WEEKLY WATER FASTING - HEALING CHRONIC DISEASES

Fasting is a powerful tool that provides a period of concentrated physiological rest during which the body switches to repairing and strengthening its damaged organs. It allows the body to cleanse cells of accumulated toxins and waste products.

Fasting gives the digestive tract time to completely rest and strengthen its mucosal lining. A healthy intestinal mucosal lining is necessary for preventing the leakage of incompletely digested proteins and toxins into the bloodstream, thereby offering protection against autoimmune conditions.

Fasting for six-days a month can indefinitely postpone onset of type-2 diabetes in obese individuals! Water fasting releases natural chemicals and hormones to keep chronic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, hypothyroidism, colitis, IBS, fibroids and benign tumours and many more in control.

Obesity
Weekly water fasting is a safe and sure shot solution for resistant obesity. The aim is to create a food shortage (while water is allowed), to awaken the sleeping enzymes and chemicals that increase metabolism and burn fat. When the food supply is cut off, a switching action occurs in the body where the stored fat becomes the target of burning.

But this fat burning does not occur immediately due to the scarcity and disuse of certain enzymes needed to release free fatty acid from the stored fat, known as the hormone-sensitive-lipase (HSL).

In order to maintain adequate HSL levels, the body must know that this enzyme is needed which will happen only when a scarcity of food is produced for the body. When one does weekly water fasting, the HSL levels keep getting triggered and then increase the sleeping metabolism. Then one can actually eat the food of seven days in six days time without putting on weight!

Chronic diseases
There are other attributes to a weekly fast. On the day of fast, our daily secretion of glucocorticoid (natural steroids made by body) is doubled. This serves as a weekly pulse but without its usual adverse effects! This pulse mobilises the stored carbohydrates and also prevents hypoglycemia or lowering of the sugar.

Such pulse can prove effective in a large numbers of autoimmune disorders like thyroid disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and a number of skin problems. These patients are given steroids externally but with all the side effects of long term use. The glucocorticoids or bodily steroids are free of side effects!

Diabetes
Fasting gives a rest to the otherwise overworked pancreas which have to keep secreting insulin to push the sugar in the blood inside the cells, as we keep eating frequently throughout the day. It is found that in an obese person, the saturated fat cells release leptin which leads to spontaneous death of the insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas, leading to Diabetes. On the day of a fast, the same fat cells have been found to secrete adiponectin which has growth-promoting and proliferative effect on these beta cells to thus produce more Insulin.

Even in established type-2 diabetes, a graded weekly fast can be observed provided adequate care is taken to avoid drug-induced hypoglycemia. This is possible under a supervised protocol.

Making your fast a pleasant and rewarding experience!
Most people get discouraged by the first experience of headache, acidity and irritability and resolve not to fast any more. Yes there are going to be problems at the first occasion. However, by the next week, some changes would have already occurred in the body so that the trouble is reduced to only 50 per cent, and by the third week to 25 per cent. After the fifth week, there is hardly any problem in fasting for the whole day. To make the experience of fasting a pleasant one, the following regime is suggested:

• Fix up one day in a week according to your religious belief. While the conviction gets you agreed, the belief makes you observe it regularly, religiously. Remember, you have to stick to the chosen day even in face of the greatest temptations. This is to maintain a regular rhythm with bodily functions.

• Resolve. If for example you have selected Monday, the previous night, sleep with a resolve and an awareness that you have to fast the next day. Tell yourself that apart from eating, all other activities are going to take place exactly as any other day.

Graded fasting
• The first Monday: just avoid the morning tea and the breakfast. Take lemon-water instead. Those having a tendency to get 'acid formation' may be helped by taking a solution of Amla juice or simple water instead.

• The second Monday: your body will be in a better position to tolerate the avoidance of breakfast, and you can safely postpone the lunch for at least an hour.

• The third Monday: you can skip both the breakfast and the lunch, and take lemon-water or amla juice-water or cucumber instead. This way, gradually over a period of about four to five weeks, a 24 hours fasting will be a rewarding experience and you will wait for the day to get that 'positive kick' from fasting.

Yogic Vatasara to help!
Vatasara is a forgotten technique which means drinking air. Vatasara suppresses the hunger pangs and balances the acidity too. Yoga describes drinking air through Kaki-Mudra and the Bhujagi mudra, but they are difficult to practice by many. Dr P Malshe has invented a very easy and acceptable method of drinking air, using a punctured (pierced) straw. With one-two small punctures in the top one inch of a straw, you will suck in lot of air along with the half glass of water.

Drinking air on the day of fast fills up the stomach and immediately brings about a kind of satiety for several hours. After drinking water mixed with air, doing inverted postures like Adhomukha svanasana, Shashankasana and Uttanasana for a minute, maneuvers the air to the intestines. Let us take charge of ourselves. In order to be truly transformed, you must first empty yourself — fasting can transform!

Weekly fasting leads to -
• More energy
• Healthier skin
• Better quality sleep
• Dramatic reduction or complete elimination of headaches, aches and pains in muscles and joints
• Stabilisation of blood pressure
• Stronger and more efficient digestion and bowel movements.
• Loss of excess weight