Re: Does anyone water fast every other day?

Hello fasting4fibroidcure,

what you are referring to is really named IF or "Intermittent Fasting" with one day of eating and one day of not on alternate days.
I have been doing some research on IF lately and can vouch for its efficacy, but it is not as effective for its health and cleansing benefits as a long-term fast.
We should also bear in mind that it was the usual practice for centuries to eat only one meal per day, and where the recent three meal per day plan is a relatively new phenomenon.

In research settings animals that are intermittently fasted are fed every other day, so they eat whatever they want for a day, then they are denied food for a day. Interestingly, on feeding days most of the animals eat almost double the amount that their ad lib fed mates do. Thus the IF animals eat about the same number of calories overall that the ad lib fed animals eat, but, and this is a huge ‘but,’ the IF animals enjoy all the health advantages that the Calorie Restriction animals do, and, in fact, are even healthier than the CR animals.

Like caloric restriction, intermittent fasting reduces oxidative stress, makes the animals more resistant to acute stress in general, reduces blood pressure, reduces blood sugar, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces the incidence of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and improves cognitive ability. But IF does even more, and this the really interesting part......... animals that are intermittently fasted greatly increase the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) relative to Calorie Restricted animals.

BDNF apparently, is a substance that increases the growth of new nerve cells in the brain, but it does much more than that. BDNF is neuroprotective against stress and toxic insults to the brain and is somehow–(no one yet knows how), exactly–involved in the insulin sensitivity/glucose regulating mechanism.
Infusing BDNF into animals increases their insulin sensitivity and makes them lose weight. Humans with greater levels of BDNF have lower levels of Depression as well. BDNF given to depressed humans reduces their depression; And Increased levels of BDNF improves cognitive ability. In short, you want as much BDNF as you can get........... and with IF you can get a lot.

IF is beneficial for the above reasons and where the body will then make maximum use of the time allowed in non-feeding days to also cleanse and heal the body.

I was not a fan of IF until I did this research but would now say I am a semi-convert.
I shall try it myself very shortly and report on my findings in the forum.

Regards

Chrisb1.
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