At Stanly Wellness Center, we focus on the ancient healing strategies of FASTING and INTERMITTENT FASTING to help patients to heal from chronic health conditions. These strategies have been in practice since the dawn of man, even if they didn’t realize that they were actually doing them. In fact, I have been unknowingly fasting and intermittent fasting since I was a child. I just, in the past several years, have been able to put a name to my diet and lifestyle.
You may be asking, what exactly is fasting and intermittent fasting and why is it so important to our overall health and since of well-being?
Simply put, fasting means going a period of time without eating any food. Everyone engages in intermittent fasting on a daily basis. When we sleep we are obviously not eating, therefore we are fasting. However true fasting comes when you make the conscious effort to avoid eating for as long as possible without harming your health.
To give you an example of how I implement these strategies into my own lifestyle, I typically follow a 3-2-2 fast or a 5-1-1 fast. This means that I eat between the hours of 12pm and 7pm 3 days a week, I water fast for 2 days per week and I have 2 days per week that are “free days” where I eat whenever I want to. Or I follow the 5-1-1 fast where I eat between the hours of 12pm and 7 pm on Sun., Mon., Tues., I water fast on Wed., I eat between 12pm and 7pm on Thrs. & Fri., and Sat. is a “free day”.
To answer the next question of why this strategy is important in overall health, we can look to science and research to answer that question. One simple PubMed search on intermittent fasting pulls up over 800 research articles on the benefits of fasting. Fasting allows the body the opportunity to utilize its own resources to healing sick and diseased cells and tissues and organs. Everything from cognitive decline, to diabetes to cancer and weight loss can be helped with a fasting strategy.
If you have been considering fasting for yourself there are a lot of great websites that are full of information on the topic. I personally engage with Fasting For A Purpose on Facebook. I like the website Ruled.me which is loaded with resources including diet guides and recipes. Recently I have been using a fasting app called BodyFast where you can input some of your personal goals and the app can help to come up with a weekly plan or program for you to follow.
A word of caution, if you do plan on beginning a fast, you should know that fasting is not right for everyone and some people need to be under the supervision of a specialist familiar with fasting protocols in order to do it safely without adverse side effects.
At Stanly Wellness Center, we are eager and ready to help you and your families achieve your best health possible. If you are looking for help with your health or you know of someone who is suffering with poor health, call the office of Stanly Wellness Center at 980-355-7600 and schedule a FREE 15-minute consultation with Dr. Patrick Ess to see how he can help. Dr. Ess will not waste your time or money. He will let you know if he can help you, and if he can’t, who in the community can.
Our office specializes in nutrition, detoxification and neurological correction. You can also refer to our website at www.AskDrPatrick.com for more information. We accept most major health insurances including BCBS, Aetna, Humana, UHC, Medicaid and Medicare.
