The 24-hour fast or one-day fast is one of the most attractive because it seems easy to assume, but how is it done? And most importantly: does it bring you benefits?
- How to do a one-day fast
- What can be taken
- What to do during the day
- Benefits of 24-hour fasting
A fasting day, 24 hours, is a slightly longer fast than what we practice daily at night or overnight fasting. The advantage is that 24 hours is enough time to make sure we get into ketosis, that is, start burning fat as the main fuel.
To do it requires two things: to be mentalized and well informed that the 24-hour fast that is going to be performed is a physiological maneuver, and to understand its mechanism to put into action.
The simplest thing when doing a 24-hour fast is to do without dinner one day and breakfast and lunch the next. This allows us to enter ketosis, which we can easily verify, because one of the signs that we have begun this type of metabolism will be the appearance of acetone in the urine, very simple to measure.
You can do this 24-hour fast once a week, every week, as a hygienic custom. We would therefore be doing a weekly intermittent fast.
HOW TO DO A ONE-DAY FAST
The first few times imagine your 24-hour fast as a long-distance race: go little by little and watch your sensations.
Sometimes they are unpleasant sensations, such as nausea or headache, but in most cases they are temporary.
The ideal is to get up at dawn, stretch well and start daily cleaning, with water. Wash your teeth, tongue and skin thoroughly.
WHAT CAN BE TAKEN
As explained in detail in the video you have at the beginning of this article, during the 24 hours of fasting we can drink water, diluted juices and some infusion or vegetable broth, because these liquids will not break the fast and will help us maintain it.
The infusions can be adapted if you have a health problem that you want to influence. But, in general, these are some examples of infusions that can be taken during fasting and that will help you in the process:
- Rosemary and anise grains
- Licorice and anise grains
- Licorice and mint
- Thyme and anise grains
These infusions are mainly aimed at stimulating blood pressure which, in general, decreases during fasting. They are not indicated in hypertensive people.
An infusion alternative for hypertensive people would be anise grain, lemon balm and orange blossom.
WHAT TO DO DURING THE DAY
The rest of the day you can do what you do normally, without missing:
- A walk in the natural environment.
- A sunny time.
- A little exercise, with natural movements: walking, running, climbing, crawling, crawling, doing household chores such as cleaning the room or washing clothes…
“Unfasting,” the first meal after fasting, should be vegetable, with fresh fruit and vegetables, cereal or legumes, without heated fat or refined sugars.
BENEFITS OF 24-HOUR FASTING
The benefits of these “intermittent” fasts have been described in medicine since historical times, but in recent years many papers have been published on their effects. An example: those of Nobel laureate Oshinori Ohsumi on autophagy, the mechanism that is activated with fasting and high-intensity exercise, and on its therapeutic applications. It has also been shown to be beneficial for the inflamed intestine or affected by an infection.
In fasting, the energy stored in fat cells is used for cell repair, stress resistance and rejuvenation, so that day of fasting will have a revitalizing effect on us. This is a benefit of 24-hour fasting that we can all benefit from.
Fasting also facilitates weight loss and the elimination of body fat.
Fasting is also used for therapeutic purposes, for example:
- In rheumatic diseases, improving symptoms, or drug-resistant epilepsy.
- It has the potential to delay brain aging by modifying nutrient sensory pathways in the brain and increasing synaptic plasticity, neurogenesis, and neuroprotection.
- Fasting results in reduced insulin and leptin levels, increased insulin sensitivity and diabetes resistance, reduced resting heart rate and blood pressure, and increased heart rate variability (as a result of increased parasympathetic tone).
- There is also a decrease in inflammation, an increase in the resistance of the brain and heart to stress and an improvement in functional outcome in models of stroke, myocardial infarction and arteriosclerosis problems.
- It also helps fight infections. In fact, almost always the body reacts by losing its appetite until the infection passes.
- Finally, thanks to the work of Valter Longo, it has been seen that, in cases of tumors, fasting provides additive and possibly synergistic effects when combined with drugs used in the standard treatment of cancer.