What are the most powerful things you can do for your health? There is a lot of variability in just how these factors might look because people are variable. We all have slightly different genes, which means we all have different strengths and weaknesses. But in general, the top health promoters are:
Good sleep/relaxation
Proper exercise
Healthy diet/liquids/air
Healthy relationships
Purposeful activities/work
Fasting
Okay, the first five make sense, but what is with number six – fasting? Up until about a hundred years ago, fasting was the most commonly used and most powerful health intervention humans employed. In a natural environment, fasting happens simply because there is not enough food year-round. Our bodies are designed with this
reality factored in. We need time to clean out our systems regularly so we can dump the broken cellular waste and rebuild newer healthy cells. But this does not happen if we are eating all the time. It happens a tiny bit when we fast from food for at least 12 hours, and it really kicks in once we have been without food for about 72 hours.
I did my first fast in 1971 when I entered UC Davis. It was a 2-week water fast. I had read a bit about the science of fasting in a Scientific American article the year before (yes I know how geeky it was to have a subscription to Scientific American in high school). The idea fascinated me, but I had to leave the “nest” to be able to do this. It was amazing to discover that I could not only survive without eating but that I could actually feel better! Back then there was almost nothing written anywhere about fasting and no scientific studies other than the one I had read the year before. Recently fasting has enjoyed an upsurge of interest from the scientific community. Lots of research has been done in the last few years and many insights have been gained.
The big idea that has surfaced is about how the
body literally digests its own old broken cells and replaces them with new ones when you fast. This does not happen like it should when we have regular meals. Also interesting is the chemistry of what triggers this process (called autophagy) and what turns it off. As it happens, it is the absence of proteins in the diet that controls this process combined with a lack of carbohydrates. Dietary fat and fiber is not really involved. This has prompted the development of the fast mimicking diet that promotes the rejuvenating power of the autophagy systems in the body.
Ellen and I were wanting to engage a bit of rejuvenation for our bodies, so fasting or fast mimicking was on the horizon. We had been trying out the carnivore diet to get rid of various aches and pains and take off a few pounds. As long as we stuck just to beef and salt, we did well. As soon as we started adding in other things to test for allergic reactions, things came to a grinding halt. We decided to use a fast to kick things back into gear. A complaint I have had for years about water fasting is that all the poisons your body is trying to eliminate have no way to get out of the body. The vast majority of poison elimination is through the bile from the liver into the intestines. But when you are water fasting, your intestines just lay there and do nothing. The poisons pile up in there and can be reabsorbed. That is why I devised the Green Fast a couple
years ago. Greens are basically fiber and will push the poisons out of the body during fasting if you eat enough of them. But greens were not on the menu during our carnivore trial. We still did not know what greens we might be reacting to, as any plant food carries the potential to be an allergen.
The first two things we had added back into our diet after a month of just beef, was avocado and coconut. We seemed to do okay with them. Things went wacky after they were added with the next few foods we added. I put my thinking cap on and crafted a fast mimicking diet that would not only provide a load of fiber but would also help heal our gut at the same time. Gut healing is a difficult process at best. It is like
trying to repair your car while also driving down the road at the same time. The best time to work on the gut is when you are not going to be using it. From this awareness sprang the genesis of the Fiber Fast.
What is the Fiber Fast I hear you anxiously asking? It is a way to enjoy the benefits of autophagy rejuvenating our bodies without the starvation fears of water fasting while also healing our guts. Simply described it amounts to drinking a tasty fiber shake any time we felt at all hungry. We found that the fiber shake took care of hunger for about three to four hours. And because of what it is made of, it only amounted to about 200 calories per day and almost no protein. This allowed us to step into autophagy easily. So what is in the shake? I make a blender full of avocado milk – about half a ripe avocado to a quart and a
half of purified water. I add liquid stevia to taste and blend in about three tablespoons of my Gut Healer fiber/glutamine blend plus an extra tablespoon of psyllium seed powder. The glutamine directly feeds the colon cells to give them energy for healing. The soluble fibers feed the good guy bacteria which reduce inflammation in the body and also convert the fiber into ketones to feed our heart and brain. The insoluble fibers grab the poisons and carry them out of the body. The avocado milk and stevia makes a delicious shake to carry all these good fibers down the hatch.
After a few days, we experimented and added unprocessed cocoa powder to our shakes and found we did well with this addition. So now we have chocolate shakes. One of the fibers in the Gut Healer is glucomannan, from konjac root.
This is an excellent soluble fiber, and it is also the only ingredient in konjac noodles – the zero carb noodles I buy at the Asian market. Since we were already consuming glucomannan in the shakes, I decided we could also eat the zero carb noodles as a bit of variety to our non-food diet. Noodles heated with a touch of avocado oil and fish sauce made a welcome addition to our Fiber Fast.
Pectin is also in the Gut Healer, so I have been experimenting with making pectin based no-sugar jelly candies. So far I have not been entirely successful. It does not seem to want to set up properly, so it is mostly just a gooey mess. But it is fun experimenting. What else can I make that is basically just fiber, with no carbs, protein, or fat? Although the no fat part is simply because weight loss is a part of the goal of this Fiber fast. Extra fat on the body is a constant source of inflammation. Every fat cell, once it gets filled up, starts excreting inflammatory cytokines. This is not good, so getting those fat cells emptied is part of the feel-good long term goal.
Ah, how about a cabbage and celery dish? Those
are basically just fiber with no carbs, protein, or fat. In fact I could even add some of the noodles. A touch of bullion and fish sauce for flavor and we have an autophagy promoting winner.
So this is what Ellen and I are doing during our Covid 19 stay at home time. It means we don’t have to go to the grocery store (other than for avocados, cabbage, and celery), or much else. It means no cooking, just a bit of a spin of the old Vita-Mix blender. So far the whole experience has been quite pleasant. So if you are thinking “Gee, what can I do to improve my health?”, here is a real option. It is bold. It is different. It feels like an empowering challenge while actually being pretty easy. But most of all, your body will really thank you for it.
Take care,
David