Let's talk fasting. The benefits for it are incredible, yet here in the west, fasting is often regarded as a dangerous practice. The idea of forgoing food for any length of time will set most westerners sweating. There's dozens of benefits physical and mental that would require a book to fully explain; but to answer the question “Why should you fast?” I'll focus one benefit: Healthier cells.
Ultimately your body is made up of hundreds of billions of cells, and the health of these cells collectively is what dictates your health. When a cell dies, a new cell is immediately replicated to replace the dead cell. Eventually, the rate between dying/replicating increases and when cells are dying at a faster rate than being replaced, the body begins to age. This is old news.
Interesting things start to happen once we stop eating. The first is this: Insulin levels begin to lower. Your body releases insulin as a means of signaling the body to store energy. First stop is the cells. Food is broken down into glycogen, and then stored here. Once the cells are full, the body needs a back-up plan for preventing the sugar from staying in the bloodstream. It does this by converting the sugars and storing them as fat. The problem is that if the body is always storing energy, it's never getting rid of its' excess(like fat or cancerous cells for example) When insulin levels drop, the body can then shift out of “energy storage,” and into “energy burning.” This is how fasting works. By using the energy that's already stored in the body as fuel while new energy isn't coming in to be processed. But this is only the beginning.
Aside from fat-burning, lowered insulin levels allow the body to organize itself more efficiently. Two processes are responsible for this: Autophagy and Apoptosis. This is where things get really cool. When cells are deprived of outside energy, they begin utilizing their own. Membranes are created with the purpose of eating up the excess parts of the cell which aren't needed, thereby allowing it to run more efficiently. This is the cellular level equivalent of a serial hoarder finally cleaning their house after years of “acquiring” new things. Autophagy is the process that your body uses to literally clean itself at the cellular level.
Some cells are too far gone however, and some even yet are actually malign and working against the body. Think cancer cells. For these cells, autophagy isn't enough. Killer-T cells are produced and then travel throughout the body signaling these dying cells to self-destruct. In this way, through fasting, the body becomes healthier.
Message me with any questions you've got about fasting!
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