Fasting For Lyme Recovery: How To Reap The Benefits – Part 1
Different Fasting Options To Suit Every Body
There are many types of fasts, and here you will learn about the most helpful options for those who are in the process of healing from Lyme and similar diseases. You are reading part 1 of a 2-part series.
All types of fasts offer cleansing and detoxification benefits (see Top 10 Benefits of Fasting to learn more).
Depending on your individual lifestyle, health issues, goals, and body chemistry, different methods of fasting will be appropriate for different people, and at different times in your recovery. For example, if you find a 3-day juice fast too difficult or too strongly detoxifying, you might experiment with a different method of fasting with less potent effects until your body can handle the stronger-acting approach.
The farther along you are in your recovery process, and the more highly functioning your detox pathways are, the better your body will be able to respond positively to fasting.
At some point, you may find you need new ways to step up your cleansing routines, and these fasting options are ideal.
Juice Fasting
Juice fasting offers a great way to encourage detoxification and increase health and vitality. The nutritional power of fresh organic juices will help your body to heal, rebuild, and detoxify waste products. Many people find juice fasting to provide the energy they need to make it through work and family responsibilities, while freeing up energy and creating a greater sense of well-being.
Juice fasting gives your body high-quality nutrients in readily available form for your body to use immediately – with little energy required for digestion. Fresh juice is literally a blood transfusion from the plant world, which sends the concentrated water, enzyme, and nutrient content as potent medicine directly into your bloodstream.
Juice fasting also helps you to build a taste for fresh produce and become accustomed to the increased vitality. You will be drawn to more live foods after your fast.
In general 3-4 quarts of fresh juice are consumed for each day of a juice fast (and may be diluted with spring water or not). Additional juice-fasting beverages include lemon-water, herbal tea, or vegetable broth as desired. You must drink only freshly made or cold-pressed juices while fasting (not bottled juice).
Fruit Fasting
The one-fruit fast is a type of mono-diet where you stick to one fruit for the duration of your fast. Generally the most “cleansing” fruits are recommended, such as apple, or grapefruit.
In Ayurvedic medicine a 3-5 day fruit fast is used to enhance the nervous system function and aid memory.
Fasting on apples or grapefruit alone will give you all of the benefits of juice fasting, but at a less intense pace. The greatest health benefits come from adding a solo fruit to the juice fasting diet described above.
Fruit fasting combined with juice fasting will still allow your digestive and other bodily systems to slow down, rest, and heal, and it gives the body a chance for stored toxins and waste materials to be expelled, albeit at a slower pace than juice fasting alone.
Usually about 3-4 apples per day will suffice for an apple fast.
One of the best fasts for a first-timer is a one-day one-fruit fast. You can learn a lot about yourself and your body with a one-day fast.
Fasting with fruit also lessens potential discomfort that comes with a more intense style of fasting. If you find the 3-day juice fast very difficult, you might try modifying it to be a fruit + juice-fast instead.
You can fast with almost any fruit, but the highly water-containing ones are best.
Coming up next: check out Part 2 of this blog article to learn more about 2 more fasting options – One Day Per Week Fasting, and Intermittent Fasting.
Ready to learn how to effectively, safely detox – and literally clear the way for healing? Check out Detox For Lyme, our 8-week online course, which teaches you everything you need to know to cleanse and fast, whether you are just learning how or ready to move to an advanced level of cleansing.
