Hi all! My name's Jen, I'm new here. I've been searching around for a community that supports raw foodism and this looks like a pretty active one! I do have a question though. From reading just a few posts, it seems there is a large amount of negativity towards fasting. I was just curious if this community is anti-fasting in general. I am interested in meeting others who fast periodically, but I don't want to be shot down for my beliefs! Just want to clear the air before I hop in and start posting.
I have actually considered fasting myself as a healing system for Crohn's Disease.
Fasting can be good for your body if you do it right. Remember that fasting will mean you won't have very much energy. You won't be getting any nutrients into your system.
Make your fasts short. 3 days to 1 week at a time is best.
I'm certainly not anti-fasting. I am sure there are people here who are. However, it is your body and you do unto it as you please. Just be smart about it and make sure you have done thorough research so that something bad doesn't happen.
ETA: If you need some links I'll be happy to provide. I have a little information on the subject stored up since I was considering it myself.
I think people are more or less supportive depending on what kind of fast you're doing. If you're doing nothing but drinking water for a week and complaining that you're growing sick, people aren't going to be supportive of that, because it is obviously unhealthy. If you're doing a raw food or juice fast for 3 days or something, people are going to be more supportive because it is not self-destructive. Not everyone agrees that fasting is necessary either, but that is somewhat different than being against it.
I'm not for fasting, but just for my own reasons. This is something each person has to take their own consideratins into account. For me, it makes no sense to send my body into a starvation mode and start trying to store fat.
I think people are more or less supportive depending on what kind of fast you're doing. If you're doing nothing but drinking water for a week and complaining that you're growing sick, people aren't going to be supportive of that, because it is obviously unhealthy. If you're doing a raw food or juice fast for 3 days or something, people are going to be more supportive because it is not self-destructive. Not everyone agrees that fasting is necessary either, but that is somewhat different than being against it.
I've done a couple of 2-3 day juice fasts in the past and I enjoyed them, although I'm not sure they had any lasting health effects. I did it back when I didn't have a very good diet in general, and so the fasts felt purifying, both physically and mentally. Now that I eat a really healthy diet with very little processed foods and I exercise regularly, I just never feel the desire to fast. So while I'm not against fasting, I just don't think it's necessary if you live a very healthy lifestyle anyway, and I would be wary of any claims people make about fasting curing them of all that ails them. I've never seen any credible scientific evidence to support frequent or long-term fasting as a healthy thing to do.
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I am not into fasting myself. I do not give support to people who fast, but there are many reasons people fast. If people fast because they enjoy it or they have some spiritual reason for it, who am I to tell them not to? If people make unsupported scientific claims about fasting, I will question that. These forums see a lot of unsupported health claims but there are plenty of people here willing to ask questions like, "how do you know?" "does research back this up?"
There are a TON of bogus health claims that lure unsuspecting people into either spending a lot of money, doing potentially harmful things, or not seeking better health care instead. Besides, I am just categorically in support of critical thinking and encouraging people to judge the credibility of claims, the people making claims, and the possible motivations of those people. It's also important to be aware of things like confirmation biases (such as we remember the hits and forget the misses) and the tendency we all have to only seek out info which agrees with our pre-existing hypothesis.
I'm for short fasts of a couple days (definitely juice fasting, not water fasting). I've experimented a lot with fasting including a 10 day water fast. The bad thing about that was that my metabolism got so slow and it took literally six months to get it back to normal and I gain weight much easier now than I did before the fast. I've also done juice fasting, but I find with myself, if I fast, then that pushes me to binge and I end up with a weight that constantly yo-yo's. Fasting also tends to make me fearful of food and since I have tendencies toward eating disorders, it can lead me to want to starve myself.
Just as a side note, there is a forum that is all raw foodists and they would probably look upon fasting and a totally raw diet more favorable than most of us here do. The link is http://www.rawfoodtalk.com.
this community isn't really 'pro' or 'anti' fasting.
but what we do have is a fairly large number of people zipping in and out of the community who have eating disorders and like to use vegetarianism, veganism, raw foodism, and fasting as terms to 'hide' or 'validate' what they're doing to themselves. When it seems obvious that a person is falling into this sort of pattern, then those of us here do not support their "fasting" or whatever else.
For all of us here, health is very important. whether one is vegetarian, vegan, or raw, whether they fast or not, what we support is a healthy lifestyle. for many, that can include fasting. for others, fasting would be detrimental on a number of levels--not the least of which is the eating disorder level.
so, it's worth understanding that when people are critical of "fasting" they're typically not critical of 'fasting' but of a person starving themselves for other reasons, and calling it "healthy fasting" or whatever. we discourage this because it unhealthy.
but if the fasting process is healthy and appropriate, then no one has issue with it.
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