The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Benefits of Fasting (And How to Do It)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everyone, welcome the Dr. Josh Axe show. I'm your host, Dr. Axe. And each and every week on the show, we cover the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be talking about these spiritual and physical benefits of fasting and how it could help you experience a breakthrough in your life. If you're a person saying, hey, I want to lose weight, I want to rev up my metabolism, I want to help build muscle, I want to have a clear level of thinking. I want to reverse a medical condition, or I want a spiritual breakthrough in my life,

Starting point is 00:00:39 in my relationships, in my work life. Fasting might be your secret weapon to experiencing that breakthrough that you've been waiting for. And I'll dive deep into how fasting works. And by the way, I'm probably going to surprise you. I almost guarantee with most of you, I'm going to surprise you with some of my takes on fasting because here's the reality.

Starting point is 00:01:00 It is for some people and it's not for others. And also I'll be talking about should you fast every day or only periodically I'll be answering those questions and whether you should or shouldn't fast on this show. I'm also going to cover topics like what are the different types of fast you can do, how fasting affects your bodies. I'll get into the biblical principles around fasting and the do's and don'ts of fasting Before I dive into all this information, though, make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. Also, no, I want to hear from you.

Starting point is 00:01:38 I oftentimes answer questions on my shows and do a Q&A. And so make sure to run over to Instagram at Dr. Josh Axe, follow my stories, and post your questions there. You can also send in a voicemail anytime I do Q&As. And also, know, every time that you are sharing this, liking this episode, leaving a good review, you're helping the show grow, which is allowing us to reach more and more people changing the world. So thank you so much for all of you who are a part of the show. So for starters, what is fasting? Well, it's very simple.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Fasting means going without food for a certain period of time. And people fast for health reasons, for religious reasons, for personal reasons. There are many reasons to fast. And there are some reasons not to fast, which I'll talk about here. but fasting is refraining typically from food. Now, I will say that fasting can also be refraining from things like social media or or certain types of technology or things that just generally you need a break from in order to get healthier in an area of your life.

Starting point is 00:02:44 But as we dive in here, we're going to talk mostly about fasting from food. Now, I want to walk you through some of the potential, and again, I'm using the word here, potential because these benefits, aren't for everyone. And if you don't fast correctly for your own bio-individuality or your own uniqueness, then you're not going to see these benefits. But through clinical studies and through history, we have seen fasting has the following benefits. It benefits your body through cellular repair and autophagy, which can fight cancer. It improves insulin sensitivity and can help reverse diabetes. It supports weight loss and metabolic health.

Starting point is 00:03:25 It reduces inflammation, improves heart health, improves neurological health and brain function, improves hormone levels like human growth hormone, reduces the risk of chronic diseases, improves longevity and supports spiritual growth and breakthroughs. Those are some of the incredible benefits of fasting when it's done correctly. Now, let's talk about what actually happens in your body when you start to fast. Well, the first thing happens is your blood sugar levels can start to drop, in most cases, to a normal ideal level. And then your glycogen, your body runs out of sugar in the bloodstream to utilize for energy.

Starting point is 00:04:09 So your body then starts breaking down glycogen, which are carbohydrates that are stored in the liver, which then your body uses those up for energy. And then about 12 hours to sometimes 24 hours later, your body enters ketosis, where your body then starts burning fat for energy. This then leads to an increase in the production of certain hormones like human growth hormone, which helps you age more slowly and can actually even build more muscle in certain cases. And then after 48 hours of fasting, that's when autophagy begins, where your cells start repairing themselves and start, recycling out unhealthy proteins or inflammatory, dead cells like senescent cells. So your body is really able to detoxify and cleanse at a higher level. And then it starts to reduce inflammation and improve immune function.

Starting point is 00:05:06 And by the way, it's not just 48 hours after. If you fast on and off on occasion, your body will start getting into autophagy even quicker. if you do fast, let's say even one or two days a week, it doesn't have to be a 48-hour period. Your body will get into things like autophagy clearing out these zombie cells, which supports longevity and increasing your lifespan. So let's talk now about some of the studies that show the benefits of fasting. And then I want to get into biblical fasting and some studies that show you shouldn't fast and that fasting isn't for everybody.

Starting point is 00:05:42 So first here is it supports weight loss and metabolism. This is a study done on intermittent fasting. A study done on 100 participants over 12 weeks found that those people that did intermittent fasting lost an average of 8 to 12 pounds compared to the control group, which lost only 2 to 4 pounds. So on average, you might lose 10 more pounds over a three month period doing intermittent fasting if you are focusing on getting healthy versus not. So we've seen, and this is one study of many showing. intermittent fasting and fasting of any type supports weight loss. There's another study here from 2015 that found that alternate day fasting, so where you're not fasting every day, where you fast intermittently every other day, you can lose up to

Starting point is 00:06:32 7% of your body weight while whole day fasting was reduced by 9%. So all that being said, this study shows, in terms of efficiency, doing a partial fast where you're not. not fasting all day, maybe you're skipping breakfast, you lost more weight than if you were, or you lost almost as much weight as if you were fasting for the entire day. In this study, this was done at the University of Southern California, they discovered when 71 adults were placed on a five-day fast, that was eating around 1,000 calories a day over three months. They lost an average of six pounds. They reduced inflammation. Their waistlines shrunk down. And they also lost total body fat without sacrificing muscle mass.

Starting point is 00:07:20 So if you want to lose weight, lose belly fat, fasting even irregularly could be the key. And this is one thing that, again, where I'm going to surprise people later on, the form of fasting that I most recommend for people is not fasting every day. It's not intermittent fasting, and it's not doing long fast where you don't eat food. It's doing a partial fast one to two days a week on average. that I believe is actually the most effective way to fast. In fact, it's also the way that the early church fasted, which I'll get into in a minute.

Starting point is 00:07:53 All right, here's some other benefits of fasting. Improved blood sugar control. There's a study done on insulin sensitivity on 80 people, and it showed that people with pre-diabetes, which is an incredibly large amount of people, nearly 100 million people in the U.S. are insulin-resistant or pre-diabetic. It showed a 20% improvement in insulin sensitivity

Starting point is 00:08:18 after eight weeks of intermittent fasting. So if you're a person, your blood sugar is in balance, your kind of your energies up and down all day, and you know that your insulin levels aren't ideal, fasting of some sort, whether it's intermittent or fasting a day or two a week intermittently, could be a key to helping you experience a breakthrough there. Heart health, a study found, actually this was a matter of view

Starting point is 00:08:42 on 10 studies, involving 1,000 participants, they found that fasting reduced LDL cholesterol by 10% or an average of six points. And here's another big one. Human growth hormone. Human growth hormone is one of your anti-aging hormones. It allows you to stay younger. It's connected with testosterone and men, longevity and women. And a study showed that 24-hour fast increased your human growth hormone by two hundred percent. 110.3%. It also decreased your blood sugar. Now, this was a five-day overview. So between day one and day five, decreased serum blood sugar by 34.7 percent. And it increased the fatty acid that you're burning in your body by 260.5 percent. This is called the free fatty acid ratio in your blood so your body starts releasing body fat for your body to break down because it needs to break

Starting point is 00:09:45 down fat for energy. That goes up by 260% when you start doing fasting. And so lots and lots of benefits there can be hormonally or for your body burning actually body fat by doing this form of intermittent fasting. Now there are also emotional benefits of fasting. A study done on 60 people found that after four weeks of intermittent fasting, participants reported a 25% increase and mental clarity and focus. Also, we've seen a reduction in stress by about 15% over a six week period of time. And so there are lots of benefits physically, lots of benefits emotionally when it comes to fasting. Specifically, we're also touching a lot here on intermittent fasting. Now, I want to mention that fasting has been done for thousands of years.

Starting point is 00:10:35 We know that Jews fasted. We know that Christians fasted. We know that Christians fast. still fast today. We know that Muslims fasted. We know that many of the world's religions practiced fasting as a way to grow closer to God and become more dependent upon him. This is something that I've personally done in my wife, Chelsea, and my family, to where we will fast at certain points in order to grow closer to God. And we do this as a token of saying, our source isn't the material. Our source of life isn't food. Our source is God. You know, Jesus says, you know, during the last supper, he breaks this bread and he said, eat this in remembrance of me. This is my body broken for you. This is also why people take communion is remembering that God is our

Starting point is 00:11:25 bread of life. Jesus is our bread of life. And so remembering that as well in saying, okay, my God isn't food. My God is God. And in doing that is a power. powerful spiritual practice. I know that I've experienced spiritual breakthroughs in my life via fasting. I'll share some of those instances, but one of them was recently two weeks ago, we were having some really major roadblocks, which we believe were partly spiritual in our business. We were coming up against many, many roadblocks in a business I'm in. And myself and two other families, one of them was Jordan Rubin, another Colt Morton. We got together with our wives. And we fasted for the day up until night.

Starting point is 00:12:10 We skipped breakfast and lunch and we did eat dinner up until or right after this prayer call. But we got on a call and we all prayed together for an hour. And we fasted for the day and asking God to come to our divine rescue and saying, God, we need you. You know, we're desperate for you. And that was just something where just a couple weeks ago where, again, myself and our families together, we did fasting, praying for a spiritual, supernatural breakthrough in this roadblock we were up against. And so this is something not only that I'm preaching, but I do practice, is doing some fasting. Now, fasting was done as well. Again, when you read around the Jewish festivals, fasting was almost always practice. One of the things

Starting point is 00:12:58 I love about the rhythm that God created is when you read up on the Jewish festivals, whether it be Yom Kippur or Sukkow or any of the festivals, there is this combination of fasting and feasting, okay? The celebration of that's happening, and the way it tends to work is they will go and they will fast in order to show their submissiveness to God. There's fasting that's done to remember things like the Exodus out of Egypt and to really just honor God and take that time

Starting point is 00:13:35 where you would typically be eating food or doing something that's more materialistic and doing something that's spiritual, spending more time in prayer, spending more time in reading a Bible, or connected with community, being grateful, praise and worship. So replacing that time of food

Starting point is 00:13:55 with spiritual substances. And so that's how fast, fasting was done and what you'll read about if you read the Old Testament or the Tanakh or Torah is you'll read about the Jews where they would spend time fasting and then they would have a feast. Okay. And you can imagine when you're that hungry and you haven't eaten maybe for several days or less for several days and then you really get to feast. And this was something then, the idea of fasting, was carried on then if you were a Christian through the New Testament. period and then with the early church leaders and the early church fathers, you'll see this as well.

Starting point is 00:14:36 And what the early church did, if you're reading in things like Acts 2 in the Bible and then beyond that, when you read about some of the early church fathers like St. Ignatius and Origen and many of the others, you'll see that they fasted. But here's the thing. They would tend to fast over certain periods of time. It might be around East. Lent was most common, period of fasting. but also they would fast every week.

Starting point is 00:15:04 Now, they didn't intermittent fast every day, and they didn't necessarily always do as long a fast as the Jews did, but what they would do is they would fast typically either one day a week or two days a week, up until around three o'clock or until sunset. Okay, different groups in Christianity would fast at different times and different amounts of time, but they would typically either fast on Wednesdays or on Fridays or on both. And they would do it up until around 3 o'clock. They would do it up until 3 o'clock because it was believed that 3 o'clock was the moment

Starting point is 00:15:42 when Jesus was crucified and died for our sins. So they would fast up until that period during the day and eat after. And then others believed no, it happened at sunset around, you know, anywhere between, you know, 430 and 7 p.m. and so we were going to fast at that time. But, again, either way it was done to where people would still eat that day, but it was a form of an intermittent fast, typically until around 3 o'clock, and people may eat at 3, may eat again around 7 o'clock in the evening,

Starting point is 00:16:12 but they would do an intermittent fast one to two days a week. Now, Lent, along with doing prayer and almsgiving and fasting is one of the, again, fasting is one of the three pillars of Lent. And on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, fasting rules allow Catholics and other certain denominations in Christianity to eat only one full meal, along with two smaller meals, which combine, would not equal a single normal meal. Additionally, Catholics may not eat meat on those two days or on any Friday during the time of Lent. So there are many spiritual benefits of fasting, including bringing us closer to God. Here's the biblical principle.

Starting point is 00:16:53 Fasting is a way for us to seek God's guidance and grow spiritually. Joel 212 says this, Now therefore says the Lord, turn to me with all of your heart with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. And we see here, this is where if we have something that we need in our life, we need to turn to God with fasting,

Starting point is 00:17:14 with our emotions, and with even mourning. John 6.51 says this, fasting deepens our desire for this living bread, essentially. I mean, this is a quote by Jesus, but a lot of theologians say that this is the reality here is that fasting deepens our desire for this living bread. And if you ever go without food, you become aware that you are in need.

Starting point is 00:17:38 And I think we can connect that need to food, but it also allows us to in those times be full of what God can give us, this living bread. Number two, the spiritual benefits of fasting are it increases our self-discipline. This is important when it comes to running our best race. You know, fasting helps develop self-control and a greater reliance on God. You know, 1 Corinthians 927 essentially says, but I discipline my body and keep it under control. So we know that, again, discipline is so important for us to be successful in life. Discipline is related to personal responsibility, ownership, and self-control. One of the fruits of the spirit there. So that's a benefit of fasting.

Starting point is 00:18:27 increases your discipline. Fasting also can be done in times of trouble. You know, Ezra 821 through 23, here's a summary of it. When we don't know what to do for ourselves or our family members, but we know we need God's protection, we can fast and turn to God for his help and for his direction. Recently, I've been reading through the Bible and going through some Bible studies on Daniel and Nehemiah. And you see that these men constantly turning to God for his protection and for his aid. And they're spending time at prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting. We see those two things together of fasting plus prayer equals supernatural breakthrough in the lives of people. You know, also there's fasting for repentance. We live in a world today where there's a lot of guilt

Starting point is 00:19:24 in shame. We live in a world today where I think people tend to get in a ditch one way or another. People either feel like they don't need to be forgiven. Hey, they can do whatever they want and there's just no repentance in their life. And there are other people who just live with this sort of shame and guilt. And it's almost like they can never repent enough because they feel so guilty. But I think we really need to find this place of realizing that, you know what, we can repent and we should repent saying, you know what? We're not perfect. we mess up. It's really, it's extreme humility. You're living in this very great state of humility, and we all love to be around humble people. Nobody likes to be around a prideful person, including God. And so when we get in this place of absolute humility of realizing, you know what, I'm imperfect, I need God, I need others, I need aid, and then repenting for the things we've done wrong, and knowing that God hears our prayer and forgives us, and then we can just move on. That's how that should work. But some people live in the state and they can never move on. And some people just never repent in the first place.

Starting point is 00:20:27 And so we want to be able to repent wholeheartedly from the things we've done wrong and then receive forgiveness and move on. There's another example in the Bible that I love. If you're a person that loves personal growth and leadership and business, this is a really important one. It's in Nehemiah 1-4. Nehemiah prayed and fastened for many days and nights for God's people. And we see then that he was able to build a wall and just,

Starting point is 00:20:54 over 50 days. I mean, this massive wall that people would have said, this is impossible. They were able to do it. And it was a form of business, of community building, of doing something significant. So I think sometimes people think fasting is this thing only for spiritual matters. Everything is spiritual. Your business is spiritual. Your marriage is spiritual. Your relationship to your kids. Everything is spiritual. Okay. So prayer and fasting can help all of those things. And Nehemiah prayed for wisdom, understanding, favor, and the ability to build the wall, which he was able to do. We also see this in the book of Jonah. It's throughout the Bible. We see it in the book of Joel as well here, fasting and combining that with repentance. And then here's the thing. God loves

Starting point is 00:21:43 a humble heart. God loves that you're willing to sacrifice for him and come humbling before him. And when you do that, God will answer your request. It's if it's in alignment with doing good in the world. Here's the other thing I love about fasting is fasting breaks strongholds. Lack of faith is a major stronghold. The enemy uses to bind us, keep us sick, keep us ill, keep us idle. And we see in Matthew 1721 and in Mark 9, we see what happens here with these breakthroughs. You know, there's a time in Matthew 17 where his disciples go to him and they pray for somebody

Starting point is 00:22:23 who is demon possessed and they can't cast out the demon. And Jesus says, this type of miracle requires prayer plus fasting. It requires both. So we see here again this combination of prayer and fasting together that are so powerful. We also see in Isaiah 586, fasting breaks strongholds, including addictions. If you're a person that has, an addiction to the internet to sugar to pornography to doing something that's a vice in your life that's destroying you or others fasting can help you experience that breakthrough especially when you're doing it in combination with prayer if you are frequently turning to things instead of god you are allowing that stronghold to hold power over you and a stronghold isn't always an

Starting point is 00:23:12 addiction it can also be depression or a crippling anxiety for instance and so fasting can help you experience breakthroughs in these areas. Another time I love to fast is for God's direction. We see this in Acts 13.2 and 1423 when the apostles went into a time of fasting, and they were blessed with heavenly wisdom, instruction, and power. You know, I was able to see this, as I mentioned. I've seen this in my business. I remember this was probably about nine years ago. Chelsea and I were early married. Actually, it was probably more like 10 years ago now. And we had, I had exited my clinic and I started Dr.ax.com, my website, and I had something happened where I invested in a business and it basically went under and I lost everything.

Starting point is 00:24:01 So 10 years ago, Chelsea and I, we were lined up to where we could not pay the next month's rent. We had no money. We're living in this little apartment in Franklin, Tennessee. And Chelsea and I both got on our hands and knees and we prayed and we fasted. And we said, God, would you just, you know, work a miracle for our. finances and for our business. And, you know, a few weeks later, I launched this program called the Secret Detox program. Then I launched a program called the Healing Leaky Gut Program, and it was able to transform a lot of lives and provide for our family in the process and eventually grow into

Starting point is 00:24:34 acts wellness and ancient nutrition and other businesses in the future that have both had a great positive impact in the world, but also provided for our family financially. And that was via prayer and fasting together. And so we see fasting has so many benefits spiritually. Now, I want to walk you through different types of fasts and ones that you may consider doing at different times. One is an absolute fast. This is no food, only water. An example of this is when Jesus fasted for 40 days in nights as we read about in Matthew 4. And so that's an absolute fast. There's partial fasting. This is like a restricting certain foods. We see this with a Daniel fast, where Daniel ate only, you know, probably vegetables, plants, and water. That's what we read about in Daniel 1. Intermittent fasting.

Starting point is 00:25:26 This is something we see most of the science about today in Western medicine. We see all basically doing like a 16-8 fast where you only eat in an eight-hour window a day. We see juice fast. This has been done via treating cancer via the Gershon therapy. This is consuming only vegetables and fruit juices for a certain period of time. There was a very large meta review on juice fasting. This analyzed 12 studies on 500 people. And the study found that the participants showed a 25% increase in antioxidant capacity and a 20% reduction in stress markers as well in helping people reverse disease.

Starting point is 00:26:08 via juice fasts. And then again, we also see, by the way, one other thing with a juice fast is people who did a juice fast for seven days lost an average of five to seven pounds. So there are benefits there of doing juice fast for also lowering cholesterol and other health benefits. Now, a Daniel fast, as I mentioned, I want to mention one study done on a Daniel fast. A study was conducted over a 21-day period of time with 43 people. and they found people that did a Daniel fast over 21 days had a 10 to 15% reduction in LDL cholesterol

Starting point is 00:26:44 and a 5 to 10% reduction in blood pressure. Also, we saw it helped lose weight. People that did a Daniel fast for 21 days lost an average of 5 to 10 pounds. And I want to mention, I did a Daniel fast about 10 years ago as well for 21 days. And I only ate, I didn't eat grains. I only ate vegetables, fruit, and some sprouted nuts. That was the only thing I ate. And I lost 14 pounds in 21 days.

Starting point is 00:27:14 Okay. Now, I didn't have the weight to lose really much, but we did, and I gained the weight back, and it was good. And we really saw some great spiritual breakthroughs there in our life. I felt so, so close to God and really helped me grow spiritually. But I've done Daniel fast and seen just amazing fruit in my life from it as well. But again, it's great. as you can see here, the studies for weight loss.

Starting point is 00:27:34 Daniel Fast have also been shown to increase insulin sensitivity by 20 to 30 percent, so loads of benefits there. I also want to mention there's something called the Ezra Fast, and this is fasting for God's help in solving problems for protection against the evil one and even Satan. Ezra said that they prayed and fasted and God answered their request. So we see a time where Ezra fasted as well. So as we can see, fasting has no.

Starting point is 00:28:02 numerous benefits for health, for spiritual growth, and for breakthrough in your life. And I think one of the things that I see with fasting is it's very intimidating for most people. I remember the first time that I ever did a fast. Can I tell you, it was unbelievably hard. I remember I was in my early 20s, and I fasted. And I just, it's like it was in my head. I thought, like, I was so hungry all day long. And I intended to do a three-day fast. And I ended up breaking after just doing a one day fast. Day two, I said, you know what? I, you know, I broke. I actually didn't finish the fast. This is my, in my early 20s. Now, when I fasted after that, it's been easier. I think just there was something about that first time. I think also when you're, when you're dipping into fasting, you know,

Starting point is 00:28:51 start small, right? And I think God really recognizes that, you know, we're weak, we're, we're were tempted, but even going and doing, starting small and working your way up to bigger fast is what you want to do. I think God really recognizes the desire of our hearts and meets us where we're at. Remember that. God will meet you where you're at. If you have, let's see you're part of a church and they're going to do a 21 day fast and you feel like that's overwhelming for you. Start with a three day fast and, you know, again, start small or maybe somebody's doing it all day fast. and maybe you just fast breakfast. Again, I think God will meet us where we're at.

Starting point is 00:29:33 And so again, I think we want to, hey, start small, build up to big over time with fasting. And I want to talk about who should fast and who shouldn't fast. The first is people that are overweight, whether you are five pounds overweight or 100 pounds overweight, fasting can help with weight loss. And so I would say people that need to lose weight can benefit from fasting in many cases. but typically I think people that are considered obese. Okay, if you are in that group, that's where it benefits the most. People with type 2 diabetes, a study done on 70 participants showed a drop in fasting blood sugar levels.

Starting point is 00:30:10 And so we know that intermittent fasting specifically can help with type 2 diabetes. Studies show it can help cardiovascular disease, inflammatory conditions, also neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. there's a decreased risk when you do intermittent fasting. So there are great benefits as we see with fasting. Now, I do want to mention that fasting isn't for everybody. Several studies have linked skipping breakfast with increased cardiometabolic risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, unfavorable lipid profiles, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. In fact, there was a study done, a large-scale study on those who skis

Starting point is 00:30:53 skip breakfast. This was a comprehensive view of all-cause mortality, and here's what they found. This was a study done on nearly 200,000 people aged 40 and above. And this was done on about over a 17-year period of time. So this is a long-term study done on a large group of people. And here's what they found, that people who skipped breakfast, who did a form of fasting, essentially, had a 21% increased risk of cardiovascular disease and a 32% risk in all-cause mortality compared to those who didn't eat breakfast. Now, here is what I think we need to be conscious of. At the end of the day, what matters is that according to a nutritionist got into this, but what her belief was, her name is Carrie Gunn. She said, at the end of the day, what matters is that an individual

Starting point is 00:31:48 can meet their daily nutritional requirements for optimal health. So here's what you need to know when you really dive into the research. Are people just skipping breakfast because they're busy or and they're, you know, it's not because they're focused on health. It's because they're just, they're busy. Or are you skipping breakfast because you were intermittent fasting? Here's the other thing I think that this shows is if you are going to intermittent fast, you should be eating healthy for those other meals a day, for that eight hour window or however long you're eating, you should be eating a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruits, a lot of wild organic meat, a lot of nutrient dense real foods. Okay.

Starting point is 00:32:28 Because if you're going to fast and you're going to eat garbage, there's really not as much of a point in fast. I think it's still going to hurt your health in that case. So I think that's one of the things to consider. I also believe this is that if you intermittent fast for a really long period of time, let's say just daily forever, I think that a lot of this is bio-individual. I think for some people, and by the way, I noticed this in taking care of tens of thousands of people in practice, okay, in my medical practice.

Starting point is 00:32:58 I saw that, again, this is just, I'm giving you generalizations, but I found that oftentimes men did slightly better than women when it came to fasting results, the results in their body. And I think that has to do with women. Their hormones fluctuate more greatly, and they need a little bit more stability in their diet. And so I think that that was one of the reasons why I saw that. I found that people that are very stressed out, they shouldn't be intermittent fasting. Because fasting is a form of stress. It's actually a form of rest and a form of stress.

Starting point is 00:33:35 It's more stressful to your hormonal system, insulin and blood sugar. It's more, it's less stress on your digestive system. Okay. So it's a form of rest and stress at the same time when you're fasting. And so depending upon where you need the rest is really dependent upon if fasting is going to work for you. Now, here's how I believe fasting should be done is I think we should be modeling the early church and the Jewish community in how to fast. I think it should be done regularly one day a week, maybe two, and not as an all-day fast as an intermittent fast where you're skipping breakfast and maybe eating again three o'clock or three o'clock and six. the clock in the evening and about a four to, you know, four to six hour window there, just one day a week.

Starting point is 00:34:26 And I think about that like cold plunging or sauna, but a little bit more extreme. It's something called hormesis to where your body has to adapt to that. But even if you just do it one day a week, that's 52 times a year, that really gets your body more metabolically flexible. If you do it one, and if you did it two days a week, that's a hundred days a year. So I think for most people, they will get the equal benefits of individuals. intermittent fasting if they did it just one to two, let's say two days a week versus every single day. And then let's say you fast one day a week, but then also you do some fasting over

Starting point is 00:35:00 lent and some fasting and maybe a couple other days a year for spiritual breakthrough, for deeper connection to God for certain reasons. Then you're adding in more days of fasting as well, but I think fasting is done most ideally in modeling the Jewish community in the early church. where it's done around certain holidays and seasons, and it's done maybe a day a week or two days a week. The moral of the story is this. Listen to your body when it comes to fasting. Fast, especially if you are morally convicted and spiritually convicted,

Starting point is 00:35:36 you know, okay, you need to be fasting one to two days a week or you need to be fasting at certain times of the year, doing a Daniel fast with your church, for instance, or some sort of fast. Do it absolutely, okay? but also know that there are a lot of influencers out there and even scientists that say, everyone should fast all the time or everyone should always be intermittent fasting. I don't think the research shows that. In fact, when you look at Chinese medicine, they did not recommend fasting the way we do today.

Starting point is 00:36:02 And I think it's one of the most effective forms of medicine. I think, again, the way that the Bible recommends fasting, which is, you know, we see the early church doing this. Maybe it's a day a week. You're devoting to God. and then it's doing, you know, seasonal fasting, you know, certain times of the year with your church or with your, you know, your community or synagogue, that's the way that you should be fasting. Now, who should probably definitely not fast for at least a period of time? People with eating disorders, if somebody has anorexia or bulimia, you really want to

Starting point is 00:36:36 consult with your health care provider before doing a fast. Women that are pregnant or breastfeeding, I don't believe should be fasting at all either. You need to be listening to your body when you're hungry and eating if you're breastfeeding or pregnant. Also, people with certain medical conditions, especially those who can lead to dangerously low blood sugar levels, people with heart conditions where blood pressure can drop too much. And again, always consult your physician if you have a medical condition and you're going to consider doing some fasting there as well. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I think the best way to think about fasting is to think about what you, think your body is going to do the best with. Maybe it's intermittent fasting. Maybe it's alternate day fasting.

Starting point is 00:37:18 But generally speaking, I think for most people, picking one day a week where you honor God that day, you know, early part of that day, spending more time with him is a great way to just get in a regularly, a regular fasting rhythm and then doing it as part of your church or your worship community of whatever religion you're a part of. Here's some dues around fasting. Stay hydrated and drink lots of water. also start with shorter fasts and gradually increase over time. Also, around fasting, remember, fill yourself with something. Don't just sit there. Spend time with prayer, connecting with

Starting point is 00:37:55 community. Those are some do's with fasting. So some don'ts around fasting. Don't avoid all movement around fasting. Again, you want to get out and walk. You could do some light cardio. You could do some lightweights, but you don't want to absolutely exert yourself, but also you don't want to do nothing either. I think walking is the ideal thing to do. Walking about an hour or more that day is perfect to do while fasting. And also, don't overeat when breaking your fast. Okay, so sometimes people just gorge themselves. Don't do that. Just eat a regular-sized meal after you do your fast for the most part, kind of giving your system time to adapt to the food it hasn't had in a while. So again, remember this, fasting can have incredible benefits for spiritual breakthroughs, mental and emotional breakthroughs, for physical breakthroughs, everything from weight loss to fighting cancer to longevity.

Starting point is 00:38:49 But also, fasting needs to be done in a way that's bio-individual that is customized for you. And you're better off typically starting off doing it where you're doing it one day a week and then maybe even two days a week. but some people can do fine every day, but remember, that's not for everybody according to the studies. Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this episode on fasting. I know I probably surprised some people because I have talked about the benefits of fasting, which there are benefits, but again, remember, it's all about your individual, unique biochemistry you need to take care of. And I think modeling the Bible and modeling the early church fathers and how fasting was done

Starting point is 00:39:28 is the best place to go for the truth. Remember each and every week on the show, I'm diving deep in. topics about how to grow in body, mind, spirit. And I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. By the way, thank you so much for subscribing, liking, and sharing this. And again, I am so grateful every time I see all of you sharing this podcast. I think more people need to know the truth about fasting, about the bio-individuality, about the spiritual benefits. So do me a favor. Again, thank you for sharing this episode, whether you're texting it to a friend or you're posting it on Facebook or Instagram. Thank you all of you. And let me know,

Starting point is 00:40:02 maybe on your post on Instagram, you say, this surprised me about fasting. Maybe there was something you learned that surprised you. And let me know, too, if you're on YouTube, hey, go to, you know, comment, have you fasted before? What were the benefits you saw? Or have you ever noticed that maybe you don't do that well fasting? So maybe something that surprised you about this episode. I'd love to hear from you. Hey, thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode.

The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Benefits of Fasting (And How to Do It)

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