The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting

by Jason Fung

Normally, clumps of Aß protein are removed by autophagy: the brain cell activates the autophagosome,

Cancer is yet another disease that may be a result of disordered autophagy.

Fasting’s role in inhibiting mTOR, thereby stimulating autophagy, provides an interesting opportunity to prevent cancer’s development.

Fasting can limit growth of glucose-dependent tumors.

The liver produces the vast majority of cholesterol found in the blood.

In fact, studies prove that seventy days of alternate-day fasting could reduce LDL by 25 percent.

Triglyceride levels drop by 30 percent, similar to what can be achieved with a very low carbohydrate diet or medication. Not bad for an all-natural, cost-free dietary intervention.

Overall, fasting produces significant improvements in multiple cardiac risk factors.

Consider how hungry you feel first thing in the morning. Studies of circadian rhythm confirm that for most people, hunger is very low first thing in the morning, even though it has been twelve to fourteen hours since the last meal.

Conversely, hunger at dinnertime is often very high, even though we have often eaten lunch just a mere six hours ago.

Hunger, obviously, is not simply a reflection of the amount of food filling our stomach. Instead, hunger ...

This helps synchronize the gut response and the incoming food, and is known as the cephalic phase response.

Intermittent fasting offers a unique solution. By randomly skipping meals and varying the intervals at which we eat, we can break our habit of eating three times a day, come hell or high water.

In fact, it’s actually kind of nice to get reacquainted with the signals our bodies send us … when we finally allow them to come through.

Here’s the simplest way to break associations between food and anything else: Eat only at the table.

In this way, food becomes associated only with the kitchen and the table. These are not new ideas, of course; it was just common sense in your grandmother’s generation.

Instead, replace that snacking habit with a habit of drinking a cup of herbal or green tea.

Ultimately, swapping one habit for another is a far more successful strategy.

Recent studies confirm that diet sodas are generally not helpful for weight loss, probably because they trigger hunger but don’t satisfy it.

Simply breaking the habit of eating at certain times can be difficult. One thing you can try is to make a habit of drinking a large cup of coffee or tea along with breakfast on nonfasting days.

You can also have a bowl of homemade bone broth at dinnertime on fasting days. It makes fasting easier in the long run.

The secret is to understand that hunger comes in waves. You just need to ride out the waves.

Hunger comes quite strongly during the first one or two days of fasting, generally peaking on day two.

Some people speculate that the ketones generated during fat-burning are actively suppressing appetite.

When people feel they cannot go beyond twenty-four hours of fasting, we sometimes advise them to try three to seven full days of fasting.

extended fasting gives people the chance to experience how hunger can disappear without eating as the body learns how to metabolize its own fat.

It comes down to the fact that hunger is not determined by not eating for a certain period of time. Rather, it is a hormonal signal.

Hunger is a state of mind, not a state of stomach.

An elite marathoner, despite looking very lean, might have approximately 8 to 10 percent body fat.)

The body mass index (BMI) is calculated by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it by your height in meters squared: kg/m2.

Arguing that fasting causes anorexia is like arguing that washing your hands will lead to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Excessive hand-washing is a symptom of the disease, not its cause.

Underfeeding during this period may result in stunted growth, which may be irreversible. In all children under eighteen, the risk of malnutrition during fasting is unacceptably high.

Children have always been excluded from cultural or religious fasting to prevent the unintentional development of malnutrition at a critical time of development.

Choosing to eat whole, unprocessed, natural foods is a good start. Avoiding highly processed grains and especially reducing added sugars also goes a long way toward preventing obesity and promoting good health.

Gout is an inflammatory arthritis caused by excess uric acid crystals in the joints.

Uric acid elimination through the urine decreases during fasting, resulting in a rise in uric acid levels.

The most common medications that cause problems during fasting are aspirin, metformin, and iron and magnesium supplements.

Taking aspirin without food raises the risk of stomach irritation.

Metformin is the most widely prescribed medication in the world for type 2 diabetes.

Iron supplement tablets are commonly prescribed for low blood counts due to chronic blood loss, also called iron deficiency anemia.

Among the most common side effects of iron supplements are both constipation and abdominal pain, which may be made worse by fasting.

Magnesium is a mineral stored largely in the bones. Supplements are often taken to treat leg cramps, migraine head...

Magnesium supplements taken orally are often poorly absorbed through the intestin...

As an alternative, magnesium may be absorbed through the skin through Epsom salts, crystals of magnesium sulphate.

The magnesium will be absorbed through the skin. This is a traditional remedy for many things, including muscle cramps, constipation, and skin problems.

Symptoms of hypoglycemia include shaking, sweating, irritability or nervousness, feeling faint, hunger, and nausea.

In gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), commonly known as heartburn, stomach acid backs up into the esophagus, causing damage to the sensitive tissues of the esophagus.

Avoid foods that aggravate reflux—including chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, fried foods, and citrus.

One study examined the effect of a three-day fast on the reproductive hormones during different parts of the menstrual cycle. Glucose and insulin levels stayed low, showing compliance with the fast, but all reproductive hormones remained within normal limits.

Chapter 11 KINDS OF FASTS AND BEST PRACTICES