I fast regularly and now I'm used to that. I can be happy with water alone, for a couple of weeks.
Wow! You often talk about the food you eat on hikes and such. All very healthy. But how often do you fast and do you do a couple of weeks each time? What are the effects, if any, both during and after resuming eating. There is a body of opinion that fasting is good for you, typified by the 5+2 diet and such but a day or two is the usual dose. Tell us more about your ascetic nutritional practice, please, jbee. 
John
I’ll try to be short and simple.
Discovering that I was hypoglycemic had me eating to control mood swing like eating for medication for years. The idea of not eating seemed a ridiculous notion with all of the uncomfortable effects.
During the time leading up to India, I began to follow spiritual fasts. I’d drink organic apple juice here and there with water. It seemed to be augmenting my quest for a permanent altered state. There are multiple and complex reasons for the spiritual fasting.
I did this a few times a year as it felt time, or was suggested. I had just begun one of these and I read Gabriel Cousen’s “There is a Cure for Diabetes.” The procedure requires a fast. I was already half way there. I did it and began a raw food diet to the letter of the book. The hypoglycemic roller coaster mitigation disappeared completely.
I began to investigate further about this fasting thing and health. Hands down, nearly all studies show fasting increases longevity. It is great for general health. It resets my clock so to speak. It starves the causes of gut imbalance and rebalances. This is basic to a host of killer diseases. The other systems work better, there is a detox effect. It goes great with sweating for the skin’s functions. Vitamin D is produced by the body with this balance and lack of toxicity. We evolved with degrees of starvation, which is natural. The system gets a break from the work of digestion and turns to balance and detox instead. There is a ton of information out there supporting the benefits of fasting, most based on very controlled medical science.
The first couple of days can be rough…starvation, super hungry. After that, it is easy. I don’t really want to eat. I do it when I have fallen off of my 80% raw foods diet enough to need a reset. I do this about three times a year. I go a week to ten days. It is intuitive and depends on how out of whack my system is (one indicator is that the symptoms of the hypoglycemic stuff begins to return). These days, I either go straight water, or juice fast. I can often feel the symptoms of detox. It makes me very aware. Some people get more energetic when they fast. I went twenty days once. I can also get kinda spacey while going through it, especially the first few days.
I often don’t eat from dinner till the next afternoon. Maybe a juice. This helps the body by giving it a break from digesting, which is better for the sleep states. It is a fast.
Sometimes, the first days are very hard. I get SOOOO HUNGRY!!! Sometimes during those days, I just sit and thoughts become less and less relevant. Then passed that, I’m pretty good, but that’s just my body’s system. It varies.
It is all good for weight problems, as long as you get to the “I’m not hungry anymore.” Otherwise, the starvation reflex a natural gluttony has one shoveling food down, jaw unhinged. This is very unhealthy and can lead to eating disorders.
When it is time to get back into food, I ease in. Juice becomes smoothey, probiotics like miso soup, which leads to yogurts, and more easily digested stuff. I like to get to a sushi bar for miso, a few green beans, green tea, and some protein with omega fish oils. Then do my best with Cousen’s live living food cookbook, raw stuff. The nutrition drops away fast as food gets older, it is cooked, etc. When I eat this living stuff, I don’t eat as much and I’m more mindful of the experience, eating slower, enjoying it. I shovel, eating other things completely differently. After about a week, I’m stuffing a good pizza. It’s my treat and liberation from the renunciation discipline of perfection.
I don’t know about 5+2 diet. I just googled it. It doesn’t sound like a good idea. It should just put someone in a starvation mode all of the time and keep them obsessed with food. It is important to biologically reset and detox, which takes more time. Eating whatever, certainly isn’t good. There is so much crap, fake food out there. Shoveling food because it has no nutrition and the body keeps trying get nutrition when it isn’t there. All of the unnecessary preservatives in processed foods. Cooked foods until there is nothing left. Sugars and salts by the truck loads…on and on. You have to get to the point where you are not hungry anymore, get reset and then the body is okay to not eat here and there. It is important to eat nutritious food when you do eat, mindfully and relaxed.
Jbee
