Earlier this year, I wrote about some of the amazing effects periodic fasting can have on your health. The article focused on a research team from the University of Southern California, who discovered that not only is fasting not bad for you, as many nutritionists have claimed, but it can actually completely regenerate you’re entire immune system.
They found that just three days of fasting would kick-start the body’s stem cells to produce new white blood cells, while simultaneously discarding older immune cells. It also had the added benefit of reducing an enzyme which has been linked to tumor and cancer growth.
But that research team hasn’t been resting on their laurels by any means. They’ve continued their research on the health benefits of fasting, and they’ve discovered that it can also add years to your life. What’s more important though, is that they’ve figured out an eating regimen that can produce many of the same healthy effects, without fully abstaining from food. It’s a 5 day diet that halves your daily intake on the first day, and then cuts it down to a third for the following four days. It’s very slim on on protein, and very high in fat and vegetables:
“Strict fasting is hard for people to stick to, and it can also be dangerous, so we developed a complex diet that triggers the same effects in the body,’ said Professor Valter Longo, USC Davis School of Gerontology and director of the USC Longevity Institute.
“I’ve personally tried both, and the fasting mimicking diet is a lot easier and also a lot safer.
“I think based on the markers for ageing and disease in humans it has the potential to add a number of years of life but more importantly to have a major impact on diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other age-related disease.”
Day one of the diet comprises:
10 per cent protein, 56 per cent fat and 34 per cent carbohydrate, making 1,090 calories
Days two to five:
Nine per cent protein, 44 per cent fat and 47 per cent carbohydrate making 725 calories
So how well does it work? After testing this diet on humans, they found that after three months the test subjects had all lost weight, which goes without saying. But their markers for cancer, diabetes, and heart disease were all reduced. What’s more, the participants in the study were told to go back to eating whatever they liked after the five day fast, which could also include an unhealthy diet. They still reaped many of the health benefits.
So if you’re worried about your health or if you’re just looking to lose some weight, but you don’t think you can handle a traditional fast, this diet may be right up your alley. It’s now been proven that you don’t need to completely abstain from food to experience the benefits of fasting. Still, the researchers suggest that you should consult your doctor before undertaking any kind of fast, since some folks are not healthy enough for it. If you’re still interested in giving it a shot, you can learn more of the study’s details at cell.com.
This article was originally published at Ready Nutrition™ on June 25th, 2015
Why would the doctors recommend carbs? Especially 47%! I fast every day from 9pm to 2pm, eat high fat protein, full fat dairy and little if any carbs. Have lost 75 pounds and am no longer diabetic.
Because docs MUST toe Mainstream Medicine’s, MM, calories and cholesterol line, to help market the useless and toxic 25B$ annual statins. ie fats are B A D, they fatten, (it’s the carbs that fatten), and they clog arteries, (saturated fat laoded foods protect), so “take your ‘bad cholesterol’ lowering statins”.
It’s difficult to get accurate info on the net with even the world’s top 2 ‘alternative’ health sites using guest writers, who to the MM line. There’s very accurate no-punches-pulled eating advise in the free Articles, Healthy eating of the tthairsolutions site.
Has an actual meal plan (diet) been published?
I fast routinely. Never had any problem. My health is good though. The longest I have is 31 days without any speck of hard food going through my throat. I used the master cleanser, which was a method advised to me on one site I used to go to long ago. I recommend it to anyone. Not only that, it really cleans and purifies the body. While doing that 31 days fast, one day, I was about to catch the bus, at the end of my 3rd week, and I could see it about a block an half away from where I was. I had a loaded back pack and another heavy bag on me, both NOT small ones!!! I took off after the bus, and while running, I remember thinking “there is nothing in my stomach, I am going to collapse,…”, yet continued to run with such lightness that shocked me. First off, I took off like a freaking A deeeear!!!!!!I have an athletic past, so running was a part of who I was as a person. But at that point, I have not done anything for at least 3 or 4 years. So I was not in my best shape. As I was thinking I was going to crumble, my legs continued to surprise me in a way they have not in the past. I literally maintained an amazing speed all the way to where the bus was still idling as it was still picking up passengers and I got on it!!!
I will NEVER forget that experience. Each time it comes up in a conversation, I literally freak out about it while I relate it to people, so unbelievable but true it is.
A resounding YES! Fasting is safe and good for the human body. Also as I am not young, each time I do fast using the master cleanser, my facial skin REMARKABLY PULLS AND REJUVENATES. So for when I don’t work out, that really does an outstanding job compensating. Prior to that fast, I had knee pain because I like abusing sugar, On the 4th day, the knee pain stopped cold turkey!! and bunch of other benefits.
For those that never done that, I would reassure them that, the first 72 hrs is the hardest as the brain, jaws and throat are used and conditioned to shew, and swallow food. So the person will be prompted to eat during that time, but if they resist the temptation as the MC really takes care of nutritionally nurturing the body, they will be fine afterward and the fast will be nothing more than a smooth sail afterward.
Hmmm, California researchers? You mean the ones also pushing vaccines the CDC has many warnings about? Those researchers?
A good point. That’s what the main stream media in this country does to people. It turns them into semi zombies or worse, knee jerking upon hearing select buzz words, such as the one you pointed out. There was a time where I used to hear announcements on the news about either how bad or how good eggs are for one for example. One time they’d tell you that eggs have bad cholesterol and that one should minimize eating them because a study’s results have just been released by such and such. Then, 6 months later, one would hear the exact opposite of that, and that eggs are not as bad as “we” initially thought they are, this time, as the drawn conclusions of some other obscure party that one never heard of, but that they must heed for “their own good”. It’s such sad pathetic joke. When I was a teen I used to eat eggs and not in ones or twos but in 6’s at the time. I love eggs. Never had any problem with my health, I always was very active. Not once, have I developed any medical problem by eating that many eggs.
Regardless of what today’s jokesters are saying about fasting or anything else, fasting has been practiced by near every civilization and religion known to mankind since the dawn of men’s history. All of them seem to be unanimous about its benefits. Few years ago I read a book about fasting written by a US medical doctor. In it, he went through how it remedies a slew of minor ailments. And not only minor but major as well. The way he got into it, was back when he was an Olympic ice skater, who upon having an accident that stopped him from continuing to ice skate at the level he has been, in the process of looking for solutions for his problem, and after all major doctors are the time told him to just forget it, he run into this medical clinic that put people on 3 weeks fast. Usually people who have serious incurable illnesses that everyone else told them to accept that they won’t be healed from as they are no cures. They go to that clinic and come out of it restored after they’ve gone through the medically supervised 3 weeks fast. The clinic was run at the time by a certain Dr. Shelton. To make a long story short, he was able to go back to ice skating. As result, he went to medical school and become a doctor.
When I fasted, I have for the personal reasons I stated and not because I heard a moron on tv ordering me to do because “it’s good for me”. And in the process of fasting, I found out how good it is for my body, mind and spirit.
I just want to point out that if I can fast, so can everybody. I love to eat. 20 years ago, if someone came to me and told me “you will live to fast days and days without any hard food going through your throat whatsoever.”, my reaction would have been “No, you go ahead and do that, I am not interested.”
I recommend you read couple of books about it, make sure one is spiritual and the other is written by a scientist that agrees to the benefits of it, that way you have a balanced outlook on the subject. And start small. 2 hours, one morning. And build up. The Daniel fast on the bible talks about vegetable and water as a way of fasting. chapter 1-2 and 9-10 on the book of Daniel on the bible have the proper verses that outline the exact wording of the fast.
The Master Cleanser did wonder for me personally. I recommend it to all.
also Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights right before He launched His Ministry. This to just say that Fasting is not a contemporary empty stupid superficial trend.
Well said and well supported. As a child I “fasted” simply because we did not always have food. I remember well peanut butter and grass soup… As for cholesterol the VA was giving me statin drugs to reduce my cholesterol and they nearly killed me with a heart attack. As it turns out your muscles NEED cholesterol.
I was in great heart and shoulder pain. they were going to give me a power chair because I could not use my wheel chair any more. So I did the research and stopped the statins and within one month the pain was gone.
Thank you so much for your support. I am so sorry about what you have gone through, and may God Bless you all the more for daring to take matters into your own hands. God forbids what might have happened if you did not act on what you found out.
As far as the food, me too I had lapses like that where my resources were limited and I decided some fast won’t hurt me, knowing what I know. So I have numerous 3, 4,5,6 days full fasts here and there. This happened as recently as 2 years ago. Thank you Jesus, He made that option available to me.
And even if your cholesterol was high, I know that garlic does an outstanding job, along with I think organic apple cider vinegar in lowering it. If you can help it, next time you get to thrift shop, look up the herbal medicine books they might have for sale. Those books can have some real jams in them.