Playing Fast and Loose with Fasting

Beautiful Readers,

For several years I have been following the recent fascination with fasting. There are all kind of ’systems’ on the market that claim to offer toxin removal, energy-enhancement, and overall purifying benefits. Some popular ones are  Master Cleanse which features a lemonade and cayenne pepper concoction and very little else for as long as you can stand it , something called  Blueprint Cleanse which will deliver new juice to your door every day of the week depending on how long you plan to partake in their juice-only program, or The David Kirsh Systems that offer every variety of healing through specialized eating (or not eating) that you could possibly imagine David Kirsch 5 Day Detox Kit  offers pro-biotic solution (probably not a bad idea for someone who won’t be eating), protein drinks, some fizzy vitamin stuff with tea extract, and pretty much the same lemonade as in the Master Cleanse variety.

A few things come to mind. First, the last place I heard this much language about needing to purify, cleanse, and remove toxinsthat might be within us was in a New England Catholic church with my grandmother many years ago. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It seems pretty safe to presume that humans may have a pesky, irrational, tendency to think that there might be something ‘impure’ about them that maybe needs to be fixed.

Also, there is no actual science to suggest that there is anything that needs to be cleaned inside us that our internal organs don’t do a mighty fine job cleaning themselves. That’s kind of what our body does– take things apart and make them usable, fix them up, and put them in the right places. And this notion that I have sometimes heard that our organs need a ‘break’ is just silly. Our organs don’t need a vacation anymore than our kitchen sponge does.  Here’s what a Gastroenterologist from the Mayo Clinic has to say about detox diets.

Now here is where things get complicated. All the stuff you hear about sugars, fats, and chemical additives being bad for you (and your internal organs) is resoundingly true. Sugar (and that’s carbohydrates of certain kinds too), in too large a quantity, over time, can literally start breaking down the linings of internal organs leaving them available for infection, and literally changing how our hormones behave. In this way, our internal organs do, in fact, want a ‘break’ but the break they want is long term and spans years of dietary improvement. Not nearly so exciting as a little lightheadedness and a bottle of lemonade.

For the record  I think fasting is ok. Short term and with the right conditions (well hydrated-not too much exertion) and please don’t include any form of speed with the suffix ’-ine’ to ‘boost’ your metabolism. Just simply not eating for a couple of days, maybe drinking a fair bit of green tea (which I am convinced has had me lose more weight in the past)  is an acceptable way to gain control over your eating habits, drop a few pounds, and decrease your hunger overall. Also, fasting, can bring into very fine focus (mostly due to that emergency-like starving feeling) your relationship to your body.

The kids are away and the bf is at a weekend workshop..so for the next two days, as the perennial guinea pig (a very svelte guinea pig), I’m going to try living on only a lemonade recipe with cayenne pepper and maple syrup (ingredients of the two above recipes) to see what it’s like…and I’ll let you know how it went when it’s over.

Thanks for reading,

Alix Florio

President Beautiful Fitness