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Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2018 5:08 pm
by Anders
I learned that senescent cells are cells that stop dividing and they can clog up tissue in the body and impair the function of the healthy cells.

"Senescent cells normally destroy themselves via a programmed process called apoptosis and they are also removed by the immune system; however, the immune system weakens with age, and increasing numbers of these senescent cells escape this process and build up." -- https://www.leafscience.org/foxo4/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Removing senescent cells reverses the biological age of the tissue I heard mentioned by an expert in a video. Not tested in humans yet as far as I know, but I think the same is the case for humans.

"Our results demonstrate that selective clearance of SCs [senescent cells] by a pharmacological agent is beneficial in part through its rejuvenation of aged tissue stem cells." -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26657143" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It seems that it's basically enough to remove the excess of senescent cells to reverse the biological aging of the body. And the senescent cells are precisely the kind of junk cells, among other damaged or dysfunctional cells, that the body starts eating during fasting.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 4:44 am
by Anders
One curious thing that happens in fasting is that the human brain switches from running on glucose as an energy source to running on ketone bodies.

"They know that the brain, an organ devoted to using glucose, can switch to use ketone bodies during prolonged starvation (2–3 days)" -- https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d ... 9403304246" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Ketone bodies are three water-soluble molecules (acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate, and their spontaneous breakdown product, acetone) that are produced by the liver from fatty acids[1] during periods of low food intake (fasting), carbohydrate restrictive diets, starvation, prolonged intense exercise,[2] alcoholism or in untreated (or inadequately treated) type 1 diabetes mellitus." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone_bodies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Bottom line: Ketone bodies are a cleaner, more efficient brain fuel that reduces oxidative stress, increasing mitochondrial activity, neuron signaling and cerebral blood flow — while naturally burning off fat reservoirs." -- https://www.honeycolony.com/article/ket ... -superman/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I heard experts saying (I don't have the links, sorry) that the brain of a chimpanzee can't use ketone bodies the same way the human brain can. And one expert gave an elaborate answer about how the human brain has evolved differently than the brains of primates. There was something about that explanation I found missing. Why wouldn't for example chimpanzees have evolved to be able to fully use ketone bodies to fuel their brains?

Could be something spiritual! :D

"Carrying body and soul
and embracing the one,
can you avoid separation?
Can you let your body become
as supple as a newborn child’s?
In the opening and shutting of heaven’s gate,
can you play the feminine part?" -- Tao Te Ching, verse 10 https://www.modernagespirituality.com/t ... -verse-10/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And it says in the Bible that we can't live on food alone, and we need to be reborn out of water [fasting :)] and Spirit [mindfulness + the Holy Spirit].

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 8:00 am
by Anders
In this interview from about 33 minutes the interviewer asks a really interesting question about what happens when there is like 50/50 glucose and ketone bodies in the blood. What will the brain prefer to use as an energy source?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeXnc0igvMM&t=33m[/youtube]

Dr. D’Agostino explains that the brain uses whatever is available in the blood. And the use of glucose can be enhanced by ketones according to some studies.

That made me think: if it's so effective to use both, then why doesn't the brain use both glucose and ketones all the time? And the answer must be the habit of the body to store fat in case of future food scarcity that prevents much ketones to be produced. And Dr. D’Agostino said a bit earlier (32:30) that the brain enters a stress mode when there is too little glucose.

That stress is unnecessary when we do scheduled periodic fasting because then the risk of food scarcity is removed. We can eat as much as we want after each fasting period. That stress can potentially be removed with mindfulness practice, but if so, then we no longer even need the fasting periods! The body can burn fat cells and junk cells even during periods when we eat! And then we remain healthy and rejuvenated without the need for fasting. Could be difficult to achieve in practice perhaps since the stress response is so deep and ancient. Or, it's possible to shift from periodic fasting to a stress-free state with mindfulness practice over some period of time.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:32 pm
by Anders
I have now completed 42 hours of my fast. And I will give up now. I feel decent but I think I have learned what I needed. The key to me seems to be our instinctual stress response to lack of food, so I will start looking into that.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 11:12 am
by Anders
As if the amazing health benefits of water fasting wasn't enough, I recently learned about something called dry fasting. This is the most extreme form of fasting and the expert in this video says it should be done under supervision of a medical professional:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUsRld1K8Eo[/youtube]

Dry fasting gives incredible health benefits. The difference from water fasting is that in dry fasting there is no intake of food or water. With water fasting the body still has to spend energy to process water, and also, drinking water prevents the body from producing its own water. What happens in dry fasting is that the body starts turning the saturated fat in fat cells into water. Quite remarkable, but this is something animals do naturally in hibernation.

Even though dry fasting is more extreme than water fasting, people often report that they feel better when dry fasting than when doing a water fast. Especially women seem to find water fasting often unbearable while several women have reported how easy they found dry fasting to be.

I have done some short dry fasts, and I started eating when feeling enough hunger, as an easy start both for making it psychologically more easy and also to make it safe in the absence of professional supervision. What I do is called soft dry fast, and 'soft' simply means that you are allowed to come into contact with water, such as taking showers and washing your hands.

My next step that I have planned, is to do a 3-day soft dry fast every week, starting now in June. I estimate that I'm now prepared enough to try this extremely hardcore periodic dry fasting. And I'm prepared to quickly give up if there is too much suffering or other complications. My idea is that there will be suffering in the beginning but that the dry fast will feel pleasant once my body-mind has become accustomed to it.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 1:07 pm
by Christine
Well hello Anders ...

I have a friend here in Mexico who went to Bali and did a two week dry fast. She's been fasting and radical raw for many years with bouts in between of 'normal' eating. Her experiences were notable for several reasons. The first is that the body can live without water and that is something we've been hook, line and sinkered into believing was impossible. What I found interesting as she related her experience to me was that there were a couple of dozen people from all over the world at the retreat, most made the two weeks. She assumed that they would be spiritually awake and that with a prolonged fast emotional traumas from the past would surface. It surprised her to no end that this didn't prove the case.

Would love to hear more of your experiences. I had just done a five day Master Cleanse fast when my mother took ill, the following weeks of her hospitalization and passing left me with little appetite and less time to eat. Of course the emotional upheaval also killed my hunger. My energy stayed strong through most of this time but by the end of one month I was feeling very depleted and am still rebuilding my system, starting to re-balance now and paying close attention to the rise and fall of my metabolism. I've been following Niels Kunze's podcasts (will post them when I can) as he is traversing a lot of material related to diet and the redox signalling mechanisms in our body.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 2:56 pm
by Anders
Christine wrote:The first is that the body can live without water and that is something we've been hook, line and sinkered into believing was impossible.
It's truly incredible. And the medical doctors are innocent because as Bruce Lipton has said they are educated that way. There are people on YouTube claiming to have done dry fasting for 8 days or longer. One should be very careful about such claims, but one thing for me that's certain is that the thirst starts to disappear during the dry fast, and I do feel better than when doing a water fast. There is still a slight feeling of being poisoned, but that's probably because there's so much crap in my cells! The cells in the body should be getting cleaner and cleaner with repeated fasting.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 4:05 pm
by Anders
I'm actually doing a small semi-dry fast today (I drank some Mountain Dew and a small can of chilled Starbucks espresso earlier today :)) and now I started to feel slightly thirsty. And then I waited to see if this was a valid thirst or just a mental and bodily habit. And then after some minutes the thirst started to dissipate and was replaced by feelings of freshness inside my body. Could be my body producing its own water! We will see. It may be that the ability of the body to produce water needs training if the ability has atrophied due to our social conditioning.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Tue May 29, 2018 1:46 am
by Anders
Here is an example of a person claiming to have been doing a dry fast for almost 11 days:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mPF5wS5rrQ[/youtube]

I don't trust claims like that. People can make up all kinds of stories. I don't distrust the claim in the video either, it could be true! And also the part about food addiction from about 8 minutes is definitely true. We humans have throughout history been heavily conditioned to eat all the time, especially in this age of commercials and ease of communication.

Another thing that I myself have started to consider is that the extra chemicals stored in fat cells, might not be toxins and instead be chemicals deliberately stored in the fat cells to be used as, or broken down into, nutrition when the body starts consuming its own fat cells.

And this mainstream article includes what seems like an honest statement: "It is true that certain types of potentially harmful chemicals end up stored in our fat cells. What we don’t know for sure is what effects these compounds might have on our health." -- https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... se-toxins/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Aubrey De Grey, who is like a super expert on metabolism, the processes in the body to process food, water and air, says that it's incredibly complex and that mainstream science today knows very little about the complete picture of metabolism. But one thing that seems clear is that cells become polluted by a lot of garbage. And that made me think that the reason for me feeling poisoned when fasting is that my body has to process a lot of garbage released from cells and clean up the tissue from all that junk. Also, my body still a bit unused to ketogenesis is another possible explanation for the feeling of being poisoned.

It's not June yet, but I have started a dry test fast today, to prepare my body and mind for the real periodic fasting starting in June for me. The food addiction mentioned in the video is alone a major psychological and most likely also a physical and metabolical challenge for the body.

Re: Mindful Fasting

Posted: Tue May 29, 2018 4:36 pm
by Christine
Anders wrote:I'm actually doing a small semi-dry fast today (I drank some Mountain Dew and a small can of chilled Starbucks espresso earlier today :)) and now I started to feel slightly thirsty. And then I waited to see if this was a valid thirst or just a mental and bodily habit. And then after some minutes the thirst started to dissipate and was replaced by feelings of freshness inside my body. Could be my body producing its own water! We will see. It may be that the ability of the body to produce water needs training if the ability has atrophied due to our social conditioning.
You made me laugh, drinking Mountain Dew and Starbucks espresso! Oh my Anders, neither of those beverages would pass my lips. Right now we are working out in the hot sun all day so thirst is a constant. Maybe some day I will experiment with a dry fast, maybe.