Hey everyone!
Just this past weekend, I led a workshop all about fasting.
But before I get down to the nitty gritty details of fasting, I believe understanding why you do what you do is much more important than blindly following a protocol.
Too often, we don’t observe our own thoughts and beliefs. We get busy “doing” so much so that we don’t know our “why”.
Doing something and taking action is great but when the action is not aligned with your core beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, you’re simply using will power. And when you’ve got to push through using will power, there’s no permanent changes being made in your life.
Achieving Health Requires a Paradigm Shift
We all have a paradigm by which we operate in this world. Our brain is the most powerful tool that is underutilized simply because we don’t think to use this powerful instrument.
In school and during our childhood years we are not taught to think or feel for ourselves. We are “told” what to do, how to do it, and how to feel.
We are never asked to use our minds to figure things out and to explore and feel our feelings, especially the negative feelings.
Inherently, we’ve evolved as a species to want what’s pleasurable and convenient, and to avoid pain or discomfort.
But in order to grow and evolve, we must seek what’s hard and move toward discomfort.
With that being said, the concept of the paradigm by which we live our lives was discussed by Stephen Covey, and has been discussed by spiritual and holistic healers, as well as many life coaches.
This paradigm is that our Thoughts create Feelings which trigger Actions that create the Results in our lives.
Often, we think negative thoughts about ourselves so much so that they become our beliefs. We operate in life based on our beliefs, so we tend to keep validating our beliefs by creating the results that are in alignment with our thoughts.
If this is true, we know that we can absolutely change our paradigm and shift our thoughts and beliefs to better serve our goals in life.
But too often, we don’t realize how much control we have over our lives so we rely on others for all the answers. This causes us to live life disempowered.
Your Health is Your Own Responsibility
So now that we know this fact, I want to take a moment to let you know that it’s absolutely possible to reverse and slow the aging process and heal from the inside.
I believe the answer to healing from or curing any disease lies within us. The moment we look outside of ourselves, we are told what to believe. For example in my case, I was told to believe that Lupus is incurable.
I changed my paradigm to believe it IS curable and now I am creating results that align with my beliefs. I’m healthier now than I was even before my Lupus diagnosis.
What is Fasting?
I am asked a lot about various kinds of diets, supplements, and treatments for different conditions. I know that there’s a cure for just about every disease out there, but most people don’t believe this fact.
When I talk about fasting, I mean physiological fasting (refraining from food) as well as fasting from toxic thoughts. I call these Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS).
We live in a toxic world today. Technological advancements have allowed not only more knowledge and connection, but also constant occupation of our attention so much so that we’ve become addicted to such information input.
The concept of fasting is to allow the body time and space to reset and renew by abstaining from foods.
But I believe food for the mind, in the form of thoughts, needs a careful filter as well to prevent overload.
Just as a computer might be less efficient with too many demands all at once, our attention and focus has finite capacity.
So many of us walk around craving an emptiness in thought. That’s why many seek meditation experiences to force the brain to stop processing.
When the brain is silent and fasting, it’s capable of providing us with much needed reset and insight that allows us to be much more powerful in our lives.
History of Fasting
The practice of fasting has been around for a very long time. Even the father of medicine, Hippocrates, prescribed fasting to his patients with various conditions.
Fasting is also practiced in various religions to provide mental focus and clarity, as well as for purification for spiritual awakening.
What Effect Does This Have on the Body?
When the body is void of food for an extended amount of time, physiologically, it is able to focus its effort on renewing and regenerating the body at the cellular level.
How our body does this is through the process of autophagy.
Autophagy is the natural, regulated mechanism of cells that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components from the body. When these components are cleaned and the body is detoxified, we experience decreased inflammation and enhanced metabolism.
Types of Fasting
There are different ways to fast.
- Time restricted fasting: Fasting for 12-18 hours a day
- Intermittent Fasting: Fasting for 1-3 days
- Prolonged Fasting: Fasting with water for over 4 days
The most beneficial fasting is prolonged fasting but it’s hard to do. Also, it deteriorates lean muscle mass, causes deprivation, and increases gallstone risk.
The benefits of prolonged fasting include weight loss, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, cellular detox, and metabolic boost.
Fasting Mimicking Diet
There is a way to get the body into a fasting state without actually abstaining from food for a period of time.
The fasting mimicking diet checks all the boxes. It is plant based, heavy research based, NIH promoted, and there are extensive published articles on the efficacy.
Plus you are able to have all the benefits of fasting without the hunger, deprivation, and lean muscle mass loss. It’s almost too good to be true.
The fasting mimicking diet is only 5 days and the cost is minimal considering the benefits.
At Alkaline Wellness, we offer this to our clients as a way to kickstart their self healing journey. This 5 day kit includes everything you’ll be eating for 5 days, organized and outlined so you can follow without any confusion.
Currently we are offering a $50 rebate + $25 off for the 5 day fasting mimicking diet. Plus for an additional $25, if you’re not already a Yoga member, you’ll get 5 days of Yoga at Alkaline so you can easily kickstart your health into gear.
Want more information on the benefits of fasting and why you should do this fasting mimicking diet? Click HERE for a free training.
Thank you for reading my blog and I hope this message has been helpful to you in some way.
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Talk to you soon.