Fasting and cleansing the body - a sign of striving for health or psychosis?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The story of Yuri Balabanov about became the most discussed in the entire history of Lifehacker. The comments confirmed the fact: from a raw food diet, not only raw foodists, but also normal people get wild. Then Yuuri vowed to continue to write about his food preferences, but the reader's question about therapeutic fasting and cleansing the body forced him to return to the topic of healthy eating.

After I announced in one of the articles that I enjoy eating meat, supporters of a healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition poured so much hatred, intolerance and anger on the pages of this blog that I vowed to continue writing about my gastronomic tastes.

Some dilapidated guys with gray faces, testifying to a lack of collagen and muscle atrophy, sang odes to raw cabbage and carrots in the comments, and hysterical ladies sent me in a personal photo, in which they hugged their pets. The pictures were full of calls: "Stop eating our smaller brothers!" You might think that people eating meat, going out into the yard, immediately attack the cats and dogs walking there, and devour them, crunching with thin bones and pouring out warm blood.

Deciding not to take part in the intellectual carnage, I continued to travel to different countries, get acquainted with exotic cuisines and just enjoy life.

I would continue to pass over in silence the topic of healthy eating, which so attracts people who are not at all healthy, if it also did not attract young people who have not quite decided on this issue.

Good evening Yuuri! My name is Anton. I'm 25 years old. I would like to immediately say thank you, at one time you very motivated me to take the path of health. And then the question. Recently, I have become interested in the topic of cleansing the body. Many people advise fasting therapy, 3 days per month. But there is a lot of conflicting information on this topic, in the end it is not clear whether it is worth practicing? It would be very interesting to know your opinion.

There are a lot of such letters to me in PM and to my blog. And I thought: if I don't tell about my experience - how not to harm myself with diets and healthy eating - then Anton (and everyone who strives for excellence), in the end, will end up on the sites of those same uncles with radishes in their teeth and aunts with kittens in an embrace. And then starvation, restrictions, an unhealthy look and flabby muscles will begin. That is why I return to this topic again today.

Dear Anton! The reason for the confusion and complete unsuitability of many healthy nutrition systems is that the process of healing, starvation and all kinds of restrictions is taken under a magnifying glass, and the person himself is not considered at all - his way of life, the way to move, think, eat. Nobody asks questions: what were we sick (or are sick with), what abnormalities we have in physical development (non-standard weight, height), how emotional and stressed we are, what is our heredity.

But only on the basis of the individual characteristics of each of us, one can talk about cleansing and, moreover, about fasting. It cannot be argued indiscriminately that sweets are harmful, since it is sugary foods that save many people from stress. And it is impossible for everyone, without exception, to agitate for a raw food diet, because there are people who vitally need animal protein.

But there are several rules that are common to everyone. These rules have been the rules of my life for almost twenty years, allowing me, in my 54 years, to be healthy - physically and spiritually.

RULE 1. Eat so that there is no thought of cleansing or fasting

Think about it - the very term "purification" presupposes the original reverse action - pollution. Fasting is an attempt to balance the other extreme: overeating.

So that you never have the thought about the need to cleanse a clogged body, I give a couple of tips from my own experience.

• Never sit down at the table "for the company".
• Never eat food just because it is "a shame to throw it away."
• Never help yourself in order not to offend the one who is serving you.
• Don't forget about "small snacks" throughout the day. Forced hunger in the evening will necessarily turn into gluttony.
• Do not eat for future use, "in reserve." The fear of being left without food is embedded in our genetic memory. But in opposition to this fear, an argument can be put forward: in order to escape from starvation, a piece of bread is enough. You can always take a piece of bread with you - if there is no bag, then in your pocket.

RULE 2. If you decide to change your lifestyle, do it gradually

To sharply purify your body is just as harmful as it is for a non-drinker to drink a bottle of vodka in one gulp.

We forget that by consuming certain "poisons" for a long time, our body adapts to them. And the abrupt cessation of their flow can cause a failure. So spontaneous diets, violent starvation and cardinal cleansing are a game with your health and, possibly, with life.

I don't want to scare anyone, but a rather unpleasant story happened before my eyes. It was in the seventies. Then a craze came into vogue - everyone was convinced that if you eat one carrot for a month, there will be a rapid cleansing of the body from toxins and a cure for diseases.

We then lived in Moscow. Our neighbor on the floor decided to cure her husband, a heavy smoker. Hiding all his cigarettes, she ordered to deprive him of meat food, putting him on a diet: grated carrots with sunflower oil.

“In a month you will be cured of all diseases,” she promised.

… On the 29th day, the patient died, not having lived only a day before the promised recovery.

And this is not a made-up story. Everyone then wondered what could have influenced the man, who, despite his addiction to nicotine, was quite strong. And the fact is that the excess of beta-carotene contained in carrots has a damaging effect on the liver and pancreas. Also, beta-carotene can cause vasoconstriction (which in smokers is already not in the best condition), leading a person to a stroke.

So try to do without spectacular, but very dangerous intentions, such as "From tomorrow, I do not eat meat (do not smoke, do not drink)."

RULE 3. Be reasonable in approach to your lifestyle and diet

We must never forget that a person is not a living "furnace" into which we throw, as necessary, materials that ensure our livelihoods. In addition to the usefulness of the internal composition of foods, their taste, appearance, and even the situation in which you eat food play a decisive role. If this were not the case, we would have been feeding intravenously for a long time or pumping biological fluids into ourselves using a catheter.

Unleavened food, even if rich in vitamins and minerals, can not only lead to depression, but also kill. We need to feel - and the taste of salt on our lips, and the sweetness and bitterness and, of course, the burning sensation from hot sauces. Without this palette of sensations, our brains and the entire body quickly fade.

RULE 4. Never make an enemy in the form of food

The nutritional system in which you withdraw from certain foods, being convinced that these foods are harmful, creates the so-called "enemy" effect in our minds. Slowly and gradually, anxiety creeps into you. At first, you are tormented by the fear that you may accidentally take in something harmful to your health. Then you start to worry that other people are poisoning their bodies with unhealthy foods. After - because junk food surrounds you everywhere - it is sold on every corner in stalls, shops, eateries. The consequence of such a worldview is a sluggish psychosis with a weakening of the body's immune system. It is this psychosis that all "raw foodists" suffer from, urging their neighbors to "come to their senses and stop eating corpse."

… There are a lot of mushrooms in the forests surrounding the place where I now live. This summer our family went on a mushroom hunt. In the evening, they invited the neighbors and arranged a holiday in the courtyard with potato and porcini mushrooms. We had fun until midnight. And suddenly the fun stopped: one of the guests, a young man named Ralph, fell on the grass, writhing in convulsions.

I ran up and asked what had happened.

It turned out that in a conversation with my wife, he asked which supermarket we bought such wonderful mushrooms. She said that she did not buy them, but collected them in the forest.

- How, in the woods ?! Ralph jumped up. - There are dogs running around, and indeed, forest mushrooms have not been tested !!! Mushrooms are not lifted from the ground where they rot !!! They must be kept in stores, refrigerators!

It was after these words that the unfortunate man fell to the ground, huddled in agony.

The ambulance team that arrived in our yard did not find any poisoning in the patient. But, having found out how the attack began, the doctors gave the poisoned a special powerful injection that neutralized the effect of the mushroom poison, which they immediately informed the dying person about.

The attack immediately passed, and Ralph even announced that he was ready to continue the fun. Of course, the mushroom heat had to be carried out of sight, but the holiday lasted until the morning. The whole family ate porcini mushrooms the next day. And Ralph never learned that the powerful injection that saved his life was nothing more than an ordinary completely neutral saline solution.

Conclusion - it is better to happily overturn a glass of wine than to drink a glass of distilled water with mortal horror.

RULE 5. Do not try to deliberately interfere with the internal processes of your body

Another danger that lies in wait for people who pay too much attention to their nutrition is the desire to facilitate the work of their stomach, generated by the adamant belief that it is difficult for it (the stomach) to cope with its duties.

Try not to get up for six months, spending all days in bed. The result will be a complete degradation of the motor apparatus and a general decline in interest in life.

Our organs are created in order to fight, to overcome stress, to feel their need in the general process of life. The exclusion of any organ from this process is not only undesirable, but fatal.

And now, based on all of the above, we draw conclusions

Eat lightly, with joy, without fear of being poisoned, with the belief that your body will cope with any food. Get aesthetic and gustatory pleasure from food. Never eat "for dad" and "for mom". Do not be afraid to starve to death - in modern society this will not work, even if you really want to - in any case, for those who are now facing a monitor screen, and who are reading these lines.

As for the diet, it should be remembered that this concept is translated from the Greek language as "a reasonable way of life." Any restrictions to which you doom yourself of your own free will, relying on your primitive knowledge, is detrimental to your body, as well as to the people around you. Only a doctor and only a doctor can make a verdict on dietary restrictions based on a study of your health, your habits, and the work of your internal organs.

To conclude this little psycho-gastronomic review, I invite you to honestly answer a few questions by ticking the box in front of those to which you answered yes:

1. Are you thinking for more than three hours a day about how to eat right?
2. Are you planning your menu a few days in advance?
3. Is the composition of the food more important to you than the taste?
4. Is it true that as your diet becomes healthier, your overall life becomes poorer?
5. Is it true that you have become more demanding of yourself lately?
6. Is it true that your self-esteem increases when you eat right?
7. Have you given up on any of your favorite foods because you don't think they are good for your health?
8. Is it true that your diet prevents you from eating in restaurants and also interferes with your interactions with family and friends?
9. Do you feel guilty if you have broken your diet?
10. If you eat well, do you feel calm and in complete control of your life?
11. Do you feel a sense of superiority towards people who are eating the wrong way?

If out of the eleven questions above, five are ticked off, you have something to think about. For your attitude towards proper and nutritious nutrition has grown into a neurosis. The disease is called orthorexia nervosa. Treating orthorexia nervosa is very simple. Rewind this article to the beginning and read it again.

Sincerely,.