All about fasting

10 August, 2012

For many of us fasting is something that's done for spiritual gain. According to scriptures, fasting helps to establish a harmonious relationship between the body and the soul.

HOWEVER, FASTING is not only done for worship, but it is also a powerful therapeutic process that helps to recover many health conditions such as asthma, allergies, high blood pressure, chronic headache, and inflammatory bowel disease, etc. During the period of fasting, the body gets a physiological rest and it devotes this time for self healing mechanism and repairs and strengthens its damaged organs. It also allows the body to detoxify the accumulated toxins in the cells.

An appropriate fasting will provide you more energy, healthier gums, healthier skin, a healthy cardiovascular system, decreased levels of stress, complete elimination of pains in the joint and muscles, maintains the blood pressure, improves digestion, detoxification, stabilizes the bowel movement and provides a better quality sleep.

The several types of fasting methods and the one which you choose depends upon how best will you sacrifice yourself upon god. Here are some types of fasting methods:

Dry fasting – this is the most extreme type of fasting. It is also known as absolute fast or black fast. In this kind of fasting a person stays without eating food and water for a short period (days or weeks).

Liquid fasting – this is fasting that's done by taking only liquids. The liquid fasting is of two types, water fasting and juice fasting. Water fasting is the oldest form of liquid fasting, it provides maximum therapeutic benefits because detoxification occurs more quickly in water fasting. Juice fasting is the popular form of fasting, it provides nutrition to the body during the fast time in a pure and natural way.

Partial fasting – it is also known as selective fasting. In this type of fasting, some kind of foods are excluded in the diet. Mono-diets or cleansing diets are the examples of partial fasting.

Weight loss and fasting goes hand in hand. It is the speedy and the most effective way to weight loss. But many people prefer 'fasting when they gain weight and start eating when they lose the excess weight', this is a wrong concept. After loosing the excess weight away, the fasting should be continued to break the desire on food addiction. Fasting is the healthiest kind of weight management program.