Fasting One of the Ultimate Disciplines Can help heal your old Injuries

From years of training in the martial arts, I have suffered many injuries from dislocations, broken bones in my hands and feet. I even tested for my black belt before fighting in a tournament the next day, with an undiagnosed (at the time) fractured neck.

The breaks and dislocations sound bad but given time and good care they heal. The injuries I have had the most problems with are less dramatic, torn ligaments, and worn cartilage. The wear and tear form years of accumulated physical trauma. Martial arts is not unique to these kinds of ailments, football, rugby, boxing, gymnastics are to name but a few activities where the same can happen.

To those who find themselves subject to such ailments only 2 options have been available, surgery which often ended up limiting the range of movement and rarely resulted in a full recovery, or to grin and bear it.

Now there is another option.Scientific studies on mice, and humans has found that fasting (going without food for a prolonged time) has serious health benefits:

I know all this sounds too good to be true but the increasing number of scientific studies are confirming these results.

One of the oldest I found was published way back in 1946 in the Journal of Nutrition (Volume 31, Issue 3). It found that Rats that were put on a intermittent fasting diet had a 20{7c8ecebc31e2ab0f218b8c1a69be08ef355facd3ea212c37e87c2a05a840bb1f} longer lifespan in males and a 15{7c8ecebc31e2ab0f218b8c1a69be08ef355facd3ea212c37e87c2a05a840bb1f} longer lifespan in females when put on a 1 day fast in 3.

And that was over 70 years ago.

More recent studies have found that patients that fast before receiving Chemotherapy have a greater success rate in reducing the size of the tumour, with the added benefit of reducing side effects suffered.

I first heard about the positive effects of fasting from my friend Jeff, who at the time was reading a Bear Grylls book. In it Bear told the reader some of the health benefits he enjoys from regular fasting, while reiterating that fasting was not a diet plan.

My friend proceeded to give it a go and lasted about 30 hours before devouring a steak.

I did not give it that much thought after that for about a year, when I came across an article about the actor Terry Crews, who only eats 1 meal a day in the afternoon, effectively fasting for the rest of the day and night. He mainly attributed his long term health and youthful physique to these eating habits.

Hugh Jackman also used intermittent fast while preparing to play Wolverine in the later X-men movies. He could only eat within an 8 hour window the other 16 he fasted.

3 months ago a work colleague (who is also a personal trainer), said that he just completed a 3 day water fast, eating nothing for 3 days. He said he felt great and that it wasn’t as difficult as he thought it was. At this point (not wanting to be out done) I was seriously considering taking on the same challenge. What clinched it was when he told me about the effects fasting had on his wife a few weeks prior. She had been complaining of stomach pain for a while and got referred for a scan that was showing suspect shadows around her abdomen so suspect that they wanted her to go in for another scan a week later. The threat of a possible serious illness was enough for her to want to take serious action to improve her health so she decided to do a 3 day water only fast. The following week when she went back for the second scan the suspect shadows were gone.

I went home that night watched 2 documentaries about fasting on Amazon one called Fasting and the other called The Science of Fasting, quickly trying to fact check what I could on Google.

They claim that when the body goes without food for a long enough period it goes into a starvation mode. It is then when it begins to purge all the damaged or unproductive cells from the body, because it can’t afford to waste good energy on an unhealthy cell. The body converts form using carbohydrates as its main energy source to Keytones (which is energy from fat cells). The great thing is that it not only converts fat to energy it also converts it to stem cells which it uses to replace the purged damaged unhealthy cells with brand new productive ones. Your body practically regenerates its own immune system, all for free.

2 days after the chat with my work mate I started my 3 day water fast.

Now I said it’s all for free but we all know nothing in life is ever free there is always a price. Fasting has no real monetary cost, which is great but there is a physical one in the form of unrelenting hunger for the first 24 to 36 hours. I did find after the 36 hour mark I no longer felt physically hungry, my brain on the other hand was a different matter. All I kept thinking about was food even though I was no longer hungry, it got especially bad when I could smell or see food. I had to use all of my will power to resist the urge to buy and dig into a chocolate fudge cake. I fear will power alone was not enough to stop me from eating I had to use the discipline and focus that I learnt through the years of hard training, which was ironically the main reason why I was now doing the fast.

I am not saying fasting is a cure all there are some things it can’t fix, and there are some people that could never go a day let alone 3 without eating. But if you can stick with it there are some great benefits. For example I lost 2 stone in weight within 10 hours. I weighed myself on the first day, on the second day no change, on the morning of the third day I had lost 2 pounds in weight, that same night I weighed myself and I was 2 STONE lighter. I can only speculate the extreme difference in weight was due to my body starvation mode fully kicking in, around the 60 hour mark of my 72 hour water fast.

I had more energy and significantly felt less tired on a day to day basis on the days following.

People around me were getting stomach bugs and colds but I never got ill.

What I found most profound was a new sense of clarity, I was thinking more clearly, I began reading and listening to audio books veraciously. My memory got better and I could retain more useful information (I say useful but it’s probably more selective to what I find interesting).

My Joint pain had considerably eased too.

There was one more positive I took from the experience, in not eating any food I saved money.

Now if everyone on the planet fasted for 3 days imagine how much food we would save, and how much the global carbon footprint would reduce. The energy to transport the food to shops, to go to the shops to buy it, the packaging waste that would be cut down, and cooking the food, the savings would be astronomical (Just food for thought ‘pun intended’).

There are many different types of fasting, here are a few of the most common types:

This article is not medical advice or am i suggesting all readers take to it right now. I am only giving you my experience of fasting, yours could be completely different. In a world where you can go to the Dr about a pain and they can prescribe a pain killer that gives you side effects which need more pills to deal with, wouldn’t it be great if your own body could heal it’s self, by just burning fat whilst showing self discipline.

If you were considering doing your own fast as clichéd as it sounds you should consult your Dr before committing to it. They can make sure you are up to it and help you decide how long your fast should be.

On a side note, there is a clinic in America where you can fast for 40 days under qualified medical supervision. So when someone says they can’t go without food for a day or 2 note that in the right conditions people can go without food for well over a month.

By Louis Tandoh Chief instructor at Family Martial Arts Gravesend