I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing a liquid only fast every Sunday. I got the idea originally from a co-worker I had a few years ago. She mentioned to me that her dad was a prize fighter and lived a long healthy life.

I asked her what she thought the key to his health and longevity was and she said she thought it was the fact that he only drank liquids on Sundays. He said, it allowed his body to rest from all the digestion it has to do every day. If you eat conventional food (if you’re a regular reader to this blog I’m guessing not) that’s a heck of a lot of processing that your body has to do.

Over time this amount of work the body has to do is what ages and depletes us. Digestion uses more energy upon the body than anything else we can do, including vigorous exercise.

Think about it, each time you eat your body has to create bile, hydrochloric acid, break the food down with bacteria in your gut (if you have enough of it), use enzymes from the pancreas and use stored fluid to turn that food into a liquid that the body can actually absorb. This is one reason I don’t recomment taking condensed vitamin tablets. Anything you eat must first be turned into a liquid so the body can biologically trans-mutate the nutrients into absorbable minerals.

The amount of processing that we are forcing our bodies to do each day is simply ridiculous. If you eat a diet that’s easily absorbable then you are saving your poor pancreas from having to create digestive enzymes. Some examples of easily digestible foods are raw fruits, raw eggs, fermented foods of any kind, yogurts, raw meats and more.

Does any of your diet include foods that already contain water within them?

There’s plently of research indicating that calorie restriction extends life.  Increasing your lifespan is all dandy but not at the expense of enjoying food right? I mean, who wants to starve themselves like H.R.M or Jasmuheen? I certainly don’t wish to go down that path.

By the way Jasmuheen and HRM are examples of people who have taken the fasting idea way beyond what I’m interested in. They are called “Breatharians” which means they live on sunshine and minerals. They contend that minerals can be obtained from the sun hitting the eye. It’s called Sun Gazing. Typically it’s done 5 minutes before sunset and 5 minutes after sunrise in order to get the nutrients from the sun but not cause blindness.

Sun Gazing and Breatharianism are topics for other articles and more than I want to get into here.

What I am trying to say is that there is value in fasting and what if you could simply do it one day per week? This way you can do it safely over time with no health risks or concerns whatsoever.

I’m seriously considering doing this. Every now and then I’ll live on smoothies for an entire day but those are whole foods that are put into the blender. Smoothies include the fiber of the fruit or vegetable that you’re blending. Although it is somewhat predigested for you because it has been broken down by the blades of your blender, it still puts a burden on your digestion.

In the Bible God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days and on the 7th day, He rested. Whether or not you believe in the Bible is not the point here. The point is the 6 and 1 pattern is something that is referenced in many different places.

6 days on, 1 day off. If you’d like to ease into the Sunday fast you might simply do a liquid only Sunday. You could have smoothies AND juices. In your smoothies you could put some fats like avocados, raw grass fed butter or chia seeds to help thicken the drink.

But for the more adventurous you could do liquids only that don’t include fiber. If you think that raw vegetable green juices could get boring all day, I agree with you.

Here are some liquids you might consider for your one day juice fast per week:

• Herbal Teas (I personally like Reishi and Chaga.)
• Nourashing Herbal Infusions
• Coconut Milk
• Coconut Water Kefir
• Nut Milks
• Water (Water directly from springs is ideal)
• Juice (Green juices from vegetables are ideal)
• Kombucha
• Kefir (Milk and water)
• Raw Milk (Grass fed only)
• Bone Broth Soups
• Coffee (Try the cobalamin tonic- organic coffee, raw cacao and grade b maple syrup)

If you were to forget about fasting for 30 days on water and simply do a liquid only fast 1 day per week here is how much food you would save your body from having to digest over the course of 5 to 30 years.

The USDA suggest that the average American consumes 5 lbs of meat, 1.6 lbs of dairy products, .2 lbs of fats and oils, .8 lbs of fruits, .7 lbs. Of vegetables, .5 lbs of grains, and .4 lbs of sugars per day for a total of 4.7 lbs. of food per day.

Long Term Fasting Results

(I reduced 4.7 pounds per day to 3.5 pounds just to be safe)

I broke it down by number of years. The table below shows how long you’d fast over time from 5 years all the way to 30 years. I also includes how much food in terms of pounds that you would save your body from having to digest.

5 years = 260 days or 8.6 months (or 910 pounds)
10 years = 520 days or 17.3 months or (1.4 years – or 1,820 pounds)
15 years = 780 days or 26 months or (2.1 years – or 2,730 pounds)
20 years = 1040 days or 34.6 months or (2.8 years – or 3,640 pounds)
25 years = 1300 days or 43.3 months or (3.6 years – or 4,550 pounds)
30 years = 1560 days or 52 months (4.3 years – or 5,460 pounds)

Let’s say you did a liquid only fast one day per week for 10 years, you’d save your body from processing roughly 1,800 pounds of food and you would have fasted for 1.4 years of that time! The less your body has to work at digesting the more in can do in terms of healing and preventing diseases. No wonder why calorie restriction makes so much sense.

Rather than trying to do a 7 day or 30 day fast whenever you can get up the courage to do so (which would probably not be that often), why not do something short (1 day) that takes place steadily over time?

Slow and steady change over long periods of time is the most ideal way to treat the body in terms of diet and fasting.

Remember if you do any fasts I strongly suggest you work with a qualified health practicioner, this is not medical advice. If I didn’t say that I might end up with a group of men in dark sunglasses showing up on my front door. 😉

If you get motivated to do this with me, let me know your results!