Fasting and Cleansing: Fasting and Cleansing Can Dramatically Improve Your Physical & Mental Health ...

Welcome to the Fasting and Cleansing MAIN page. Here we kick off a SIX page series on the amazing power of fasting to help you achieve unprecedented body detox cleansing, health and wellness. I'm going to start by talking a little bit about my path through obesity, sickness and hopelessness and how fasting and cleansing saved my life. In this page I'll introduce you to the term "curative crisis" - what it means and why it is so important. Then we'll move on and look at a variety of ways via which you can achieve complete body cleansing and detoxification.

Some of the topics we will address include cleansing diets, intermittent fasting, liquid fasting diets, liver detox, kidney & gallbladder detox, home colonic-cleansing and professional colon hydrotheraphy. You may want to check out our lemonade diet series when you have a chance. The lemonade or "Master Cleanse" diet is another powerful fasting and cleansing system at your disposal. If at any time you have a question that is not answered in these articles, please Contact Us. Ok: Let's hit the pavement running!

In Hell

When I first started the process of fasting and cleansing as a lifestyle, my body was more than 70 pounds overweight. I was constantly constipated and suffered from recurring acne and lethargy. Concentrating on any one task for more than a few minutes was nearly impossible. I woke up each morning hating life.

I despised my bloated image in the mirror. I suffered from severe depression, low self-esteem and deep feelings of worthlessness and inferiority. Knew nothing of self-control or fasting and detoxification. Basically, I lived life to eat and appease the round-the-clock cravings that controlled my existence.

I went to mental health professionals and took a myriad of medications for anxiety and depression, meanwhile ballooning to 260 pounds (my ideal weight is 190). Went to colonic clinics and bought every colon cleansing product under the sun. But nothing seemed to help. To my dismay, they were not able to fix me. I was in my early thirties yet looked at least ten years older. When I would go out with my mother, people actually asked if I was her husband (a great compliment to her, at least :). Much of my time was actually spent fantasizing on how I could take my own life and end the misery. I was ... in hell.

A Turning Point

Fasting and cleansing came into the picture sort of by accident. I had read in a magazine how people had lost dramatic amounts of weight and improved their health through 30 Day Detox Fasting. My health situation was worsened by a liver illness that threatened to cut my life short. I was literally a walking ball of obesity and toxicity. So much so, that some of my "friends" said I looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Disgusted with my obesity and overall poor health, one day - out of nowhere - I simply decided to start fasting to lose weight. I just stopped eating. I had no clue what I was doing. I was an act of desperation. But I knew my heart that my life was in danger. I needed a viable way to achieve Quick Weight Loss and rid myself of the dangerous rolls of flab that padded every inch of my body, barring perhaps the soles of my feet. :-)

Within six-to-eight hours after I stopped eating, the hunger pains were horrendous. I had chills all over and my head was throbbing. I soon developed a metallic, unpleasant taste in my mouth. Upon closer examination in the bathroom mirror, I noticed my tongue was covered with a white, sticky film and what looked like white boils or spots on the inside of my lips. A foul stench started coming out of my pores; I became dizzy and felt like I was gonna pass out.

I tried to tough it out. But, unprepared and toxic as a landfill, the symptoms overcame my feeble resolve and, inevitably, I ate a cheeseburger with fries. Once I inhaled the food, all of the symptoms disappeared and I felt fine. I recall feeling like the most disgusting failure that ever walked this earth. But, at the same time, I was puzzled and felt compelled to learn why I had had such violent symptoms. Was I too late? Was I dying?.

Curative Crisis

I was in for a very rude awakening. Being a writer and journalist, I started doing research. This quickly led me to fasting and cleansing and what is known as a curative crisis. A curative crisis is basically a detoxification "illness" that the body goes through when one stops eating for more than eight to 24 hours. It is a period of withdrawal where the toxicity embedded in the bowels becomes acute and one experiences headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting and all the other symptoms I experienced.

My body had gone into toxic food withdrawal. In other words, since I stopped eating the junk (pizza, donuts, cake, massive amounts of coffee) that was making me sick, my body started to purge the toxicity that these foods contained. It is NOT a pleasant process. Ask an ex-smoker how he or she felt the first 72 hours after puffing the last cigarette. I learned that fasting and cleansing is very similar to breaking a drug habit. And the my drug of choice was.... food. Ahhh, so that is why the symptoms went away when I ate the cheeseburger and fries! Yep... the junkie had had his fix.

Further research led me to discover that depression can, in many cases, be a byproduct of toxicity such as the one I suffered from. In addition, I found out that many overweight and toxic people often experienced trouble concentrating, confusion, mood swings, irritability and an overall sense of doom and despair. What the...? This was all very shocking to me. It became apparent that my food addiction was causing much more than just obesity and a toxic colon. It was also destroying me mentally and emotionally. It was then that I hit my ultimate bottom.

Reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I went back to my ill-fated fast of a few days prior. Fasting and cleansing put me face-to-face and toe-to-toe with the consequences of my destructive lifestyle. Soooo, I realized that, when I was feeling terrible from the detox symptoms and hunger pains, I was actually getting better! This is the specific point I want to emphasize: IT WAS THE FASTING THAT INITIATED THE CLEANSING. What did that mean? To me, it meant that if I wanted freedom, I had to return to the curative crisis and let it run its course.

How long? The curative crisis usually takes anywhere between 14 to 30 days of Calorie Restriction to reach its completion. If you want to get there faster, you can do so with juice fasting or water fasting. Fourteen to 30 days? Wow, that is an eternity, you may think. But is it really? It is better to go through discomfort for a few days NOW and reap better health, or would you prefer to suffer with obesity and toxicity for the rest of your life? That question put things in an amazing perspective for me.

Toxic

Perhaps a graphic illustration can help depict just how destructive body toxicity can be. I was an environmental reporter for various years and could vividly recall the putrid smell of lakes that had been used for illegal dumping. I actually stepped into them to take pictures, so I was able to get a nose full of the stench. To see garbage overflowing from what used to be a beautiful lake was very sad. It was a horrible, devastating sight.

Well, that was exactly what my body had become due to my binging and obesity. In essence, my bowels, my blood, my cells ... my entire being, was polluted and ailing. This was a hard pill to swallow for a stubborn person like me who hated to admit he was wrong. But I did admit it. I had to. The evidence against me was too overwhelming. Thus the door to change opened ever so slightly, and I was able to start earning my freedom through fasting and cleansing.

Change and transformation was there for the taking, but it would come at a price. My body had to go through an emergency detoxification process that only fasting and cleansing could accomplish. I knew that, at this particular juncture, no diet could help me. Fasting and cleansing was my best option if I truly wanted to break the food addiction/binging cycle and give my body time to heal.

Again: I needed to stop eating altogether for some time to give my body the time it needed to detoxify. Now, let's move forward to Cleansing Diet and start to look at specific ways to begin the fasting and cleansing; detoxification/healing process!