7 Reasons to Fast

Fasting is an ancient healing practice that many cultures around the world have utilized in different ways for different reasons. There are several methods of fasting and the approach that’s best for you will depend on a number of factors; gender, hormone profile, genetics, medical history and personal goals will all impact your fasting experience, and it’s important that you get really clear on your purpose and intention behind fasting before you begin. There’s no one-size-fits-all fast, and you’ll have more success with a personalized approach that’s well-aligned with your needs and intention.

Before you start a fast, take some time to ask yourself a few important questions:

Why do I want to fast?

What am I hoping to accomplish with this experience?

How will I remain connected to my needs and goals throughout the process?

Which practices will I root into when I feel challenged by the fast?

Whether you plan to do a water fast, partial fast, bone broth fast, intermittent fasting, or the Fasting Mimicking Diet (developed by Dr. Valter Longo), ensure you’ve given yourself the time and space to find clarity on your intentions behind fasting. This is an opportunity for deep rest, renewal, growth and a mind-body reset, an invitation to slow down and observe, and a container to reflect upon our choices, habits, and behaviours to determine what’s truly serving us and what needs to be left behind.

Our Metabolic Fix Program is typically offered seasonally, as the practice of fasting is well-aligned with the transitional period of changing seasons. Depending on the time of year, as well as your own Dosha (or Ayurvedic constitution), your unique needs and best practices with fasting may differ somewhat throughout the year. This is also an opportunity to deepen our connection with nature, as well as to examine our relationships with food, activity, thought processes and patterns, and the people in our lives.

Fasting allows us to look at our own relationship with consumption and the energetic push and pull of existing in the world. It invites us to be more mindful of our choices, not only around the food we put into our bodies (when, what and why we’re eating), but also with the energy we give and receive, the ideas and feelings we give weight to, what we choose to hold on to and what we’re willing to release.

“How you digest food is a reflection of how you digest life.”

– Dr. Sonya Jensen, ND

What are the benefits of fasting?

There are a number of incredible health benefits associated with fasting – these are the top 7:

1) Stimulate autophagy – This is the natural physiological mechanism of clearing debris and damaged cells to encourage cellular repair. Autophagy is a self-preservation process that supports longevity, and typically kicks in between 2-4 days of fasting. Autophagy happens naturally on a daily basis, but if we’re in a state of inflammation or contending with toxic overload, this process is somewhat inhibited. With the body in more of a sugar-burning state, not as much energy will be utilized in this cellular cleansing process and healing will happen more slowly. Fasting upregulates autophagy, more effectively clearing toxins and waste that may otherwise lead to neurodegenerative disease.

2) Promote stem cell renewal – Around day 5 of a fast, there is a surge in stem cell renewal; however, fasting for just 24 hours has been shown to improve the regenerative ability of stem cells¹, aid in healing tissue, and reduce inflammation. Fasting is a restorative practice that is known to heal old injuries, reestablish healthy cell culture and improve homeostasis in our tissues, and reduce the likelihood of age-related pathologies.

3) Elevate ketones – Glucose is like wood-burning energy; it’s depleted quickly, and we have to keep refuelling in order to use more. As glucose rises, so do insulin and cortisol. This combination of hormones creates brain fog, dysfunction in brain cells and the nervous system, and a greater energetic investment in survival rather than healing and renewal. Ketones, on the other hand, provide cleaner, more efficient energy (like an electric stove) that maintains healthy brain cell metabolism, improves insulin sensitivity, and helps to release stubborn weight. We have a lot of fat stores around organs and subcutaneous tissues and fasting will tap into this latent energy source, utilizing these fat stores for energy rather than relying on that quick-burning glucose.

4) Create energy diversion – The practice of fasting will take energy that is typically spent on digestion and shift it toward areas that need healing. It stimulates more mitochondrial production and improves its function in our cells, leading to improved energy production and overall health.² Digestion requires a fair amount of energy; when we fast, the energy that would typically be used on this process can be redirected to healing chronic issues.

5) Support hormone optimization – in peri-menopause and menopause, there is a tendency to move toward insulin resistance. This often causes increased weight around the waistline and wreaks havoc on our sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Fasting cleans up debris around our cells, helping to optimize hormones and improve the efficiency of their communication. This process down-regulates insulin and glucose so our sex hormones are better able do their jobs. Fasting has also been shown to significantly increase human growth hormone (HgH), which is an important hormone involved in cell repair, metabolism, and muscle recovery.³

6) Reset your DNA – Epigenetics is a rapidly growing area of science that accounts for environmentally controlled gene expression.When we get stuck in a state of inflammation or disease, we’re activating genes that are propagating the source of illness in the body. Toxic substances, trauma, and infection can turn on the genes responsible for disease, while fasting allows us to program our gene expression in a different way, signalling the body to move into a healing state.

7) Reframe nourishment – This is one of the mindset benefits of fasting. The fast helps to starve the bad bacteria and reset the gut microbiome over 3-5 days. When we begin to re-feed, we tend to be more mindful of the nutrients we choose to fuel ourselves with. We’re always feeding the microbiome with the foods we consume, and sometimes an imbalance occurs when the bad bacteria are getting too much energy while the good bacteria are not receiving enough. Fasting helps us to clean up the gut microbiome, ridding the body of those unwanted guests like pathogens, bad bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungus that may be thriving as a result of our food choices.

The Importance of Re-feeding

Your re-feeding week is arguably the most important part of a fast. When you begin to put food back into your body, it’s critical that you’re strategic and selective about what you eat. We need to start with a low caloric input for the first couple of days post-fast (approximately 500-800 calories for women and 800-1000 for men), ideally begin with liquids and healthy fats, and slowly start to incorporate cooked and fermented foods. As you near the end of the week, you can begin adding raw foods to your diet, always being mindful of how your body responds to the foods you choose. The primary focus here should be creating more diversity of healthy bacteria in the gut microbiome by making supportive food choices.

After all that you’ve accomplished over the course of your fast, ask yourself this critical question: Am I going to refuel with love or fear? Rather than attaching to the negative aspect of a fast (what we’re losing, avoiding, or sacrificing), let’s instead look at what we’re gaining from this powerful healing process.

If you’d like to learn more about fasting and how to prepare yourself for a healthy fast, sign up for our 4-week online Metabolic Fix program in the Health Ignited Club.

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