Personal Experience while Fasting
Thursday morning started off rough... I had made the typical shakeology of PB2, chocolate shakeology and a banana for my husband's breakfast, and he took one whiff of it and just couldn't drink it. He's enjoyed it for awhile now ever day, but the last several days his tummy and olfactory glands has been keeping him up a lot at night and making him super picky on his food. Now, if you want to do a cheap cleanse, just get food poisoning like he did! He's hardly taken a bite of anything all week! I digress...so rather than wasting it, I had that for breakfast Thursday. Lunch was a fasting shake, as well as dinner.
I didnt drink any lemon-water like the brochure suggested, since I was already sucking on several Ricola lemon drops throughout the day to ward off my cold/sour throat...thought that was a good enough substitute. But, I did stick to drinking a ton of water as well. Hunger through the first day was fine. Always a tad hungry, but never ravenous....so I just kept myself really busy and I was ok. I brough my daughter to softball try-outs that evening, so that filled in the time well for me.
Day 2, I woke up and had a banana immediately. The directions indicated that a banana was fine if you experience headaches, but since I was going out for a run that morning, I thought getting something into me was advisable. I had a poor run....2.2miles in 25 minutes, so it was an ok pace given my lack of nutrients the day before. I had a fast shake for breakfast (put a scoop of whey protein in there as well), lunch and dinner...and still had a lot of water and sucked on a few dozen lozenges :) Again, hunger was manageable, and during parts of the day, I didn't even notice any hunger. At that point, I had done 5 servings of the suggested 6.
Day 3 for breakfast I had the last serving, which staved off hunger until lunch time...at which time my fast will be officially over.
Hunger? It was manageable....but definitely needed something to distract me. I would not suggest doing this fast if you weren't planning on being very busy! If I was bored, the hunger would have been way too much for me to handle. But, since I was at work, and I had a ton of little things to finish, it was more than ok. Also, if you have a sugar/caffeine addiction, you may want to wean yourself off of those as much as possible beforehand, as the resulting headaches could make the fast miserable. Fortunately, that was not an issue for me at all, and I experienced no headaches.
Benefits/Assumptions of a Liquid Fast
Just note that fasting should never be done solely to lose weight. You may easily lose 4-7 pounds (and I was right in the middle of that range), but most of this is water weight, so it will come back....not all of it, but most of it. The cleaner you eat after the fast, the better chance you have of not adding the water back on. Therefore, as you can imagine, most people who denounce any fasting product are simply missing the big picture.
Another benefit is that your stomach will shrink a little in that 48 hours of not eating...so when going off of the fast, do NOT grab a HUGE meal, which will just stretch your stomach out again. Instead, have small meals, and if you give it a chance, you will notice that feel full faster than before. Keep that going....its a great way to lose weight without any effort!
Fasting with a liquid diet (as opposed to fasting with just water) is not as stressful to your body. The result is to give your organs and digestive system a break (eg no fiber for your body to break down), but still ingesting nutrients your body needs to be healthy. By giving your system a much-needed vacation from breaking down food, your body is able to divert all of its energy it usually uses for food into healing your body. Your immune system therefore can focus on repair.
The idea of a good detox diet is to eat clean foods (which is what is in the beachbody can) that will ease the functioning of the lymph, kidneys and liver. Anything that harms their functions is avoided. If this is not periodically "cleaned up", toxin levels can increase and negatively affect our body. Specifically, toxins hinder the functioning of the liver, the second largest organ in our body and whose primary purpose is to detox and purify the blood. When your liver is healthy, your body can fight diseases more effectively. When your liver is not proficient, fatigue, skin problems, immunity, allergies, headaches, etc can increase in occurrence.
Many people use a fast to kick-start a diet. Why? Because, simply put, when you remove the impurities in your body, your body is better at processing the nutrients. If you are going to reduce your caloric level by half, you better make sure that every nutrient ingested is being put to work 100% and is being absorbed by your body.
Type of Toxins
Toxins are created both externally and internally, which can build up to unsafe levels. Our body works constantly to remove these toxins from our system.
We are all exposed to external toxins such as polluted water, car exhaust, breathing polluted air, make-up chemicals/solvents and standard household products. Our bodies were simply not designed to handle toxic elimination to this extent. Even the food we eat can contain toxins that are naturally bad for our body; we ingest pesticides and on our food daily, and our food now contains less vitamins/minerals than ever before because we alter how these animals feed/live (eg feeding grains to tilapia and cows, neither of which serves their genetic makeup). Alcohol, cigarette smoke (even second hand), fast foods, sodas and processed food create long-term toxin buildup in our body. You simply cannot avoid all toxins in today's world.
Our own body also creates toxins internally. Viral infections and bacterial infections produces toxins in our body. Stress also contributes to this build-up.
Summary
Toxins, which the body cannot easily release tend to be stored in cellulite (a form of fat combined with water). The only way to get rid of it is to use foods and herbs which support your body’s detox mechanisms. My cellulite looks less noticeable, although I didn't really compare before and after pics. :)
Fasting with a liquid diet (as opposed to fasting with just water) is not as stressful to your body. The result is to give your organs and digestive system a break (eg no fiber for your body to break down), but still ingesting nutrients your body needs to be healthy. By giving your system a much-needed vacation from breaking down food, your body is able to divert all of its energy it usually uses for food into healing your body. Your immune system therefore can focus on repair.
The idea of a good detox diet is to eat clean foods (which is what is in the beachbody can) that will ease the functioning of the lymph, kidneys and liver. Anything that harms their functions is avoided. If this is not periodically "cleaned up", toxin levels can increase and negatively affect our body. Specifically, toxins hinder the functioning of the liver, the second largest organ in our body and whose primary purpose is to detox and purify the blood. When your liver is healthy, your body can fight diseases more effectively. When your liver is not proficient, fatigue, skin problems, immunity, allergies, headaches, etc can increase in occurrence.
Many people use a fast to kick-start a diet. Why? Because, simply put, when you remove the impurities in your body, your body is better at processing the nutrients. If you are going to reduce your caloric level by half, you better make sure that every nutrient ingested is being put to work 100% and is being absorbed by your body.
Type of Toxins
Toxins are created both externally and internally, which can build up to unsafe levels. Our body works constantly to remove these toxins from our system.
We are all exposed to external toxins such as polluted water, car exhaust, breathing polluted air, make-up chemicals/solvents and standard household products. Our bodies were simply not designed to handle toxic elimination to this extent. Even the food we eat can contain toxins that are naturally bad for our body; we ingest pesticides and on our food daily, and our food now contains less vitamins/minerals than ever before because we alter how these animals feed/live (eg feeding grains to tilapia and cows, neither of which serves their genetic makeup). Alcohol, cigarette smoke (even second hand), fast foods, sodas and processed food create long-term toxin buildup in our body. You simply cannot avoid all toxins in today's world.
Our own body also creates toxins internally. Viral infections and bacterial infections produces toxins in our body. Stress also contributes to this build-up.
Summary
Toxins, which the body cannot easily release tend to be stored in cellulite (a form of fat combined with water). The only way to get rid of it is to use foods and herbs which support your body’s detox mechanisms. My cellulite looks less noticeable, although I didn't really compare before and after pics. :)
Also, there was some discomfort....but I kept busy...and I dropped a ton of water weight, simply confirming that my body was holding on to so much water just to prevent the toxins from harming me!
I feel I have more energy, and my clothes are a tad looser, although thats mostly a temporary benefit I know. Now, I'll start my serious diet and see if I can drop another 10 pounds while I work on the "Slim in 6" program and continue my running training schedule (35 down, total of 20 to go). But, I feel healthy and vibrant, and it will hopefully encourage me to stay true to my diet!
Would I do it again? It got rid of toxins and excess water, which the scale definitely showed. I would do it again, for sure. Its definitely cheaper and quicker than other cleansing products I've tried in the past! If the product is of interest to you, visit here, then click "shop" and then "Nutrition and Supplements" and then "Weight Management" .....the ingredient/nutrition label can be seen here. Now, if you want to try an alternative approach, here are a few suggestions:
- CleanseMax is a natural approach. Its not jarring on your system, but is pricier and takes 30 days of supplements to complete.
- If you have a juicer, you can always chose just to create a natural juice drink to consume three times a day, and then just water between those "meals". If you want to try this approach, use beet root, carrot, celery, cucumber, watercress and spinach in your juicer.
- You can also use freshly squeezed diluted fruit juice (apple, grape, strawberry, pineapple, mango, melon, papaya, peach, pear). The costs for this fruit does add up fast, but if you are adversed to "box food" this is an excellent option.
Note: Diabetics should definitely avoid fasting unless you are under strict doctor guidance....and really, anyone with any doubt of fasting should always consult a physician. I'm definitely not one, so don't rely on just my opinion. But, fasting has been done for cultural and religious reasons for centuries, so I don't think there is any harm to the overwhelming part of the population!
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