One week water fast ... 'Quick fix'?

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Oscar
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Post by Oscar »

Oops, accidentally deleted your post, feral. :(

One of the points you mentioned was that animals fast. I'm wondering which animals (or even primates) fast, and not because they are sick or hibernate.
avalon
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Post by avalon »

Oscar wrote:
One of the points you mentioned was that animals fast. I'm wondering which animals (or even primates) fast, and not because they are sick or hibernate.
That's silly dear Oscar! I wonder which primates or animals can sew a sweater! Can ride a bike! Fly a kite- and I mean without learning from us.

Humans learn things. Try things. Heck if I had never done my 7 day juice fast last February, I may never have taken the time to figure out what diet approach was right for me, and I never would have found wai.

Have you seen Donnie Darko? To quote "Things aren't that simple."

I designed a new lancet device to draw blood for diabetes testing. I had reasons to do so and I consciously sat down and built a functional prototype. We can think and dream and investigate like no other animal!

Maybe, just maybe some of the testimonials of cleansing, healing and the positive effects of Fasting are true and have some merrit...

Avalon
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Oscar
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Post by Oscar »

Your point being...?

Feral said "animals fast". I'm wondering which animals he's talking about.
avalon
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Post by avalon »

heh heh :roll: How do we know that's really what he wrote since you cleverly deleted his post hmmm 8)

Well, obviously theeennn, animals as far as I know, fast for no other reason than what you said you said... If we look to the animal kingdom for clues to good health- such as we are the only species to COOK our food! On a basic level, I know the science is there now to back up dirty prorein, but years ago, some humans were looking to nature for guidence- eating raw foods, fruits nuts and seeds long before our raw-food book signing days.

So do you believe there might be merrit to Fasting when ill, as the animals do, and not otherwise? Or at all?
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Post by Oscar »

Yeah, I deleted all the incriminating evidence. ;)

Anyway, I do believe in fasting when ill, to prevent more bacteria and/or toxins to enter the body, so the body can use all the available resources to battle the disease. However, under natural (or optimal) circumstances this should be a rare occasion, although I don't know how much this actually occurs in nature. Also, the body will signal if a fast is needed.

I don't really believe in fasting for cleansing though, not even on a cooked diet, but you already knew that. ;)
Marty
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Fasting

Post by Marty »

Fasting may be linked to an adaptation to privation,: simply the privation of being in a cold climate. Indeed the 'mammalian dive response' in deep water apnea diving is now thought to be not a vestigial ability (the 'aquatic ape' theory), but some ability to partially or fully hibernate. The dive response is greatly enhanced in very cold water; we are not suited in many ways to the compression of the body at depth; but if one is in shallow, very cold water without the ability to breathe, bradycardia and other adaptations kick in; depth alone does not trigger humans this way.....

I have fasted unintentionally in illness-- the body experiencing extreme fever over a period of days-- it was impossible to get up to get water; which prolonged this. Yet the real sensation not of the brain but of listening as this occurred to the body was of lucidity. Perhaps relaxedly--in this case helplessly--leaving the body behind, stumbled onto without choice-- is freeing, and illuminating. It need happen only once.

I do not know for each person personally. .... There are biological reasons things go a certain way, as well as drives to know ourself that are not biological.....We may of course find new things and truly be astonished at how the body is made...moreso however that it does not describe us in full, any more than the mind does. Our natural ability to listen; to relax; to involuntarily step behind the body or mind really gives a sense of our true identity. Within that we may play with states of the body; brief clarity from light fasting; the adrenaline from a risky plunge in the water with only air retained in our lungs.....My sense is that the health of the body, and its real clarity, comes from tasting the extremes, which are temporary states, but once we know this, living with an ongoing support of its basic systems-- not a denial of them.

It is amazing what we are; amazing too how the body works.
Last edited by Marty on Sun 14 Jan 2007 15:33, edited 1 time in total.
avalon
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Post by avalon »

Hi Marty! You wrote:
My sense is that the health of the body, and its real clarity, comes from tasting the extremes, which are temporary states, but once we know this, living with an ongoing support of its basic systems-- not a denial of them.

It is amazing what we are; amazing too how the body works.
Nice piece Marty. And It is Amazing what we are!

Have you ever heard of Wattles's theory that our Brains are storage batteries and they are recharged at night while we sleep? It's a bit flighty, but still an interesting read:

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyg ... attles.pdf
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Sleep

Post by Marty »

That is the biochemist's, or I may say the electrophysiologist's view of something I understand in quite different terms....

In a sense, we are our truest selves when sleeping dreamlessly....

There is a deep spaciousness that allows not a recharge, but a steeping in what we are. It is vaster than the mind...

You could see it as the most radical form of unselfconsciousness, when we cannot help but be ourselves, and quite unaware of it. In a sense in returning to that daily, it is the truest form of recharge.
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Post by Oscar »

I agree with both I guess. In more spiritual terms one could describe it as the temporary return from the soul to the Absolute (where it belongs/comes from), thereby 'recharging' itself before returning to the confinement of the physical human body.

We humans are a 'relative' species. We have to (be able to) compare to (be able to) classify. Knowing what light is means knowing what it is not, namely darkness. Maybe people who are looking for health are experimenting because they haven't (yet) experienced (extreme) health?
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health

Post by Marty »

When illness dies away, we are poised on the threshold--

perhaps something occurs then that illuminates what the body really is, if we are really susceptible in that moment; really open.


If we have really listened and experimented, 'waiting without waiting,' we may return to the body's elastic lightness and vibrancy; to its amazing lightness and beauty ..... It is an illumination quite beyond any mental conception of 'good health.'


This diet addresses the resolution of some symptoms-- acne; cellulite most specifically-- but there is more.


For the effects beyond this (it is a paradox, really) happen when we are not looking for a specific result. So it may indeed go beyond the extremes of disappointing symptoms alternating with temporary euphoria when symptoms recede at times, or when we forget our discomfort in the delight of some moments. What is amazing is when health is not defined in relation to anything else; just as in deep sleep we do not contrast ourselves to our waking 'state,' and yet are at peace.
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