How do you walk in your truth? and what does this have to do with fasting?
You found this site for a reason. On some level, your intuition brought you here. What are you looking for? Regardless of what brought you here, I hope you read on 🙂 ….
I heard recently that fasting is the #1 diet related intervention today. Intermittent Fasting, time restricted eating, multi day fasting, the options are endless. I hope to share with you how to demystify fasting and all of the potential “noise” that can sometimes be associated with it.
Fasting is an ancient practice. I guess we call it that but I suspect our ancestors didn’t intentionally fast. They had to hunt/gather food and if/when it wasn’t available, there were periods of time that they went without food. We’ve evolved from this lifestyle and although we’ve been conned into being told that we need to eat every few hours, our biology has not caught up with this. Nor has it caught up with the mountain of options for food. More on this in another post (insert eyeroll). Back to fasting.
Our bodies are designed to have periods of time when the body is not in a fed state. This may be where you can start with some self reflection of finding your own truth. What are your eating patterns? Upon waking, are you starting your day ingesting calories? maybe you’re exhausted and you need your morning coffee with creamer. If you are going to get a workout in, you heard that you should drink a protein drink before you work out. Your day continues with lunch with co-workers. Your energy starts to dip in the afternoon and you need a little snack to pick you up. You get home from work, begin to make dinner and pour a glass of wine while you cook. An after dinner brownie or popcorn sounds fantastic with one more glass of wine/beer. Are you eating from sunup to past sundown? You workout, eat healthy, and still have a few extra pounds you cannot shake? Do you have less energy than you would like?
When we allow our bodies to be in a non-fed state, our body can focus on doing many many other brilliant things. It shifts into a rest and repair mode ( This will also be covered in another post, I don’t want to burden you just if you are just beginning to learn about this practice).
If you don’t allow your body to rest and repair, things will begin to go awry…whether you can’t loose a few extra pounds, you’re not sleeping well, have irregular bowel patterns, I could go on an on.
Have you thought more about what brought you here? Everyone’s journey is different but if you can figure out your own truth, what YOU are looking for, it will be easier for you to find 🙂
Ok, but what does fasting have to do with yoga? Yoga is also an ancient practice, with deeply rooted principles incorporating mindfulness and many other beautiful principles that we as westerners can learn/benefit from incorporating into our lives. As you learn its tenants, yoga has an element of purification. Fasting elicits and internal purification of the body. The two practices complement one another beautifully.
Have I peaked your curiosity? or are you already practicing yoga or fasting, or both? I invite you to follow my blog and share your story. I would love to hear from you.
Shanti, shanti, shanti.