After completing my 21 day OJ fast years ago, the thought of doing another fast of that caliber was abhorrent to me. It served its purpose and yet I always looked for ways to increase health and longevity through breathwork and chi-kung.
Knowing well that the value of meditation or contemplation is priority over our relative condition, the importance of gaining mastery over the body helps in many ways. If we can overcome the obstacles and limitations the body imposes on us, we can use the body more efficiently for the greater purpose of compassionate activity for the sake of all sentient beings.
After focusing seriously on the Long Breath Diet method since last year, I lost 21 pounds total and was satisfied with my results. I’ve always preferred doing things effortlessly in order to leave time for what is most important spiritually: contemplating the nature of mind. Yet, as I was getting older, it seemed that time was running out as the detrimental signs of aging appeared.
Naturally, the nagging question remained with me.
How do I regenerate the hair, skin, teeth, and nails?
Finally, after about a year of prayer and searching and reading and trying all sorts of things, an “angel” posted her experience (on my blog site) about dry fasting. I never heard of the term before. Or if I did, it never registered. Listening to her results of regenerating her thyroid (which was totally removed decades earlier) and repairing her nervous system without the use of herbs peaked my interest.
So for the next day and a half, I went online to read, research, and also watch a few key YouTube videos by people that were advanced coaches on the topic. Here is the first principle I learned of Dry Fasting:
It is believed that 1 day of dry fasting is the equivalent of 3 days of water fasting.
That sounds pretty exciting to hear as we can get more accomplished in less time. So as my research unfolded and I compared my knowledge with that and intermittent fasting; there was a unique parallel between the two with one important difference.
Through intermittent fasting there are many benefits such as reduced blood sugar, decreased inflammation, lower insulin, improved fat loss, mental clarity and anti-tumor properties. That is true. However, the one missing link of avoiding all liquids (for a short time) made all the difference in the world.
With intermittent fasting, we are taught to skip dinner (in order to give our digestive system a break) for one meal but there were never any restrictions on water. I noticed that drinking liquids would cause problems such as feeling bloated, the urge to binge eat, or create a meal; but I never put two and two together. I quickly discovered this happens to a stomach that is full of ulcers that stimulates excess acids which makes us need to satiate that discomfort with food. This is what MH, the Master Herbalist teaches us.
My feeling is this problem is related to leaky gut syndrome. Normally we think that a leaky gut is a case where toxins leak out only from the intestines. If further scientific research is done, I believe that they would conclude leaky gut begins in the stomach. Since we perceive the uncomfortable symptoms of bloating in ourselves, we can infer that the excess water (taken during mealtime) is trapped and overwhelmed by the faulty condition of the stomach. The body quickly moves this excess food and water out of the stomach, into the lymph nodes, and out the skin to protect itself. Since the stomach can’t handle the unhealthy combination of bad foods and excess water we feel bloated. When we notice that our skin is oily and itchy around the stomach or back we can understand the truth of this matter for ourselves.
With that said, as soon as I began dry fasting the bloating reduced, my stomach began flattening out, and I made one surprising discovery: I felt no physical pain!
“Remove all physical foods by fasting and the body starts hydrating, feeding, balancing and healing itself. Subtraction is the solution, not addition.” – Luigi Gino Di Serio (Master Fast System)
This new experience without pain was one of complete and total relaxation and bodily rest that I had been wanting to prolong all my life. Last Friday was my first 13 hour Dry Fast that opened up my eyes. There were two things I noticed. First, I felt my central nervous system opened up and then properly realign itself. Second, two days later I took my last meal at 2pm and during a short nap I felt remarkably relaxed and well rested two hours later. I woke up refreshed and felt like I went into a type of samadhi that I called the “no-pain state”. Throughout all my life, I normally felt back pains and while it has always been manageable, it was something annoying like a continuous background noise. This nagging reminder caused me to sleep more – hopeful to experience a COMPLETE rest and one day discover the root cause. I never had a suitable answer and a solution until I dry fasted.
Theory:
From the Spirit Science Central website:
A great deal of the research done on fasting comes from a Russian doctor named Dr. Filonov, who has supervised thousands of dry fasts which often last up to 14 days.
Dr. Filonov had this to say about Dry Fasting:
“Dehydration causes competition between healthy cells and pathological organisms for water. It is a real survival-of-the-fittest scenario. Inflammation cannot survive without water. A wet environment is ideal for the proliferation of pathological bacteria, viruses and worms – water shortage is as devastating as fire for them. All dead or dying tissues will be expelled from the body. A water fast does the same thing but takes much longer to accomplish the goal.” — Dr. Filonov
So that goes with my own findings of getting into that no-pain state just two hours after stopping all liquids and food quickly reduces inflammation.
Method:
Jordan River goes on to say, “His studies alone have also popped the thought-bubble that a human cannot live more than 3 days without consuming water, as the longest dry fast on record is 18 days; not including the claims in the bible such as Moses’s 40 day dry fast. The reason for this is that the body actually is capable of producing its own water internally in the process of transmuting fats.”
Two terms that are important to understand are Autophagy and Autolysis. This is what happens during a dry fast.
Autophagy heals cells and kills cancer. Autolysis is more commonly known as self-digestion, refers to the destruction of a cell through the action of its own enzymes. Autophagy begins when liver glycogen is depleted, around 12-16 hours into a fast. The rate of autophagy peaks there, and then drops after about 2 days.
What is glycogen?
Glycogen: a white, tasteless polysaccharide, molecularly similar to starch, constituting the principal carbohydrate storage material in animals and occurring chiefly in the liver, in muscle, and in fungi and yeasts.
From the mission.org website
“One of the great benefits of intermittent fasting that I’ve written about often is that it promotes autophagy, the cellular self-cleansing process that breaks down and recycles damaged molecules and cellular organelles.” — P. D. Mangan
He goes on to state, “By fasting intermittently, autophagy rates can be reset to that of a younger person.”
“Eating causes insulin to rise, the amount of the rise being dependent on a number of factors, such as type and amount of food eaten and the insulin sensitivity of the person doing the eating.” — P. D. Mangan
From the SiimLand website:
He states that, “The reason dry fasting is more effective than regular fasting is that inflammation and bacteria need water to exist. Disease and pathogens that live inside your body will die if they don’t get access to enough hydration. That’s why dry fasting allows the rejuvenating process to take place faster and be more effective.”
Principle:
How long does it take to get into ketosis?
From the Stay Healthy Ways website:
Amelia Johnson states that, if you don’t eat for a while, the body turns to glycogen for fuel FIRST. When the glycogen is used up, then the body looks for ketones NEXT. And this is when ketosis starts.
“It usually takes about 12 hours for ketosis to set in. You are likely to measure ketones in your urine within 2 to 3 days if you start with a fast or you have a few days of eating only protein. However, you might not be in full ‘adapted mode’ yet. You’ve got to stay in ketosis for long enough for your body to adapt completely. It will normally take from 4 to 6 weeks to get into full ketosis, or to be ‘keto-adapted’.” — Amelia Johnson
You serve yourself and others best by using both Objective and Subjective science to evaluate this Dry Fast diet.
- Objective Science: check ketones in urine with PH stick
- Subjective Science: check that pain levels have left your body.
For me, it took one 13 hour dry fast to re-calibrate my nervous-system. Two days later after my last meal at 2pm – I felt that no-pain-state at 4pm. I wonder if it took me only two hours to get into ketosis (because of all the work I’ve done over the years) or that simply the inflammation in my body just went away once my nervous system had a chance to relax.
This is basically how it works on a mystical level:
Pluto says:
“1 day dry fast is said to be equivalent to 3-4 days water fast. I remember when i was water fasting one day i had no access to water for several hours and what i noticed was a deeper spiritual presence and cleansing taking place. As my family argued in the car the whole way back home i easily had somewhat disconnected from that reality and automatically created some sort of mute-field around me. I simply had no energy to pay attention to them and their nonsense i was just staying at peace with my body. There was no way to make them trigger me at this point.”
He continues, “Soon as i got access to some water i noticed i felt slightly more alive but yet less spiritual and pure than before. I now had the energy to pay attention and to interact with others although due to the water fast i was still pretty much (triggerless) yet it was quite a difference in comparison when i was lacking both food/water compared to just water.”
Spiking Insulin:
The unconventional coach, Cole Robinson, has recently come into the public spotlight in the alternative health community. He is the originator of the Snake Diet that follows the Dry Fasting protocols and has quite a large following of snake dieters (208K members on FB alone) that offer testimonial showing amazing results of losing 20, 50, 150 pounds or more. Some don’t like his brash language but I prefer the honesty and directness rather than politically correctness. So if you can handle the swearing and his unique motivational tactics you won’t be disappointed with all the knowledge that he has to share:
YouTube video: Dry Fasting Cures Everything
If you can watch this entire 1 hour and 55 minute video then you will gain a ton of information about health and learn most of the principles of Dry Fasting in a relatively short amount of time.
In the video he states:
“When your insulin is high, you CAN’T burn body fat, and most importantly you CAN’T heal. When you are fasting you are healing. When you are in a fed state, you are not healing. This is how a lion works and every other animal under the sun.” — Cole Robinson
He goes on to say, “You have to understand, that’s what fasting does. Normalizes your hormones. Almost every issue you have, is caused by f*cked up hormones because you are always spiking your insulin. The key to the best health humanly f*cking possible is this. You want to keep your insulin levels as LOW as humanly possible for as LONG as f*cking possible. Fasting does this. OK.”
Watch Video: How to cure Diabetes
This is the most important point: DON’T SPIKE YOUR INSULIN which shows he understands the principles of health from within; going beyond the theory stage and into application and is the reason he is getting results.
This is why a main stream ketogenic diet, where you are still eating throughout the day; is junk. Because you are STILL spiking your f*cking insulin. You can’t heal cancer with that routine.” — Cole Robinson
I have to agree wholeheartedly with Cole on this point about the Keto Diet. After reading a few articles by “health experts” who would explain how we should combine intermittent fasting with a Keto-Diet. Their goal was dieting more on fats and proteins rather than carbs and that alone was supposed to cause you to lose weight. So when I experimented with adding more fats to my diet it had a slight effect of reducing inflammation and pain along my spine. But, when I tried eating more saturated fats from butter and coconut oil and more polyunsaturated fats from olive oil throughout the day; I ended up gaining six pounds after a week.
Unfortunately, I had to stop that method as it clearly did NOT work as intended. Why? I came to the conclusion that it was the wrong approach. A better approach is to dry-fast and stop ALL water after 8pm. Once you do this there is no insulin spike and inflammation can’t set in; resulting in having perfect physical peace with no opportunity for the nervous system to cry out in distress.
Experiment:
The 16/8 intermittent fasting protocol involves limiting consumption of foods and calorie-containing beverages to a set window of 8 hours per day and abstaining from food for the remaining 16 hours. With dry fasting, you would omit fluids as well.
From the GetLeanafter40 website:
RULE 1: Your feeding window should be 8 hours
RULE 2: Your fasting window should be 16 hours if male 14 hours if female
This cycle can be repeated as frequently as you like — from just once or twice per week to every day, depending on your personal preference.
“Once you get lean, you can have fun with food.” — Cole Robinson
And that’s the key point, when you fast properly and get lean FIRST and foremeost, then you can enjoy ANY and ALL food without serious side effects. And if you do feel bad, you just go back to dry fasting a minimum of 12 hours. Anyone can do it, even if your rude and skeptical family members invite you to eat lunch or dinner you can participate. Then, make the resolution to have your last meal by 8pm and if you go to bed at 11pm you are basically sleeping most of the time through the fasting window.
The next morning you re-feed at 8AM. That will give your body a full 12 hour resting period for your kidneys and nervous system. This has some similarities to our Nyungne Fasting system that we would do on retreat with our Tibetan Buddhist lamas. So this extra knowledge is where Western Science may have given us the greatest value in terms of health and longevity.
In a recent Tel Aviv University study, participants who consumed a protein shake containing 49 grams of protein immediately after fasting lost 145% more weight than a group consuming a normal amount of protein at the same time of day.
When you re-feed, then it is wise to choose a low-carb meal so that you don’t spike your insulin and remain in a low ketosis state. As you experiment, you can shorten the feeding window from 8 to 6 or 4 hours and that gives you more opportunity to keep your insulin low, reduce inflammation that causes pain, and increase the fasting window for the major healing results to set in.
Where am I going to get my nutrients from?
Plain and simple, you get it from your fat stores. As long as you are peeing you are not going to have kidney failure.
When you do this regimen on a daily basis, it’s just like the Buddhist monks who are taught to take their last meal at lunch time. It can become a smart, enjoyable lifestyle. When you understand the principles you can choose to follow this daily, every other day, or on a weekly basis. You can see what works for you and feel better physically while having more time to get things done. Therefore, it is more of a lifestyle choice rather than anticipating an extended fast that sometimes produces anxiety to complete.
If you watch these two videos you will see what Cole is up to. In the thirty day McDonald’s challenge his doctor examined him and showed that he increased his bone density (from when he started) and his Body fat percentage was at 11% (at the end) which is equivalent to an Olympic level athlete.
Cole’s Experiments: Perfect Diet and McDonald’s Challenge
Note: The only thing that goes against the Barefoot Way is his use of Baking Soda, Salt and Potassium chloride. These are things MH has told us to avoid. I believe one reason that Cole can get away with putting these chemicals in his system is because dry-fasting is such a powerful clean up tool. I might experiment with Cole’s way and see what it produces and then my way using a more natural potassium source such as Blackstrap Molasses and Honey to replace electrolytes.
Benefits:
A few pieces of anecdotal evidence that show that the hair and teeth can be affected by dry fasting method.
From the Healing Teeth website:
Mr. Pearson records that at the end of his fast, “teeth with black cavities became white and clear, all decay seemed to be arrested by the fast, and there was no more toothache.”
He goes on to write, “The only effects upon the teeth which I have observed to occur during a fast are improvements. I have seen teeth that were loose in their sockets become firmly fixed while fasting.”
From Reddit website:
“Been balding since I was in my teens. 3 months of 16/8 intermittent fasting and my hair grew back. Didn’t believe it at first until family started noticing.” — Helter_Skelet0n
So do your research and be extremely careful in beginning this program as it is more for the advanced practitioner looking to experiment with health and longevity. To get started I would click here to determine your BMI: Calculator
Then, check out Cole’s Instagram and Facebook for help and motivation.
Light and love,
Neo
Disclaimer: The above article is intended as an exploration of a healing technique called dry fasting, and is not intended to be taken as medical advice. If you are interested in this practice, you must educate yourself thoroughly, and seek advice from a qualified holistic or medical professional. I do not accept liability for damage or injury that may allegedly arise from any information or suggestions herein. As with anything, taking yourself to extremes can be very dangerous unless you are well trained and know what you’re doing.
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