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http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/jeanette-winte...
12/07/2015 10:34
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/jeanette-winte...
Hindus regularly observe dawn-till-dusk fasts, 12-hour respites for the body that
allow the internal organs a welcome rest from their duties as a processing plant. The
5,000-year-old Hindu method of natural health, Ayurveda, uses fasting to balance the
body, concentrating on digestion and elimination.
Buddhism, naturally, prefers a middle way of no excess: not too much food, not too
little. The Buddha himself began by road-testing extremes all the wine, women and
curry nights a young man could want, followed by years of self-denial. But the
Buddha didnt reach enlightenment through fasting only after he was commanded
to eat. Even so, Buddhist monks are encouraged not to eat solid food after midday
both to rest the internal organs and to concentrate the mind on higher things.
The religious and mystical point is that human beings are not just what we eat
remember that bit in the Bible, Man shall not live by bread alone. We are more than
food, more than reproduction, more than survival. We have creativity, curiosity, a
need for meaning, and the strange desire to put ourselves at risk, both to discover our
limits and to get beyond them.
No matter how comfortable our lives, it is hard to be happy without challenge or
meaning. Having plenty of stu is never enough. This isnt discontent; it is the oddity
of being human. Our species long and stubborn belief in an afterlife can be put down
to superstition, terror, ignorance or magical thinking, or you could see it as a
conclusion reached by the only organism on the planet that feels itself to be more
than its body. The body dies, the spirit continues. That this must be so makes more
intuitive sense for many people than the empirical truth that it is not so.
Some people go on retreats or try to connect in other ways with the part of
themselves not expressed by the frantic, full-on world of getting and spending.
Fasting does that by making the body itself the site of retreat.
***
Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Dante puts his gluttons in the third circle of
the Inferno writhing 24/7 in a whirlpool mudbath of live intestines and excrement.
Does that seem an overharsh judgment on a life spent ordering supersize cokes,
buckets of fries and vats of gelato? Given the way we live now, the gluttony debate in
Christian thought looks like a proto-Marxist prophecy against the overconsumption
we have learned to call capitalism. Overconsumption that wrecks the planet and
unbalances our relationships, nation to nation, class to class and with one another.
The greed-is-good philosophy of the Reagan/Thatcher era 30 years of stung your
face followed by economic collapse is the macro model of what happens in our
bodies. We are not designed for all you can eat.
True, some of the best conversations happen over a good meal and a bottle of wine.
Food is fabulous. But too much eating of too much easy food too much of the time is
partly responsible for our current level of degenerative disease diabetes, heart
conditions, fatty liver, hypertension, inammation and, of course, the rise and rise of
obesity. Yes, this is about the sort of food we eat, but it is also about the quantity of
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http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/jeanette-winte...
12/07/2015 10:34
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/jeanette-winte...
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But thats the problem: fasting is free. Well, its not free, because you need to be
medically supervised, at least to begin with, but theres no money in it for Big
Pharma. As Dr Andreas Michalsen from the Charit hospital, Berlin Europes largest
public hospital, and one that treats more than 500 patients a year with fasting
explains in The Science of Fasting: If I had been studying a new drug and got these
results, I would be getting phone calls every day. It is very easy for critics to say there
are not enough studies when we know there is no funding for these studies.
***
So how do you feel when you fast you, the person used to having a good
relationship with a full fridge?
The rst three days are dicult. Emotionally and physically. You are encouraged to
accept the mood swings and create an attitude of acceptance and tolerance in
yourself; you are working with your body not against it. Exercise keeps the metabolic
rate high and encourages the body to move towards a state of maximum eciency.
Sitting in your room feeling terrible is not the answer.
It helps if you know you are in safe hands. On arrival at Buchinger, patients are given a
full set of blood tests and a consultation with a doctor, and every morning a nurse
checks your blood pressure and general health. Day three is crisis day as the body
moves into full ketone production. I felt cold, withdrawn and a little light-headed. But
day four was a revelation: I woke early, clear-eyed, cheerful and full of energy. This
continued right through my fast. I was able to concentrate, take long walks and go to
the gym. I wasnt hungry for the next six days. My blood pressure was stable
throughout, and I was enjoying myself. When the time came to break the fast
something that has to be done most carefully with tiny amounts of solid food I really
wanted to continue, just to see what would happen next.
When my cholesterol was measured it was down from 7.9 to 6.2, and with the good
cholesterol in the right ratio. Three months later it is stable. Cortisol is back in the
normal range. Joint pain in my foot following an operation last year has disappeared
completely. If you have weight to lose, you will lose it. If you have less weight to lose,
the body seems to know how to balance itself there too.
Fasting isnt a diet. It isnt calorie restriction. After fasting you will return to eating
normally, though with adjustments where necessary. But the idea is that while you
fast your body will undergo profound changes that last after the fast is ended.
Improvements can be maintained through diet and by making fasting a normal part of
life as it once was.
Most impressive among the people I talked to at the clinic were the regular visitors for
rheumatism and arthritis. Quite a number are fortunate enough to have the resources
to come a couple of times a year, to fast for two weeks each time, and they have seen
a drastic reduction in medication and pain, and a signicant increase in joint mobility.
The answer seems to lie with fastings ability to decrease intestinal permeability the
leaky gut problem so often associated with inammatory diseases, as large
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molecules acting as antigens pass through the intestinal wall and cause immune
reactions. It is thought that 80% of our immune system is in our gut. If the gut is
wrong, we are wrong. Fasting is good for your gut.
I would like to experience the profound sense of wellbeing and peace of mind that
fasting delivered again. And I had more time think how much time shopping,
cooking, eating and clearing up afterwards takes out of every day. Suddenly there was
time to think deeply, to read and to reassess.
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