Detoxification

There are a lot of ways to detoxify your body that involve expensive or complicated medical programs but simply fasting may be the best way of all.  When you stop eating solid food for a day or two and drink only water or juice the body shifts its focus away from digestion and expends energy on restoring bodily balance by detoxification and eliminating other wastes.  The body, when left to its own devices, knows what it needs and what it doesn't and works hard to get rid of the bad stuff given a chance.  Fasting is the body's way of cleaning house.  In many ways it is a rest and regeneration cycle similar to sleeping. 

Normally the body gets energy from glucose, which is a form of sugar taken from the food we eat.  We either get this directly from food or the liver will store it in a form called glycogen.  However, when you start to fast this sugar gets used up in the first day.  If you continue to fast past the first day, the body shifts its type of glucose fuel supply from food over to fat from your fat reserves.  This is called ketosis, but during this two to three day conversion there is not enough glucose from fat yet so the body also breaks down a small amount of amino acids from your muscles.  This conversion of muscles into glucose is called catabolizing and is at its greatest on the second and third days of a fast.  By the end of the third day of a fast, the body is running almost exclusively on body fat with only a reduced amount of muscle being consumed.  If you were to water fast for two weeks in most cases you would lose less than a pound of muscle assuming you had enough fat reserves to last that long.  It is crucial, of course, that you drink plenty of water during a fast.  You can go without food for a fairly long period of time with positive health benefits all along the way but not drinking enough water is detrimental in almost all cases. 

Most of us have more body fat than is good for us so using up some during a fast is healthy but the big benefit from fasting is because the body will search out and consume energy from unused or non-vital sources.  Your body naturally will try to maintain muscle mass and would much rather use up non-vital things in your body.  This may include toxins, tumors, waste material and many other disease or degenerative conditions that can be converted into fuel.  Certainly fasting is not a cure all for all ailments or a miracle cure and there are limits to how much it can heal but a whole host of medical conditions have been cured or alleviated by simply fasting.  Certainly fasting is an excellent method of detoxification. 

Of course, certain people who have medical problems should not fast or do so only under direct medical supervision.  If you have very low fat reserves to begin with or suffer from anemia, bulimia or anorexia you should not fast.  Pregnant or nursing women should also not start a fasting program.  These people should pursue other methods of detoxification.