Fasting is really important in our daily life, but a lot of people cannot fast they say I want to try to fast, but I just cannot fast I get too acidic, I get too tired, I get too fatigued so a lot of people say we cannot fast can you help us. Well, if you cannot fast for 18 hours or 16 hours. That’s okay, there is no magic in the number 16, there is no magic in the number 18 or 24.
Why should we fast?
Once in a way doing a nice long fast cleans out our system completely. But if you are the kind of person who cannot fast, it’s okay, it doesn’t mean you can’t be healthy in other ways, it doesn’t mean you can’t clean out your system, boost your immune system, burn fat, improve your brain function in other ways.
So if you can’t fast for long hours, you already know about the circadian rhythm fast where you can just fast for 12 hours where you start at sunset and you end at sunrise that’s 12 powerful hours of fasting.
Now let’s say you cannot even do that, here’s another solution because everyone’s lifestyle is different. Everyone’s unique, everyone’s different, but everyone’s trying to fit in that one box. So here’s another way of doing it.
If anyone’s ever studied anatomy or physiology you come across a term called MMC healthy. That’s your migrating motor complex. We have an MMC in our body, the job of the MMC, it’s called the house cleaning wave.
Every 90 minutes to 120 minutes when we’re not eating gaps between our meals or we’re in a fasting stage, the MMC gets activated and all the debris and bacteria are swept through your gastrointestinal walls. It basically clears out your stomach and it clears out your small intestines.
What if you don’t fast?
Now, what happens if this debris and these residual bacteria don’t get cleaned out. They start accumulating in your small intestine, they start fermenting we get something called SIBO which is a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
When you have this problem you can have a leaky gut syndrome with lee which is connected to almost all autoimmune conditions. You can have poor skin, you can have poor hair, you have a B12 absorption problem, you have a malabsorption problem of all of your nutrients, you have bloating, you have gas, you have acidity basically you have all of the gut problems if your system isn’t clean.
If a corner in your house isn’t clean you can leave it dirty for a couple of days but eventually, it starts to smell it starts to grow fungus and bacteria and all of these issues. So what we need to understand is that SIBO is when the MMC doesn’t get activated.
Now, how do we activate the MMC you don’t have to, it automatically gets activated when we’re not eating. 90 minutes to 120 minutes approximately is what science is showing us.
You see the intelligence of the human body when people say oh! Detox diets don’t work, detoxification doesn’t happen through fasting guess what your body has its own cleanup process and that is called MMC.
Now for everyone who cannot fast at least try to keep a gap of three and a half to four hours between your meals. So you can activate the MMC at least twice automatically.
So if you’re constantly eating every two hours you’re popping something in your mouth, you’re munching, you’re grazing through the day, you’re snacking through the day, it’s complete logic and common sense that you don’t activate the MMC.
Certain functions get activated only when the body is in a state of complete rest when your digestive system is not broken down food when you’re not absorbing food all the time when it’s on a complete break you activate the MMC.
Sleep is not a form of deep rest when you’re sleeping hormonal balance happens, growth happens, repair happens, detoxification happens and inflammation comes down.
1. Fast during your sleep
So you see we need to give a break to our brain, to our stomach, to our body, to our vital organs everything. We heal and we grow and we recover only when we’re in a state of complete rest. If you cannot fast at all 15, 16, 18 hours 12 hour circadian.
Try to balance your meals if you’re having three meals in a day, let’s say your first meal is at nine o’clock. Your next meal will be at one o’clock. Approximately four hours later, three and a half to four. Technically four hours is healthy enough for all of us.
But some people get a little too acidic if the gap is too long so then you can bring it down to about three to three and a half hours. So you allow the ems MMC to be activated. So if your next meal is at one o’clock, then your next meal is four hours later.
Three meals in a day so it actually goes back to our traditional wisdom if you do two meals a day that’s up to you everyone’s different. Some people do one meal a day you know it’s up to everyone.
Everyone’s different what works for you, but three meals without snacks for four hours, four hours, four hours, and then you stop eating. When you can master this everything changes.
Inflammation comes down and the immune system goes up, you sleep better at night because guess what if you have late night meals and you get straight into bed you don’t allow the MMC to work.
This is why you wake up feeling bloated, you wake up feeling acidic, heavy puffy water retention and all of that stuff and then you want new medicines to take care of these symptoms.
This is a job that your MMC should have done, which is why moving your meals earlier and keeping a gap between your bedtime and your meals is extremely important. The problem today is we’re all eating extra too much at the wrong time and too often and that’s the problem.
So we don’t allow the intelligence of our own body it’s built-in. It’s built-in our physiology to clean ours. We don’t have to drink celery juice all the time. We don’t have to drink all these fancy juices to clean ours.
When the body has an MMC at your disposal only waiting to be activated. If you can stop eating if you can take a break. So if you cannot fast for long hours at least keep three and a half four hours would be perfect.
Train your body, sometimes you may get a little bit acidic because your body’s used to you are eating all the time. It’s okay, bad at a pain bear that acidity for a while, have some lemon juice if it suits you have some ajwain jeera water if it suits you and after a while, your body will retrain itself, but three and a half to four hours is perfect.
2. Intermittent fasting benefits
So four, four, four so technically we’re looking at eating within a 12-hour frame and resting the body for 12 hours and keeping gaps. Ideally, you would want to reach 10 and if you can eight hours so you want to eat your meals when the sun is rising and end your meals when the sunsets.
If you can if it’s not practical then at least the closest to sunset is when you want to finish your dinner. Try this and you’ll find numerous problems that you have started to get automatically better. Because you’re allowing your MMC to work for you.
You know how many functions we have in our body that we don’t use our body doesn’t use it because we come in the way with all of our you know bad habits and our bad lifestyles and we don’t allow our body to do what it does best which is survival, cleaning us, balancing us, repairing us and growing us.
So you may want to try this like I said again if you can’t fast try the next couple of days do a four hour, four hours, four hours stop eating completely. If you like your nuts your fruits all of that stuff make that your breakfast raw goes raw to lunch.
Have your fruits, have your nuts have, your seeds, all of that in the morning and then you have two more meals where the one you can have a proper full meal maybe your dinner can be lighter.
It’s up to you to plan it so that you get all of your nutrients, but remember if your MMC isn’t working you’re going to have gut problems. If you have gut problems you have health problems, health problems cannot get better without you are solving your guts problems.
Instead of trying so hard to solve your gut problems. Let your gut do its own job and activate the MMC by giving your digestive system rest.