why fast? because i said so. haha no im just kidding.

Fasting allows your body to have a rest. Pure and simple. Eating and digesting is a very taxing business, particularly if what you eat has dairy products, fats, sugars, refined flours, meat, chemicals and preservatives etc. Our bodies are designed to eat basic foods, historically known as a mono diet. We would exist in a primal form on a grain of on meat exclusively for months in season, our bodies knew what to expect.

These days, the food we eat is so varied, each time we ingest anything that is not fruit, vegetables and some very selected grains, and we produce mucous to help it move through our alimentary canal. If everything we eat needs mucous, we end up with a really sluggish system and a colon full of mucous, that ends up as hard tar, full of shit, worms, parasites and old junk. This can weigh so much. Elvis' colon at his autopsy weighed over 50 pounds - just his colon! So if you fast and clean out the junk in your colon, then combine foods properly, weight falls off, stays off, body is working well, metabolism is firing on all cylinders, it's a bit like changing the oil in your car.

how long do i fast for? This is best answered again by considering your lifestyle. The optimum time to fast is 14 days initially.

This needs to be qualified by saying that this takes a lot of discipline and also 14 days where you really don't have much on. It is a time to be as the Buddhists would say 'in the moment', where you allow yourself to let your body slow down and relax, to let your mind wander, and be gentle and good to yourself while you eliminate old wastes. Most bodies can fast for up to 21 days without starting to waste organ tissue. Fat is used up first, then muscle.

If it is impossible to do a long fast, then you need to plan to fast at least one or two days a week, if you think about it that adds up to nearly a third of a year - pretty good length of time for fasting, and it won't be impossible to schedule in.

how do i fast? Fasting isn't just a matter of stopping eating; it is stopping eating solids, to allow time for impurities to be eliminated from the body.

A faster needs to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. Plus unlimited herbal teas, coconut water if fresh coconuts are available (the juice inside, not the flesh!) and vegetable mineral broths made of boiling up vegetables and herbs on the stove and straining out the solids leaving a broth. This keeps the body's vitamins and minerals up as well as flushing the toxins out of the liver and kidneys. Juices etc aren't allowed on an elimination fast, but you can juice fast or mono diet, and a loss of weight and purification will occur, just in a different way.

Decide you are going to fast, and take the step. It will be hard sometimes, and your brain and others will be telling you to eat eat eat, but be strong and keep reminding your self that food will always be around. It is excellent to have a buddy to do it with, or go away from your normal food triggers, if you are able to get some time off. I always like to be by the sea and swim if possible, or in the mountains where I am with nature. Meditation, long baths, writing diaries and poems, reading and lots of sleeping really help. Just let your bodies relax totally, and reward your self for every day with lots of love and encouragement.

ok, im fasting, now how do i stop without gaining weight? Coming off a fast is probably more difficult than actually fasting to be done properly so weight isn't quickly gained. If you consider what your body has been through in fasting, it is now taken back to a much cleaner state, so don't put dirty junk back in, it needs to be run slowly and smoothly to get back to eating.

This is especially important for long fasts, i.e. those over 7 days. You can feel really sick if you rush out and go crazy eating, believe me it is a rank feeling!

You need to leave yourself about 5 days to come off a fast.

Day one and two should be juices and a fruit, not a combination of things as stated before, the body likes to digest one at a time. Apples, pears, mango, grapes, watermelon, watery fruit are great. Things like banana and avocado are too complex. Save them for later.

Day three: a light raw salad with some lemon juice squeezed on is fine, still plenty of water and fruit.

By day four and five, some cooked steamed vegetables or a bowl of brown rice will get you moving again. A good rule of thumb is to not eat any protein until you have had a decent bowel movement, so keep up the high fiber and veggies till then.