People have long since praised the benefits of fasting since the early religions and philosophers and likely long before. Hippocrates, Plato, Socrates and Aristotle all esteemed fasting. It is common knowledge that many religious and spiritual groups practiced fasting whether in their rites and rituals or for various benefits both physical and spiritual. Some have seen it as a sacrifice while others have drawn accolades of its miraculous healing powers. While still not accepted by conventional western medicine, fasting has become overwhelmingly embraced by Doctors who practice holistic/naturopathic medicine.
Recently I was recommended by a friend to go see this holistic Doctor in our area and I figured I would give it a shot. A little fact about me though is that I absolutely do not like most traditional doctors and often will just avoid visiting them altogether. Besides, from my experience they are quick to write a prescription to get you out the door so they can see the next patient and often misdiagnose something or in rare cases such as mine, absolutely refuse to give you the confirmation diagnosis that you are 99.9% sure you have. In my case, I have been battling candida for over 5 years now. If you aren't aware, candida is a yeast that normally lives in harmony with the rest of our gut bacteria/flora. The western diet, which pretty much fries or put sugar in everything, promotes the growth of this yeast. Sometimes however, depending on your health and/or immunity you can develop an overgrowth of candida to the point of it being completely out of control. This was the case for me and, as most people do, I put off treatment because it is often extremely inconvenient and requires a complete change of lifestyle and diet. This diet presumably consist of avoiding all glutenous grains, sugar, most fruits, some nuts and seeds, some dairy products, all processed meats, alcohol and caffeine. This was a summarized lists but the point is most people have a really hard time sticking to the diet. I've tried many times and the temptation to eat all the things you are addicted to is SO strong. I even did a 23 days juice cleanse and that was pretty tough but I did feel pretty amazing from it.
Most recently my doctor conformed that I did in fact have candida and recommend the diet I was familiar with plus gave me some herbs to take daily. After I week I had another check up visit and he had said "you know you could speed up the healing process by fasting" and recommended, if I thought I could handle it, a water fast. So here I am, day 4 and feeling amazing! By day 3 I had noticed my skin had cleared up drastically. I had been dealing several skin conditions that I just couldn't seem to cure any other way such as extreme dandruff (which is actually a fungal infection of the scalp) and rashes that itched worse than anything I've ever experienced. I've also had swollen lymph nodes for probably about 3 years as well, its been so long I kind of got used to it, but now they have returned to normal. Lots of awesome and kind of unexpected but hoped for changes happening right before my eyes. Now I plan to do this for a total of 9 days so Ill report back with a follow up post at the end of my fast to let those interested know how it went.
