women over 40 how to lose body fat without needing to go on a diet or exercise in a gym. We have fasting protocols in our 12 week system and it’s so great to see our clients get positive results when fasting. We start them off slow, with a 12 hour fast, then move them to a 16 hour fast. In week 6 they start completing 24 hour weekly fasts and in week 11 they begin longer fasting protocols starting with 48-60 hours. It is amazing to see the change in glucose/ketone production. Many of our clients push their ketone production up to 5.0 mmol/l and drop glucose to 3.0 mmol/l or lower. Thanks again for putting this important health info out there