Today is day 3 of a water fast for me. It’s my first water fast in over 30 years, although I’ve done many other types of cleanses in that time, from the Master Cleanse to the Gallbladder Liver Flush to the Medical Medium’s Liver Rescue.
Each fast or cleanse carries its own benefits and opportunities for body, mind and Spirit, but also its own challenges.
On this water fast, my biggest challenge is food.
It’s put me into “observer” mode. I’m observing my body, and I’m observing my mind. I’m fascinated by how my subconscious thoughts are so crystal clear to me at the moment, particularly those around food.
My conscious mind knows that I’m choosing to have no food for 3 days. But that message hasn’t reached my subconscious.
I’m regularly catching myself with the thought, “Ahhh, it’s time for lunch.” I’ll see some lovely fresh fruit, and my inner child jumps out of me with excitement, wanting to reach out and put a luscious juicy grape in my mouth, or salivate over a piece of pineapple.
I’m already dreaming of the wonderful array of healthy fresh foods I’ll have when I start to come off the water fast tomorrow.
And part of that observation is of my emotions around food. When I have that thought, “Ahhh, it’s time for lunch”, it’s not just a thought. It comes with a full body and emotional “Yes!” to food. It’s a visceral response.
Then a millisecond after having that thought, I remember that I’m on a water fast.
I get to choose all over again. Do I give in to the temptation for food, or do I exercise resolve and continue with the fast?
Of course I’m continuing. I’m almost there. 15 hours to go, and counting.
I know the water fast will be good for me.
If you feel the same, make sure you undertake a water fast under the guidance of someone who leads many people in water fasts. Any fast, if not done properly, can cause challenges for our body.
I’ve learned how after 8 to 12 hours into a water fast, our body starts to go into nutritional ketosis. That’s when our body switches from an external food source to an internal one. This is when our hunger settles. Our body is being nourished, this time by its own fat reserves. And when we burn our own fat, our body starts to heal.
Autophagy kicks in 12 to 16 hours after we start a water fast. This is when our body begins to break down the unhealthy visceral fat that gets deposited around our organs. It also removes plaque, scar tissue, and old damaged proteins that are floating around our body. It repairs our metabolism and our cells, and reduces microbes, fungus, yeast and infection in our body.
Yep, that’s pretty amazing. It’s basically allowing our body to enter into a deep cleanse, to remove anything it doesn’t want or need in there.
Even though our body has started to go into ketosis quite early in the water fast, it takes a while for it to go into full ketosis. By undergoing a really good bowel cleanse before a water fast and by adhering to a vegan diet for at least the week beforehand, we can prepare our body to go into this full ketosis quite quickly, usually within 24 hours. If we skip this step, it can take up to 48 hours to enter full ketosis, as our body is still running off the partially digested food in our intestines.
Once we’re into the full ketosis phase, our insulin sensitivity improves, and so does our brain health.
On a water fast, our body also starts to produce stem cells. These aren’t the normal “specific” stems cells for a special organ. These are generic stem cells, that can take the place of any damaged tissue in our body – eyes, ears, digestion, brain, bones, heart, lungs.
Whenever I feel my excited yearning to eat bursting up to the surface, I strengthen my resolve by imagining this incredible army of stem cells marching through my body, healing it on every level.
Around the same time that new stem cells are being released, we also release extra Human Growth Hormone. This is our longevity hormone, and it’s produced in large amounts during a water cleanse.
But that’s not the only magic that occurs. When we’re 48 hours into a water fast, our PKA enzyme gets suppressed. It normally prevents the uptake of stem cells, so with it being suppressed, our body can get those stem cells where they’re needed.
Then 72 hours into a water fast our immune system is completely reset, our Human Growth Hormone has peaked, and our cells have entered a full protective mode.
Rats that have been fed poison after 72 hours on a water fast are unaffected by the poison. Wow!
Why would someone undertake a water fast? It’s to allow natural healing to occur in our body. I’ve had some vertigo on and off this past couple of months, and I want to see if the water fast can help.
There’s an amazing story of a woman called Jennifer Richie. She fell off a 2 story building and shattered her spine. Her doctors made the difficult but necessary decision to cut her spinal cord at the injury site, and insert titanium rods. Whilst this potentially saved her life, it made her a complete paraplegic.
She undertook a 40 day water fast as part of her recovery protocols, and regained movement. After the water fast, she took pulses and aloe vera to rebuild her nutrition and her digestive system. By any medical model, recovery from having the spinal cord severed should be impossible. Yet it happened, and she went on to run a full marathon, unassisted.
This reminds me also of D. Gary Young, the founder of Young Living Essential Oils. He was paralysed in a logging accident when he was 24, and told that he’d never walk again. But at some point in his journey, when he felt there was no hope left, he made the decision to go onto the Master Cleanse.
After 250+ days (going onto the Master Cleanse, then onto soup broths, then back onto the Master Cleanse, and so on), Gary got feeling back in his toes. He was so inspired that he went on to study reflexology, naturopathy and homeopathy.
Just like Jennifer Ritchie, Gary ended up being able to walk again.
13 years after his accident, he placed 60th out of almost 1,000 people in a half marathon.
Unlike a water fast, the Master Cleanse (also known as the Lemonade Diet) involves some nutrition coming into the body in the form of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water. That mix is called “lemonade”. That’s all you consume, for a minimum of 10 days. It’s considered a “liquid mono diet”, ie. a food source that’s so easily digestible, it allows the body plenty of energy left over to do a deep spring clean of the cells and organs.
Unlike a water fast where you move through hunger into non-hunger, in the Master Cleanse you want your body to be hungry. Each time it’s hungry, that’s your signal to have another lemonade drink.
I’ve done up to 34 days on the Master Cleanse, with amazing results. 24 years ago after a major operation, I found myself experiencing depression and negative thinking. I knew this wasn’t me, and it was the toxicity in my body as the result of the anaesthetic. That Master Cleanse returned me to my “silver lining” and glass overflowing self, and I’ve never looked back.
In our modern world, we only see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our body’s capacity to heal itself. Our body is truly miraculous, and cleanses offer our body a great opportunity to reset itself, on all levels.
By removing the distraction and digestive impact of food, we not only help our physical body, we also see ourselves with greater clarity. This helps us with major “ah ha!” moments about our life, and reconnects us to our deeper Spirit.
A water fast is also a great symbol for other things in our life.
We’re not here to always have what we want. Sometimes, in not having what our Ego or inner child desires, or in journeying through something that’s uncomfortable, we set up a profound opportunity for healing and growth.
We evolve and develop resilience through these challenges.
It’s natural that on a purely comfort level we’d all love our life to be smooth sailing. Yet how often have you done something that’s really stretched you out of your comfort zone and been confronting and difficult, and you look back and now see it as a highlight of your life?
Living in Indonesia for 3 years in my mid 20’s was like that for me. It was a complete change of culture and lifestyle. Yet it brought about those forces to help me see that my previously chosen career of Zoology didn’t align with me anymore, and I did a 180 degree change into healing and spirituality.
Being phobic of spiders, I was in a pickle once I’d separated from my husband and no longer had someone to “rescue” me from them. The largest 8 legged monster I'd ever seen appeared in my home, and my journey of catching it and taking it outside was an initiation. Since then, I’ve grown to love and appreciate spiders – something that I’m so deeply grateful for, even though this gift came about through me facing one of my biggest fears.
If this blog has resonated with you, I’d love you to do two things. Firstly, reflect on the challenges you’ve faced in your life, which ended up being your greatest gifts. Record these in your journal.
Secondly, what other challenge has presented itself around you recently, which you’ve been too afraid to say yes to? If you know in your heart that it’s something that will help you, maybe now is the time to take that plunge.
