Wellness
Body + Mind + Energy + Emotion
When the elements of life are in balance, wellness happens naturally. It is normal to have an affinity towards some but not all of the elements of wellness. Wild Free Organic is here to guide you on your journey towards a balanced healthy lifestyle and provide new paths of exploration.
Categories
Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Calisthenics and Core Workouts
It is important to have a fitness routine for everyday use that can be performed consistently irregardless of location. Push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and walking form the base of any calisthenics routine, and core exercises strengthen the midsection. No equipment is necessary to stay fit and healthy at all ages!
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated November 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Compound barbell and dumbell exercises are a great way to build muscle and strength, but their carryover to real life movement only goes so far. It’s important to learn how to generate force against objects, and it is also important to learn how to generate force against your body. To truly gain masterful control of your body, then you need to learn calisthenics.
Calisthenics can be performed anywhere!
WFO Workout Routines
Part 5 - Calisthenics & Core Workouts ✅
Calisthenics is a exercise modality that exclusively uses body-weight exercises and movements to build muscle, increase strength, and improve fitness. The most commonly know calisthenics exercises are push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and running, which form the basis of this calisthenics and core workout. This is part 5 of the Wild Free Organic workout series, the fifth and final month!
Calisthenics is for all Ages
We finish this five month workout series with calisthenics and core exercises to solidify the foundation of health and physical fitness that has been built. A strong core will benefit you for life in all physical endeavors, from recreational activities to sports, and body-weight exercises if done regularly will develop mastery of body movement. Calisthenics and core exercises can be scaled up and down in intensity for all different body types and ages of people, and that’s what makes them so powerful and universally appealing. Wellness icons like Jack Lalanne, the “Godfather of Fitness” knew this, and he practiced what he preached, performing impossible-seeming feats of strength and endurance his entire life. Calisthenics formed the base of Jack Lalanne’s daily fitness routine, and he shared everything he learned in his book Live Young Forever.
“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
While the gym is a great place to build strength, muscle, and confidence, it is not always possible to have access to a gym or workout equipment. Life changes and your fitness routine might need to change with it.
Gymnast performing an L-sit on rings. This exercises works the stabilizers of the entire body, the core, demonstrates lower body flexibility, and shows good spinal posture.
Calisthenics is also a great exercise modality that holistically stresses the body. Not only is muscle tissue stressed to grow and strengthen, but the connective tissues (tendons, ligaments, fascia) of the joints and body are developed too. Muscle and strength development that outpaces the slow strengthening of connective tissues will eventually result in injury, and unnecessary setbacks like this are detrimental in all aspects. Strength in compound exercises like squats and deadlifts is often held back by a weak midsection that is unable to efficiently translate force through the body, and developing a strong core will benefit not only aesthetics but overall strength development and expression.
While calisthenics and core work are often viewed as detracting time and focus away from more important exercises and muscles to be built, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Consistent calisthenics and core work will enable the full development and expression of strength, both with the body and barbell, while also protecting the body from injury and improving aesthetics. It is for these reasons that body-weight exercises like pull-ups and hanging leg raises have been programmed throughout this workout series, and now these principles will be expanded upon.
Basic Calisthenics Movements
Upper Body
Push-ups
Pull-ups
Chin-ups
Dips
Inverted rows
Hangs
Full Body
Turkish get-ups
Burpees
Mountain climbers
Lower Body
Squats
Lunges
Calf raises
Hip bridges/thrusts
Deadlifts
Kickbacks
Core
Crunches
Planks
Leg raises/lifts
Oblique twists
Supermans
Advanced Calisthenics Exercises
Upper Body
Muscle-ups
Front lever
Back lever
Handstands
Handstand push-ups
Iron Cross
Planche push-ups
Superman push-ups
One-arm push-ups
Rope climbs
Full Body
Full body isometrics
Lower Body
Pistol squats
Shrimp squats
Cossack squats
Single leg deadlifts
Tricking
Core
Full bridge (arch)
Windshield wipers
Levers (front and back)
Human flag
Planche
Hollow hold
Developing the Core
The core of the body is composed of more muscles than just the six-pack (rectus abdominus). While the abs are important, there are many other muscles and connective tissues of the core.
Main muscles of the core:
Rectus Abdominus
Transverse Abdominus
Obliques
Serratus Anterior
Erector Spinae
Multifidus
For well-rounded core development and strengthening, time and energy should be devoted to all the muscles above.
The muscles of the midsection wrap around the entire body in layers, front to back, and developing all these muscles will create deep core strength that go beyond 6-pack abs.
The rectus abdominus is activated with spinal flexion and extension (crunches and extensions), and the transverse abdominals sit underneath the abs, being activated when you suck in your stomach towards the spine. The obliques sit on either side of the abs and are activated with twisting motions of the midsection. For the bodybuilders, well developed obliques will help frame the abdominals to create an impressive looking six pack.
The serratus muscles are more situated in the torso, sitting above the obliques and connecting the scapula to the rib cage, but it is these connection points which makes the serratus muscles important. The scapula are very important parts of upper body, and serratus muscles connect the scapula to the midsection.
The erector spinae and multifidus muscles are the muscles of the lower back, and they function to keep the spine strong, well aligned, and stable. Over-developed abdominals but weak erector spinae muscles are common, and this unbalanced development can cause poor recruitment patterns and lead to injury. Erector spinae muscles are very well developed with deadlifts
Core Workouts
Core Workout (A)
3x30 Oblique twists
3x25 Reverse crunches
2x60s Side planks
3x12 Bird dogs
5x12s Stomach vacuums
2x20 Shoulder taps
Core Workout (B)
3x30 Bicycle crunches
3x30s Hollow holds
2x60s Side planks
3x12 Supermans
5x12s Stomach vacuums
2x30s RKC plank
Core workouts are best done 3-7x a week, the muscles of the midsection should be activated often and all at once from front to side to back. If little rest is taken in-between sets and exercises, overall activation of the core is increased and the workouts can be done quicker. The two workouts above should take only twenty minutes or less once endurance is built.
Calisthenics Workouts
Calisthenics Workout (A)
2x30 Calf raises
5x30 Squats
3x10 Single leg deadlifts
3x25 Reverse crunches
4x12 Pull-ups
4x20 Push-ups
3x12 Bird dogs
2x5 Turkish get-ups
Calisthenics Workout (B)
2x30 Calf raises
5x20 Wide squats
3x30 Hip thrusts
3x30s Hollow holds
4x12 Chin-ups
4x10 Dips
3x30s Supermans
2x30 Mountain climbers
These full-body calisthenics workouts use basic body-weight exercises and are well-rounded in their activation of the body. They are also great workouts to integrate with a running program. Advanced trainees might find these workouts simple, but they can be intensified by slowing down exercise tempo and increasing muscle activation.
Balance is first activated and then the body is warmed up with lower body exercises. Working upwards the front core is activated, then the torso, and then the core muscles of the spine. The workout is finished with full-body exercises like turkish get-ups or mountain climbers.
Month 5 Workout Routine
Week 1
Monday - Full Body
5x5 Squats
4x8 Incline Press
5x10 Barbell Rows
3x20 Lateral Raises
3x20 Bicep Curls
Tuesday - Calisthenics (A)
2x30 Calf raises
5x30 Squats
3x10 Single leg deadlifts
3x25 Reverse crunches
4x12 Pull-ups
4x20 Push-ups
3x12 Bird dogs
2x5 Turkish get-ups
Wednesday - Arms
3x20 Radial Deviations
3x20 Pronators
3x30 Reverse Wrist Curls
4x10 Chin-ups
4x12 Incline Triceps Extension
3x12 Preacher Curls
3x15 Triceps Kickbacks
Thursday - Calisthenics (B)
2x30 Calf raises
5x20 Wide Squats
3x30 Hip thrusts
3x30s Hollow holds
4x12 Chin-ups
4x10 Dips
3x30s Supermans
2x30 Mountain climbers
Friday - Core (A)
3x30 Oblique twists
3x25 Reverse crunches
2x60s Side planks
3x12 Bird dogs
5x12s Stomach vacuums
2x20 Shoulder taps
Saturday & Sunday - Rest
Week 2
Monday - Full Body
5x5 Deadlifts
4x8 DB Press
5x10 Leg Press
3x20 Rear Delt Flies
3x20 Tricep Pushdowns
Wednesday - Calisthenics (A)
2x30 Calf raises
5x30 Squats
3x10 Single leg deadlifts
3x25 Reverse crunches
4x12 Pull-ups
4x20 Push-ups
3x12 Bird dogs
2x5 Turkish get-ups
Wednesday - Arms
3x20 Radial Deviations
3x20 Supinators
3x30 Wrist Curls
4x10 Close-Grip Dips
4x12 Hammer Curls
4x12 Triceps Pushdowns (supinated)
3x15 Reverse Curls
Thursday - Calisthenics (B)
2x30 Calf raises
5x20 Wide squats
3x30 Hip thrusts
3x30s Hollow holds
4x12 Chin-ups
4x10 Dips
3x30s Supermans
2x30 Mountain climbers
Friday - Core (B)
3x30 Bicycle crunches
3x30s Hollow holds
2x60s Side planks
3x12 Supermans
5x12s Stomach vacuums
2x30s RKC plank
Saturday & Sunday - Rest
With this final month, we return to 3 full body workouts per week, with one being gym based and the other two are calisthenics based. Arm workouts are scheduled once a week to continue sufficiently stimulating the arms. A final core workout on Friday activates the entire core while also reducing the workload to promote overall recovery. Month 5 is a deload month compared to months 2-4, with the muscles, connective tissues, and central nervous system given a break from the typical stress patterns of barbell and dumbbell exercises. Meanwhile control and activation of the body is improved with the calisthenics exercises and connective tissues are strengthened in different ways.
On weeks 2 and 4 increase the weight of the gym exercises by 5%. If you feel healthy and confident, about a week after the end of this five month routine, test your 1 rep max for squats, deadlifts, incline press, and barbell rows. In the week preceding testing of the 1RM’s, get a solid eight hours of sleep per night and reduce volume and reduce weight, focusing on activation.
During month five, if you really want to fortify your joints and strengthen them in preparation for another loading phase in the gym, follow our joint and connective tissue protocol.
New Beginnings
Over the past 5 months, you’ve learned the basics of weight-lifting, periodization, recovery, and nutrition. The foundation for a holistic lifestyle has been established, as has the foundation for how to approach physical fitness with a long term and patient mindset.
From here, the routine can be repeated in the same order, or the different workouts presented in the routine can be flexibly scheduled week to week instinctively. A new workout routine, like 5/3/1 can also be started! Maybe your fitness journey takes you to running or yoga, there are many ways to physically strengthen and develop the body, and none are inherently better or worse than the other.
Whatever your next destination, don’t forget the lifestyle and fitness principles learned over the past five months and continue your productive morning routine. Keep stress low, recovery high, and progress slow and steady. That’s the recipe for success in the gym and with life!
If you followed the routine from start to finish, please share your results by commenting below or contact us directly.
Improve Digestion in Three Steps
If you suffer from gastrointestinal issues, then careful attention needs to be paid to your meals and activities around meal time. With a simple three step method, you can radically improve your digestion and make progress in reclaiming your gut health.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated July 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
The old adage goes “You are what you eat”, and few times have truer statements been made. And humans have known this to be true for thousands of years. Millennia ago, Hippocrates, Greek physician and the “Father of Medicine” said:
“Let food be thy medicine, let medicine be thy food”
This statement, so simple encapsulates so much truth to it. Wellness truths like this, so simple and obvious, have continually been met with skepticism and disbelief over time. In fact, much of the food industry at large endeavors to prove these truths false through new food product iterations such as “protein” candy bars, meal replacement shakes, and more ultra processed foods created from highly processed powders and syrups.
Hippocrates is also famously quoted with the following:
“All disease begins in the gut”
If you are what you eat, and if all disease begins in the gut, then it follows that the food you eat, and how you digest it, can have a huge impact on whether you have a healthy or diseased mind, body, and soul.
Whether you follow a diet such as primal, paleo, Whole30, keto, vegan, or a combination, what’s important overall is eating a diet full of whole, unprocessed foods and learning and understanding what foods work and don’t work for your body in order to achieve optimal health. Changing your dietary mindset to be inclusive of all foods and to be mindful of what you eat, is the true path towards effortless health. Once dietary mindfulness is developed, it’ll be common sense to buy foods of the highest quality, which will further improve your health.
A lot of people know what a healthy diet should be like, some people understand, and a few have earned true dietary wisdom by acting on this knowledge. Even less so than diet, there is a lack of understand for the second part of the equation, digestion.
Just as you can choose healthy foods, there are also choices that can be made which impact your digestion, for better or worse. Luckily, sticking to a healthy diet consistently is the hardest part of this two part equation, and with just a little conscientiousness, you can guide and assist your bodies digestive system to smoothly and effectively break down and assimilate everything you’ve eaten.
In fact, you can get started in improving your digestion in three easy steps, one after the other! Make an effort to do these three tips for each meal, but even starting off, implementing these 3 easy digestion hacks for just your smallest meal of the day will have a noticeable impact on everything from your gut health & regularity to energy levels & mood. By following these three steps, you’ll reduce or eliminate painful bloating, uncomfortable gas, and more.
Eat your Meals with Chopsticks for Better Digestion
Before you ask...yes, chopsticks!
Around the world, just as many people use chopsticks daily as fork & knife users, around 2.5 billion. And in the countries where chopstick use is predominant, such as Japan, health outcomes are typically better than their western counterparts (1). This isn’t a permanent suggestion, but there is a really great lesson to be learned here.
The goal of this first digestion improving tip is to improve your mindfulness during meals. Few things will make you slow down and focus on your meal more than swapping out your typical utensils for chopsticks. If you already use chopsticks for the majority of your meals, fantastic, you’re ahead of the pack.
With chopsticks, especially for new users, you’ll eat slower, and those who eat slower are much less likely to be obese than those who eat quickly (2). Why? Well this is due to a multitude of factors. Eating slower you’ll:
End up full faster, reducing overall calories consumed.
Chew more, increasing digestive enzymes and decreasing food particle size, making digestion easier.
Be more attuned to your body and the feedback it's giving you, whether that’s positive or negative.
Reduce your stress, eating in a relaxed parasympathetic state (which improves digestion) rather than a fight-or-flight sympathetic state.
An additional plus is the foods you can easily eat with chopsticks tend to land on the healthier side of things. Have you ever seen a person eat junk food with chopsticks?
A healthier meal consumed more slowly in a less stressful state and chewed (aka predigested) more can only be considered a win. And if you have frequent gut problems such as gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or worse, eating slower will only improve upon your current digestive situation.
Try eating with chopsticks for a week! You have nothing to lose. In fact, if you walk away from it all at the end unconvinced, at the very least you’ll be better at eating with chopsticks than you were when you started. With new found chopstick prowess, Chinese stir-fries, Korean BBQ, and Japanese sushi will no longer be meals out of reach, literally!
Eat your Vegetables Last for Better Digestion
First, if you’re not already eating vegetables, start now. Vegetables are full of fiber, micronutrients, and phytochemicals. The health benefits are too numerous to list here. Nine cups of vegetables and fruits daily is encouraged.
Second, eat your vegetables last.
Now if you’re not eating any vegetables at all to begin with, following the conventional wisdom of eating some vegetables at the beginning of your meal isn’t bad advice. Changing any bad dietary habits you have is most important, and eating vegetables overall is more important than timing your vegetable intake. With that said, if it makes no difference to your overall vegetable intake, there are serious benefits to eating your vegetables last.
First, you won’t eat dessert as often. Having just finished a meal followed by a salad or a head of broccoli, you probably won’t be reaching for the cookies or ice cream. You’ll already be comfortably full from the vegetable fiber!
And it’s the fiber that’s important. Considering we ate this meal slower and more mindfully, the food will be better “layered” and predigested from the start. Take the following typical meal format:
Carbs → Proteins & Fats → Micronutrients & Fiber
Note - A great example for the above would be a meal of rice, protein, and zucchini.
Carbs are quick and easy to digest, and eating them first allows your body to quickly break down and use the carbs for energy instead of fat storage. Proteins and fats follow, with protein being used for tissue repair and muscle gain, and fats being used for various cellular structures and as a steadier, longer lasting energy source. Lastly vegetables provide your body ample micronutrients and very importantly, fiber for your microbiome. Buy organic non-gmo (or biodynamic) vegetables to ensure your pesticide exposure is as minimal as possible.
The microbiome is so important when it comes to digestion and overall health (3). After your stomach empties from your last meal, you begin to enter a state of fasting. If you only highly processed foods, your microbiome will be starving for a fresh source of energy in a couples hours time. By providing your microbiome tough vegetable fiber to digest in-between meals, overtime you create an evolutionary pressure to improve microbiome diversity while preferentially selecting for the good gut bacteria (4). If you only provide your microbiome carbs and fats with no fiber, after that meal is quickly digested you’ll start to experience cravings for another meal, usually junkier than the last. As most people know but few understand, that’s a state of stomach and mind known as being “hangry”, and it’s governed by the microbiome’s ability to influence your mood via your hormone system (5). Plus, the flavonoids from the colorful vegetables and fruits like elderberry will help heal the tight junctions of the digestive system, stopping microbes from entering into the blood steam improving gut and immune health.
To quickly put an end to a cranky microbiome, fasting can be used to reset the digestive system, or for a slower approach eat your veggies last. Provide your microbiome a snack they can chew on in-between meals, in the process stabilizing your digestion and energy levels.
Your microbiome will thank you and your waistline will thank you as your wellness improves.
Go for a Walk after Eating for Better Digestion
After you’ve eaten your meal with chopsticks, reserving a heaping serving of vegetables for last, you’re ready to implement the final part of this three-step digestion hack, walking.
Walking at a leisurely pace after a meal, undoubtedly an enjoyable and healthy activity in and of itself, has also been shown to improve your digestion and overall response to food. 15 minutes of walking after a meal will lower your blood sugar more than a full hour of walking before a meal (6), and walking also increases the rate of gastric emptying (7), meaning you’ve digested your food better. In fact, walking for just 15 minutes after a meal will improve your blood glucose levels for over 24 hours (8).
Movement of the body is so important for your health and wellness, and walking is one of the easiest & lowest impact ways to incorporate movement into your daily lifestyle. Paired after a meal and it’s a great way to breathe some fresh air outdoors, get grounded, connect with your body, and maintain that parasympathetic stress-free state that your mindfully created by first eating your meal slowly with chopsticks.
There you have it, try it out for a month! Make a habit of incorporating these three digestion hacks into your daily routine and take notes as to how you feel.
Eat Fermented Foods for Better Digestion
As a fourth recommended tip, discover the secrets of kombucha. Yes, that wonderful lightly fizzy drink, kombucha is fermented tea, each batch home to a “mother”. The mother is a unique microbiome colony that created the fermentation (0.5% ABV) in the tea..
The secret to kombucha is that you drink it after a meal. Not a whole bottle, but a small amount as a refresher. A bit of kombucha throughout the day after meals is ideal. Now instead of just having eaten a meal, which can range from raw to pasteurized in microbial diversity, kombucha “seeds” each meal it is drinken with. The residual sugar in the tea provides a bolus dose of easy sugar energy for the mother and the preexisting microbiome in your digestive system to get started in breaking down the main meal. This is one of the few times having added sugar in the diet is OKAY.
If you have kombucha or other fermented foods regularly, the greeting of the fermented microbiome to your existing microbiome is a smooth meeting. Eating a varied diet full of new healthy foods and drinking/eating fermented foods is the key to a successful diet.
My favorite brand of kombucha is from GT’s Living Food. Drink a variety to always be exposed to new mothers and for fun flavors! Mystic Mango, Guava Goddess, and Cosmic Cranberry are the best.
You might be thinking, no way can these three simple steps and kombucha radically change how I digest my food, improving my mood and energy levels while also reducing the unpleasant effects of bloating and more.
Well, sometimes the simplest of things can lead to the biggest changes and results in ones life. Likewise these three digestion tips are simple in practice, and used together, powerful in their effect. “All diseases begin in the gut”, and to live life to your fullest healthiest and happiest, taking care of your gut means taking care of you.
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. Give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
References:
World Health Organization, Japan Health Statistics
Hurst Y, Fukuda H. Effects of changes in eating speed on obesity in patients with diabetes: a secondary analysis of longitudinal health check-up data. BMJ Open. 2018;8(1):e019589.
Makki K, Deehan EC, Walter J, Bäckhed F. The Impact of Dietary Fiber on Gut Microbiota in Host Health and Disease. Cell Host Microbe. 2018;23(6):705-715.
Menni C, Jackson MA, Pallister T, Steves CJ, Spector TD, Valdes AM. Gut microbiome diversity and high-fibre intake are related to lower long-term weight gain. Int J Obes (Lond). 2017;41(7):1099-1105.
Smithsonian Magazine, Your Gut Bacteria May Be Controlling Your Appetite, Brian Handwerk November 24, 2015
Colberg SR, Zarrabi L, Bennington L, et al. Postprandial walking is better for lowering the glycemic effect of dinner than pre-dinner exercise in type 2 diabetic individuals. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2009;10(6):394-7.
Franke A, Harder H, Orth AK, Zitzmann S, Singer MV. Postprandial walking but not consumption of alcoholic digestifs or espresso accelerates gastric emptying in healthy volunteers. J Gastrointestin Liver Dis. 2008;17(1):27-31.
Loretta DiPietro, Andrei Gribok, Michelle S. Stevens, Larry F. Hamm, William Rumpler. Three 15-min Bouts of Moderate Postmeal Walking Significantly Improves 24-h Glycemic Control in Older People at Risk for Impaired Glucose Tolerance. Diabetes Care 2013 Jun; DC_130084.
Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Disclosure: Wild Free Organic is a member of various affiliate programs and if a purchase is made through one of our affiliate links a small commission is received. This does not affect your purchase price. Visit our disclosure page for more information.
Use Fasting to Reset the Digestive System
Fasting is a powerful tool which can be used to hit the reset button on an out-of-control microbiome. Fasting also provides the digestive system a chance to rest and heal. A 48 hour fast is the quickest method possible for favorably altering the microbiome and healing the gut, and its easier done than you think.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated November 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter! Stefan Burns YouTube.
Fasting for an extended length of time can quickly heal the gut, balance the microbiome, and improve digestion, and as a result fasting can be used to help overcome many health problems such as obesity, inflammatory diseases and conditions, a malfunctioning metabolism, and poor sleep.
Abstaining from food for a significant period of time heals the lining of the digestive system, reduces stress on the immune system, and resets the microbiome by increasing symbiotic microorganism diversity while simultaneously eliminating sugar-loving and disease-causing pathogens through nutrient starvation.
Performing a 1 to 2 day fast after consuming a nutrient dense and fiber-rich meal is a powerful method of healing not only the digestive system but can be used to correct many common health and wellness ailments.
When the digestive system is functioning properly and the microbiome living within is healthy the metabolism is increased and stabilized which provides abundant consistent energy, sleep is deep and restful, bathroom visits are dependable, skin clears up, and a thin waist line becomes possible. Through it’s selective evolutionary pressures on the microbiome (one of the main production centers of neurotransmitters in the body) fasting also has the capability of improving mental health. A healthy gut produces the neurotransmitters we need for proper cognitive function at the right ratios required for optimal wellness. Fasting therefore can be used to help with depression, anxiety, and even neurodegenerative mental disorders.
In this article we discuss the following:
How to improve gut health with fasting and 48-hour fasting
What microorganisms inhabit the gut and characteristics of an unhealthy microbiome
Tissues of the digestive system
How drinking herbal teas while fasting helps
A 48-hour fast action plan
Practicing gut health mindfulness
With proper planning and the right structure, a 48-hour fast is a short enough time period to be accomplished without great stress and is a great way to experience all the amazing benefits of fasting for yourself.
If you’re completely new to fasting, I recommend you read this article and my article titled Fasting for Beginners. After reading both you’ll have a good handle on what fasting is, how it is beneficial to health, and how to perform it safely. In addition to these resources, Chapter 8 of the Holistic Gut Health Guide is entirely devoted to fasting and how it can be used to improve gut health.
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. Give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Improve Gut Health with Fasting
Restoring the digestive system back to a state of normal functioning will liberate you of digestive woes everyone has experienced at some point, which include brutal stomach aches, intense bloating, waves of nausea, or even running-to-the-bathroom trips. Poor gut health places a huge energy drain not only on health but on life as a whole as it’s hard to deal with anything else when dealing with a gut flareup.
From my personal experience in healing my gut, I have found fasting to be an absolute gamechanger and the quickest way to heal an ailing digestive system. Once all the organs of the digestive system are healed and functioning normally, fasting does not need to be done as frequently.
Healing my gut was a ten year health journey that led me to research the cutting edge of metabolic and microbiome science as well as study the ancient wisdom of herbalism. Tempered with ample personal experience, I discovered that most people need to reexamine their relationship with food, not only what they eat, but when and how often they eat. The body has two metabolic operating systems which are vastly different in how they function; eating places you into an anabolic state of growth and inflammation, whereas fasting places you into a catabolic state or repair and healing. Both are useful and necessary states of the body but they must stay in balance to one another.
Changing the food you eat doesn’t matter much if fundamentally the reason why you’re experiencing any number of health problems is because the body needs to go catabolic in order to heal and repair at a cellular level. Until then, staying anabolic will only exacerbate any health issues that exist. Only by going catabolic and by spending sufficient sufficient time catabolic in the protective state of cellular cleanup and repair known as autophagy will certain health issues resolve and then a more normal eating schedule can be resumed.
Making the changes necessary to incorporate fasting into your everyday life is far less risky than doing nothing at all. Never letting anabolism and catabolism enter into unbalanced territory is the real key to staying healthy and fit over the long term, and I’ve developed a simple dietary framework known as the FoodFast Method to make living this balanced lifestyle easy. The FoodFast Method teaches you when it’s best to eat and when it’s best not to eat, and it also offers guidance on what foods are best in terms of nutrition, gut health, and the microbiome.
The 48 Hour Fast
The first reaction many people have to the suggestion of a two day fast is “You’re telling me I can’t eat for 48 hours? I won’t do that, it’s crazy!”
In western culture fasting is rarely done, and going without food for more than a few hours is uncommon. If unaccustomed to fasting, long lengths of time away from food leave most with stomach convulsions, intense hunger, and maybe a side dish of hangry.
It’s best to ease into new health modalities. whether it be fasting, keto, vegetarian, etc. Going all in often leads to going all out shortly later, so my advice is if you’re completely new to fasting, then completing 2-3 introductory 24-hour fasts is recommended over starting right off with a 48-hour fast. A 24-hour fast is logistically and psychologically much easier to complete successfully, will help reset and heal the gut noticeably, and will provide you valuable experience on how to identify and control food cravings. Now that my gut is healthy, a 24 hour fast is my favorite way of gently nudging my gut health back to balance if disrupted for some reason.
If you are ready for a full 48 hour fast, the process is simple. You don’t consume any calories from food or drinks for 48 hours. Water of course is allowed, as are natural zero calories beverages such as black coffee or tea. Using artificial sugars are a strict no-go, more on that below. I recommend only drinking pure spring water during fasts as natural electrolytes will be present without the chemical contamination that tap water has. Drinking tea is also okay during a fast and in many ways is actually beneficial. For those with inefficient metabolisms, drinking green tea while fasting is a very effective way to reduce appetite while increasing the metabolism of body fat. Green tea fasting is the most powerful form of fasting that i’ve discovered. Herbal teas are also very useful, for example dandelion and chamomile are herbs both great at normalizing digestive function and a 1:1 herbal tea blend of dandelion and chamomile is a great way to expedite the gut healing process during a fast. More on that below.
I recommend starting fasts 24 hours or longer after a 6 pm dinner. With this schedule, the first 10-14 hours will be easily accomplished with a full stomach during the evening and then during sleep. Breakfast is easy to skip if one drinks plenty of water and keeps moving, and skipping breakfast is something everyone has done before. It’s during the afternoon when the real challenge of having not eaten appears, as it’s a natural lazy point in the day. For a 24 hour or longer fast, a quick walk, 15 minute nap, or cup of green tea fixes any dip in energy experienced.
If you’re performing hard mental or physical work during a fast it will be more difficult as energy demands will be higher. In this context a fast is not recommended unless safeguards are put in place and fat metabolism is already strong and well established. Fasting is a profound healing tool, but in its own way it is a unique stressor to the body, especially if never experienced before. Respect the process and don’t overutilize your energy reserves. One thing that fasting teaches is how to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Periods of time spent in both sympathetic (go go go activity) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) states are needed for optimal wellness. Fasting is a great tool to use to help deeply relax.
With a fast that starts at 6 pm if lunch is eaten at noon the next day then that marks the end of a 18-hour intermittent fast. Waiting to eat until dinner at 6 pm would be a 24 hour fast or the halfway point for a 48-hour fast. At 24 hours into a fast the body is burning body fat for energy while extracting the final nutrients available from the digestive system. The quality of the last meal eaten is very important for this reason.
After 24-hours energy levels may begin to dip. Others report experiencing a surge in energy due to their unique physiology. To be successful in fasting for a full two days, cruise control must be maintained. On day 2 the goal is to avoid the traffic jams of life, simply skipping breakfast and lunch again, relaxing when possible, and eating your first refeed meal at 6 pm for dinner. Staying grounded in the present moment is they key to successfully completing a fast and it’s all worth it in the end because you’ll feel significantly better and also because the refeed meal will be one of the best of your life.
By the end of a 48-hour fast there should very little to nothing left in your gut. No fresh food means the microbiome has to scavenge and work extra hard to survive in a low resource environment. Fasting has all these amazing health benefits partly because of the selective evolutionary pressure it applies to the microbiome. Microorganisms that depend on sugar die off while hardier microorganisms that can process more difficult nutrients like fiber survive in greater proportions. There are many ways to cleanse the microbiome, and fasting is one of the easiest and most powerful.
What Microorganisms Inhabit the Gut?
There are three types of organisms that make up the microbiome: symbiotic, commensal, and pathogenic. Pathobionts are a subsection of commensal organisms which lean pathogenic.
-
Symbiotic microbes work with us, and the relationship between host (us) and microbe is beneficial to both parties. Symbiotic microbes will provide nutrients and/or energy in exchange for shelter and food. The microbes which primarily digest indigestible fiber are symbiotic, in the process releasing short chain fatty acids in the colon for our metabolic use. Symbiotic microorganisms also help by breaking down nutrients into pieces small enough to be transported into the body across the gut-blood barrier. The cellular mechanisms of the body are unable to transport and use nutrients that haven’t been broken down sufficiently, so microorganisms that assist in fully digesting food down to the smallest parts possible is advantageous to the host.
-
Commensal microbes coexist with us without harming us. They’re like your friendly neighbors you never talk too. They assist in the breakdown of food but more for their benefit than yours. The issue with commensal microbes is when they start to overpopulate the small intestine, a condition known as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), which has many health complications such as gas and inconsistent gut motility. Additionally, when commensal microorganisms reach populations that are too large, they begin out-competing helpful microorganisms though the power of numbers, reducing the nutrients you uptake while further growing their population in size. If this trend isn’t stopped, commensal microorganisms can evolve into pathobionts.
-
Pathobionts are commensal organism that can cause harm under certain circumstances. A good example of commensal that turn into pathobionts are those who form biofilm colonies. Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that are difficult to dislodge due to the protections they have been built up around them. Biofilms have a hard time forming on mucous layers, which is one reason why sufficient and consistent digestive mucous production is important, and if mucous coatings are thin then pathobionts will form biofilms directly on the surface of human epithelial cells, causing inflammation and a strong immune response. The immune system has a difficult time breaking apart biofilms as they typically lie outside the body and in the digestive system. As a defense mechanism biofilms that are disrupted release harmful chemicals. Pathobiont biofilms are hard to readily identify and treat, but are usually a contributing factor in gut health problems, especially unexpected gut health flare-ups.
-
Pathogenic microbes are harmful to health. When their populations are low, their detrimental effects on health are negligible, and the immune system keeps them actively under check, but when the gut is inflamed and epithelial tight-junctions are eroded and unhealthy processed foods are the norm, then the perfect environment for pathogenic microbes is created. Pathogenic microbes aren’t content gnawing on a thread of fiber, they seek out quick energy, and under the conditions of a fast when energy is scarce, pathogenic bacteria are the first to go. This die-off reaction can cause symptoms like fatigue, headache, and stomach pain, and this is something to be aware of when performing fasts longer than 24 hours. Selecting against pathogenic microbes is highly desirable for long term health and wellness, and if a large pathogenic microorganism population exists in the gut, a die off reaction will occur during fasting which may cause symptoms. During a fast keeping the kidneys and liver stress free by limiting the chemicals or medications that are used is best (examples being alcohol, NSAIDS, or prescription drugs).
An Unhealthy Microbiome
With an unhealthy gut, beneficial microorganisms are in short supply, commensal populations are large and unruly, and pathogenic microorganisms exist unchallenged. This type of microbiome is one that preferentially craves sweets, fried foods, and excess salt, and after having its demands met produces metabolic waste products known as endotoxins that leads to symptoms of brain fog, unstable energy levels, and fat gain.
How to Restore Healthy Gut Flora
The pathogens that contribute to you feeling awful are not helpful in any way (besides bringing awareness to the problem that exists), and a primary objective in transitioning from a diseased digestive system to healthy gut is to restore the microbiome to a state of symbiotic balance. Fasting is effective at doing this as fasts longer than 24 hours eliminate microbial overgrowth and assist in the removal of biofilms as protective mucous layers are restored. A 48-hour fast will wipe out a lot of pathogenic microorganisms, and if you don’t feel them what they need afterwards then their populations will stay low. With reduced nutrients available some of the symbiotic microorganisms will not survive either (we’re talking about trillions of microorganisms dying), but with a healthy refeed meal symbiotic microorganism populations quickly rebound and will have evolved to be more resilient to future periods of resource scarcity.
After a few 24 and 48-hour fasts with healthy eating in-between the composition of the microbiome will be radically different and the digestive system will have healed tremendously. The secret with fasting is to be extremely discretionary with what enters into the body. Limiting intake to just water (and herbal teas), air, and sunshine makes for the best effect. No diet soda, no chewing gum, and limit the black coffee.
Now let’s discuss artificial sugars. Artificial sugars have an undesirable effect on your microbiome by eroding mucosal linings. Artificial sugars reach the deep recesses of the gut by eroding protective viscoelastic mucus lining, creating an energy-rich pathway for commensal and pathogenic microorganisms to get into direct contact with now unprotected epithelial cells. Once directly on these cell membranes pathobionts create their biofilm strongholds. Biofilms are resistant to probiotic and antibiotic treatments and are often the source of unexplainable reoccurring gut problems. Pathobiont biofilms are very tough to dislodge, and the double whammy of consuming artificial sugars is that they are toxic to many other microorganisms. For these reasons never consume artificial sugars, especially during a fast.
Gut Health and Microbiome Basics Video Short Course
by Stefan Burns
Cells of the Digestive System
Epithelium cells are the barrier of the digestive system that separate the contents of the gut from the bloodstream. Epithelium cells are on the front line every minute, allowing nutrients to pass through them to enter the bloodstream but blocking entry to microorganisms, nutrients too large for easy transport, or toxins.
If all things are functioning normally the epithelium regenerates completely every 5 days. Therefore, 20% of the epithelium is regenerated daily. When fasting, autophagy (cellular cleanup and repair) increases and healthy cell turnover of the intestinal epithelium quickens now that it is no longer being setback by the active digestion of food.
A two day fast is enough time for about 40% or more of the epithelium to completely regenerate in a low-inflammation environment.
The human digestive tract
When the digestive barrier and mucosal lining are fully regenerated and the tight-junctions between cells are strong, then when normal inflammation from digestive returns, the responsibilities of the immune system are decreased compared to when excess inflammation is present. With greatly reduced numbers of microorganism invaders and undigested food particles entering into the blood stream, the immune system can regenerate after a period of overactivity and stress, taking the time it needs to heal. The immune system requires certain components in sufficient amounts to function properly, and micronutrients such as zinc, vitamin D, and vitamin C are critically important for normal immune function. When under stress, the greater demands of the immune system can cause nutrient deficiencies to occur which then place stress on other areas of the body. Healing the digestive system, diversifying the microbiome, and improving diet can help remediate or even eliminate diseases of the immune system.
Fasting for Auto-Immune Diseases
For those who suffer from auto-immune issues, fasting can be a major breakthrough in recovering from their condition. The digestive system is the main patrol ground of the immune system, it’s where the most interactions between the human body and the outside world occur on the microscopic level. A cross-wired immune system that attacks itself is increasingly being found to result from a dysfunctional and diseased gut environment. Auto-immunity and the microbiome are intricately linked.
After thousands of years of gut health education from wise ancients like Greek philosopher Hippocrates, the collective consciousness is now beginning to understand the huge importance of the digestive system for overall health and wellness.
Simultaneously the importance of the microbiome is being better understood by the general public. The impact of the microbiome passed from mother to child during birth has lifelong health implications. A healthy birth from a healthy mom results in a healthy baby and future adult. If microbiome inoculation that occurs during birthing is disrupted, such as during a caesarian section, then that child is more likely to experience a range of undesirable health outcomes such as asthma, auto-immunes, troublesome weight-gain, and more. Thankfully the microbiome is simply a collection of microorganisms that is relatively easy to manipulate once you have the tools to do so. Fasting is the most powerful of those microbiome altering tools, and therefore it’s also one of the most powerful tools for people looking for relief from their auto-immune issues.
Autophagy & Apoptosis
We’ve touched on autophagy already and now we’ll go more in-depth.
Autophagy is the protective state that the body goes into when nutrients are scarce. Autophagy increases the recycling of malfunctioning cellular components, helps old cells die peacefully, and promotes the regeneration of new cells in their place. The longer a fast goes for and the scarcer nutrients become, the deeper into autophagy the body goes. 16 hour intermittent fasting boosts autophagic processes throughout the body noticeably, whereas 24-72 hour fasts increase autophagy to a much greater degree, and for an even more profound regenerative healing effect, fasting for a week or longer can work miracles. Many “incurable” diseases and severe auto-immune issues have been cured through multi-week fasts under medical supervision at fasting clinics worldwide.
Autophagy is also incredibly important in the fight against cancer. Cancer cannot be cured until the autophagic system can be deployed to destroy the cancer cells plaguing the body. In the case of cancer, fasting-induced autophagy has been shown to protect healthy cells from chemotherapy treatments while increasing the effectiveness of the chemotherapy on cancer cells.
Autophagy is clearly a very useful process that thankfully is encoded into human DNA. It has to, we wouldn’t be able to live otherwise because without rate limiters reactions in the body would spiral out of control and life simply wouldn’t be able to sustain itself.
Autophagy is difficult in its own way though. Autophagy increases as available nutrients and energy decreases. To go into autophagy means to dive into nutrient and energy scarcity. If purposefully utilizing the power of autophagy for deep cellular healing and renewal, be mindful and listen to the needs of your body. Recording how you feel and any observations you make in a health journal is highly recommended.
If you want to learn more about extended-length fasting, I highly recommend you watch an amazing documentary, The Science of Fasting.
Drink Herbal Teas while Fasting
As touched on earlier, one way to greatly increase the efficacy and safety of fasting is to drinking herbal teas throughout the fast. This can be green tea, or herbal teas like a 1:1:1 blend of dandelion root, chamomile flowers, and peppermint leaves.
Green Tea for Fasting
Green tea fasting is one of the easiest types of fasting I’ve experienced. Drinking 2-3 cups of green tea (zero additives) everyday during a fast reduces appetite and increases fat oxidation. Energy levels are more stable throughout the fast when drinking green tea, and the amino acid L-theanine found in green tea promotes a sense of calm and relaxation.
Pique Tea sells a wide selection of organic teas in their unique “tea crystal” format. Tea crystals readily dissolve in hot or cold water and are super convenient for on-the-go use.
Use the code WILDFREEORGANIC for 5% off at checkout
Mountain Rose Herbs has a wide selection of organic green teas that are perfect for use in green tea fasting. I prefer their pearl jasmine green tea for its flavor and extra flavonoids.
Steep the leaves in 170 F (75 C) water for 3-5 minutes and enjoy!
Herbal Teas for Fasting
Green tea is an excellent beverage to drink while fasting, and so are herbal teas in general. For example a dandelion root, chamomile flower, and peppermint leaf herbal tea has the following benefits for the digestive system:
Reduces inflammation of the digestive system from the stomach to the large intestine.
Exerts beneficial antimicrobial pressures on pathogenic microorganisms while promoting the growth of helpful symbiotic microorganisms.
Increases the production of digestive enzymes and restores beneficial mucous linings.
Strengthens epithelial tight junctions thanks to flavonoids like apigenin.
Restores normal gut motility (the transit of food through the system).
Boosts fat metabolism which reduces energy lulls from improper digestion or from the fasting process itself
Another herbal tea that would be very helpful to drink during a fast would be a ginger, elderberry, and ginseng tea. Endless combinations exist, and drinking a new tea in the place of breakfast, lunch, and dinner helps to keep the fasting process exciting which has clear benefits.
Mountain Rose Herbs carries a huge assortment of organic herbs perfect for those interested in adding herbal remedies to their fasting and gut health protocol. Next to fasting drinking herbal teas are the next best thing you can do to improve your gut heath. Again the introductory herbal tea I recommend is a 1:1 blend of dandelion root, chamomile flowers, and peppermint simply because its so effective.
Meal Recommendation for Breaking your Fast
Next to the action of actually completing a fast, refeeding after the fast is the second most important part of the gut healing process. The body and microbiome are longing for food so feed yourself and your microbiome only with the best. The body is uniquely poised to use the new influx of nutrients for the proliferation of new healthy cells, and the greater the quality of the the refeed meal the greater the healing effect that will be experienced overall. Make no food mistakes*!
Refeed meals also influence the composition of the microbiome that will soon rebound in population, as bacteria double in as little as twenty minutes under ideal conditions. A meal which is undesirable to pathogenic bacteria but loved by healthy symbiotic bacteria like lactobacillus and bifidobacterial is ideal. Raw and fermented foods harbor their own healthy microbiome populations and assist in the digestion of the first reintroduced meal while also diversifying the surviving microbiome.
The foods that make up a refeed meal and its size depends on the length of fast completed. A 48 hour fast for example should be broken with a high-fat content meal as it’s likely that the first stages of ketogenesis is being experienced and to eat a sugar-heavy meal would cause quick metabolic and blood glucose changes which wouldn’t be beneficial. Fiber is another beneficial nutrient to select for in refeed meals as fiber influences the microbiome beneficially and is transformed into short chain fatty-acids in the colon which benefits fat metabolism.
*Note - Pesticides are to avoided at all costs as they erode the lining of the digestive system and function similarly to antibiotics. Eat organic non-gmo foods to reduce your exposure to dangerous pesticides like glyphosate.
Post Fast Salad:
2 Cups Mixed Greens
1/2 cucumber, sliced
1 Tbsp raw pumpkin seeds
Drizzle extra virgin olive oil
Drizzle raw honey
Drink - GT’s Raw Kombucha
The meal above is great as a first refeed meal after a 24 to 48-hour fast because it is easy to prepare, completely raw, and will supercharge the regenerative effects of the fast. Having a salad shifts the microbiome favorably, and the addition of a fermented food helps to diversify it further. The body will absorb every nutrient possible from this meal. A fast is a period of low sugar intake, so only drink a quarter of the kombucha in order to limit the amount of quick sugars ingested.
When a salad and kombucha are combined as a meal, the mother (microbiome) of the kombucha begins attaching to and breaking down the raw foods of the salad right away, improving digestion as compared to if the salad was eaten only by itself. The cucumber and pumpkin seeds go great on a salad, adding nutrient and flavor variety to the meal, while both having antimicrobial and anti-parasitic benefits. Parasite infections can also be a huge source of gut health issues.
Pro Tip - Take a piperine supplement with your refeed meals to further improve the digestion of the meal. Piperine is derived from black pepper and it one of the most gut-helpful phytochemicals known, improving digestion and enhancing the bioavailability of other nutrients. Nootropics Depot sells a 10mg piperine supplement which you can take 1-3 of with a meal, or if you want to keep it 100% natural simply crack extra black pepper onto your plate.
In my introductory FoodFast Method article I have many more pre-fast and refeed meal suggestions that are worth checking out. Eating the right food after a fast is very important and don’t underestimate the important of a refeed meal in helping the gut to heal as quickly as possible. Fasting to fix gut health issues but continuing to eat poor quality foods in-between will only make limited progress. Best progress will be making in resetting the gut with fasting when equal attention is paid to both fasting and feeding.
My Personal Experience with Fasting
Ever since grade school I noticed I had an unruly digestive system which manifested in various ways, and as I entered into the world of strength-training and bodybuilding in my twenties, I increased my food intake in order to build muscle, which placed even more stress on my digestive system. I did begin improving my diet dramatically during this time, increasing my consumption of whole and unprocessed foods, but this did not provide all the relief I was hoping for.
The only way things were going to turn around was if I provided my digestive system an extended break from the stress and rigors of digestion, and once I stumbled upon fasting my gut health began to quickly take a turn for the better. Some health issues take a long time to heal, but thankfully most of the tissues of the gut turns over so quickly that once the right solution is found the digestive system can be healed quite rapidly. It took me many years to figure out what I needed to do to heal my gut simply because almost no one, from my gastroenterologist to discussion online, was examining the situation from a broad enough vantage point. That’s the still mostly the case it seems, though awareness on natural healing methods for the gut like fasting and herbal teas is increasing.
After some periods of daily intermittent fasting and a few longer 24, 48, and 72 hour fasts, I quickly learned which foods were best for my body, what foods I was intolerant to, and what foods I needed to 100% avoid. Fasting gave me control over food and sugar cravings and eventually eliminated them as I began to crave more vegetables. Healing my gut shifted my microbiome to the point where it could actually process fiber and other plant materials without creating excess gas and flatulence, a serious problem for me before.
Quickly into my discovery of fasting for gut health, I noticed a few things always happen at the end of long fasts:
First, the digestion of vegetables improves. Desperate for energy, the microbiome and digestive system is happy to work together to fully break down tougher to digest foods such as lightly cooked or raw vegetables. A 48-hour fast improves microbiome balance and diversity, and the newly evolved microbiome helps to breakdown and process fiber and other complex plant-based nutrients that before may have been difficult.
Second, fat metabolism improves noticeably. After a period of fasting, energy dips throughout the day are filled in faster by a metabolism that is able to quickly switch to fat burning, whether from short-chain fatty acids produced by microorganisms digesting starches and fiber in the colon, or from body fat stores. A 48 hour fast takes the body right to the edge of ketosis, a metabolic state where only fatty acids and amino acids are used to fuel the body in the absence of carbs, and visiting ketosis regularly, even if just for a few hours, is good for the development of a strong metabolism.
Third, the gut is very thankful for the break in digestion with every fast. When eating a regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner day 24/7, it’s easy to overwork and stress the digestive system, which leads to chronic gut inflammation. To use a quote from Yoda as inspiration:
“Chronic gut stress leads to leaky gut, leaky gut leads to IBS, IBS leads to gut disease”
Humans evolved in conditions of ever changing nutrient availability. In conditions of resource scarcity, the body most regenerate to stay alive. During autophagy, epithelial tight junctions heal rapidly, solving many of the problems of leaky gut, IBS, and SIBO. Healing intestinal tight junctions helps to reduce systemic inflammation of the body and overtime can reset food intolerances and allergies. I have experienced this myself, having fully eliminated a fructose, gluten, and dairy intolerance that my body knew I had but my brain refused to recognize for many years.
Having practiced the FoodFast Method for a few years now, I have a lot of experience with how different diets may affect a fast.
Other Fasting Lessons Learned
Before I was a vegetarian, fasting was relatively easy because meat protein takes a long time to digest, and I consumed a lot of meat protein (>2 grams per kg daily). That said, my gut health significantly improved after transitioning into a vegetarian diet because it caused me to eat way more vegetables and living foods. With a vegetarian diet, fasting can be more difficult if fat metabolism isn’t well developed, so consuming a diet abundant in healthy fats from sources such as avocado, nuts, and seeds will maintain and improve fat metabolism in-between fasts, in turn making the fasting process easier.
For most people going vegetarian will be a big benefit for gut health for more reasons than I can discuss in this article, but care must be taken to not go too high-carb and to stick away from junk food and sweets that are technically vegetarian but really shouldn’t even be characterized as food.
Ready to try a 48 hour fast? Here’s the Action Plan
Below is a step by step guide to help you safely and easily accomplish a 48-hour fast so you may experience the powerful healing effects of fasting for yourself and with the least amount of stress and complications.
-
Starting before the fast begin drinking more water. Less food intake means you’ll need to drink more to intake the same amount of water, so drinking sufficient water beforehand will be prepare you to be successful and not become dehydrated. Water quality is very important, I recommend only drinking spring water, reverse osmosis water is okay too.
-
After a full dinner it’s easy to put the snacking and cravings aside, so in my opinion it’s the perfect time to start a fast. Eat your last meal before the fast as an early 6pm dinner. The meal eaten before a fast should be hearty and nutrient rich with plenty of fiber, a vegetable grain bowl with avocado being an excellent option. Go to sleep around 10 pm and after a full eight hours of sleep you’ll be well rested and ready to attack the day while already being one quarter of the way into the 48-hour fast.
-
Once you’ve waken up, you now have to make it to bedtime again without eating. Listen to your body, keep drinking water or herbal tea, and flow with your energy levels. About 16 hours into the fast you’ll have exhausted all quick sources of glycogen (carbohydrate) energy sources for your body and will be burning body fat in greater amounts. The food in your digestive system is also still providing a slowly dwindling stream of nutrients and energy for your body to run on, that’s why the couple of meals before a fast are so important.
If you feel sluggish and hungry while working, change what you’re doing find a different way to stimulate yourself. Going outside into nature is always highly refreshing and keeps a fast on track. Stay active but don’t overexert yourself, drink something lightly caffeinated like green tea if experiencing an energy slump, or simply take a short nap if tiredness really sets in. Don’t reach for the food unless it’s absolutely necessary! You should never feel bad about breaking a fast if you truly need too.
-
Once you’re comfortably in cruise control, look at your future schedule and plan around the chaos of the everyday. Building order and structure into your routine allows you to persevere and stay on track in case of unexpected events happening.
If at any point you experience extreme dizziness, loss of vision, or other troubling signs of low blood sugar, end your fast with a small healthy snack like apple slices with almond butter. Be happy with the progress you made and prepare to try again for a longer attempt when better prepared. Every fast completed better prepares you for the next.
For safety I recommend having a small healthy meal prepared and ready at all times during a fast so the fast can be broken with a healthy meal and not with whatever is most immediately available.
-
Once you’ve finished your fast of whatever duration, reintroduce food back into your system. I would not recommend eating a huge meal after a fast; start simple! Bone broth, steamed veggies, a salad, or soup are all good choices. The longer the fast the longer the food reintroduction period should be. Buy the food needed for the first couple refeed meals the day before you end the fast so you’re prepared even if you have to break the fast early. Eat the freshest food possible for the refeed meals.
To track how long I’ve been fasting, I use the app ZERO (found on iTunes and the Google Play Store). It can be used to track mood and how you feel throughout the fast, and you can keep a record of your fasts to compare to each other. Very useful!
You Successfully Completed a 48 Hour Fast!
Congratulations, you’ve finished your first 48 hour fast! I’m sure you experienced positive gut health changes from the beginning to the end of the fast.
I developed the FoodFast Method to make it easy to incorporate fasting into one’s lifestyle at the right frequency for optimal health and wellness. I wish I had discovered the FoodFast Method when I first began healing my gut and microbiome because it would have saved me years of gut health suffering, but I am grateful I experienced what I did because that is what led me to develop the method that others can now use. Now that I’ve been following the FoodFast method intuitively for a few years now, I can confidently say that it’s the single most effective way of keeping the gut healthy that I know of.
“Practicing a lifestyle centered around wellness does not have a singular end destination, but rather is an ever evolving journey. Be open to all health possibilities and trust your instincts.”
Practice Gut Health Mindfulness
During any fast or health experiment, be observant! Pay attention to everything you experience. At any given time ask yourself “How does my body feel, what emotions am I experiencing, and what is my current state of mind?” If you’re going to be your own doctor, then you need to play the role of the observant scientist.
Only with careful observation will the truth of what’s happening in your body be fully realized.
Because fasting severely restricts what enters into the body, used correctly it can be used as a diagnostic tool that by its own right is powerfully transformative.
If you read all the way here then it’s clear to me that you’re ready to do what it takes to finally restore your digestive system and gut microbiome back to healthy and optimal function.
I wrote the Holistic Gut Health Guide to help you accomplish exactly this! It contains all the information that you need to understand the gastrointestinal system, gut-brain axis, and microbiome in-depth, and the Holistic Gut Health Guide also educates you on the natural methods you can holistically use together like fasting and herbalism to transform your health from the inside out.
I’m so excited to be able to help you along your gut health and overall wellness journey with the Holistic Gut Health Guide! Please contact me with any questions you have and wishing you the best.
IMPORTANT - Please only attempt a fast if you are ready, physically and mentally, to go through a period of no food consumption. If this will be dangerous to you, please do not attempt this.
References:
Correction to Lancet Infectious Diseases 2020; published online April 29. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1473-3099(20)30064-5. Lancet Infect Dis. 2020;20(7):e148.
Suez J, Korem T, Zeevi D, et al. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature. 2014;514(7521):181-6.
Harpaz D, Yeo LP, Cecchini F, et al. Measuring Artificial Sweeteners Toxicity Using a Bioluminescent Bacterial Panel. Molecules. 2018;23(10)
De luca F, Shoenfeld Y. The microbiome in autoimmune diseases. Clin Exp Immunol. 2019;195(1):74-85.
Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Disclosure: Wild Free Organic is a member of various affiliate programs and if a purchase is made through one of our affiliate links a small commission is received. This does not affect your purchase price. Visit our disclosure page for more information.
How to Reset Dietary Beliefs
Fad diets all have one thing in common: they tell you what you can't eat. Diets don't address the underlying psychology behind why overeating or poor health exist in the first place. Developing mindfulness and an inclusive, long-term mindset for diet and health is the first step towards sustainable lasting progress.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated July 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
There exist hundreds of popular dietary protocols, each diet having a hallmark distinction. The paleo diet advocates you as our paleolithic ancestors did 10,000 years ago, which means no processed foods. The vegan diet eschews all animal products, from meat to honey. Whole30 cuts out added sugars, beans/legumes, alcohol, dairy, and grains. As much as these diets might seem different from each other, they all are the same in one respect, they restrict and limit your food choices. If you want to break the viscous cycle of lose weight → gain weight → lose weight→ gain weight then a different mindset is needed.
Many individuals have great success following the paleo, vegan, or Whole30 diets, even though the foods that are allowed to be eaten vary dramatically. And for some this new diet fits their lifestyle and they are able to remain permanently at a healthier weight. For most though, dietary restriction only works in the short term. In the long term, it has consistently been shown that 80-95% of dieters who lose significant amounts of weight regain the weight they lost months later (1). In fact, almost everyone who has dieted before has experienced life-changing weight loss at one time or another.
When foods are restricted and activity levels increase, dramatic short term changes in body composition and health can be achieved, but during the diet, psychologically it’s like a rubber band being slowly being pulled back more and more.
Once the rubber band can stretch no one, and the initial goal of twenty, thirty, or fifty pounds lost is achieved, dieters let their discipline slip and reintroduce the foods they crave back into their diet. The rubber band snaps back. A small reward for a job well done becomes a binge, and then snowballs back into old dietary habits. Dieters didn’t break their sugar addiction or eating disorder, they created a temporary bubble where they put bad habits on pause, and then the bubble popped.
If the psychology of dieting isn’t addressed, then most diets will end in failure.
Inclusion > Exclusion
When a new diet, habit, or lifestyle practice is started, the first thought might be to conceptualize all the foods, bad habits, and environmental factors that will be cut out of your current life in order to improve your health and wellness.
On the surface, this appears good. Undoubtedly there are many things can be damaging to your health in excess, and eliminating them from your life can be a huge step forward.
The issue is, exclusionary ideologies do not take into account human behavior or psychology. Humans are not machines or robots. To permanently change your dietary mindset, it is imperative to switch to a mindset of inclusion rather than exclusion. As omnivores, we evolved with digestive systems that are capable of digesting most any food.
To heal a damaged dietary psychology or food disorder, the first step that needs to be taken is for all the foods of the world to be made available and OKAY to eat to the dieter.
Often times, it is the fact that a food is restricted that makes it so appealing. Likewise, and we’ll use the example of ice cream, if ice cream is made off-limits, then once the protocol has been broken, feelings of guilt and shame can compel someone to begin an ice cream binge, which spirals back into their eating disorder. If the ice cream isn’t made strictly off limits (even if it is best to avoid the processed calories), then a bowl of ice cream is much less likely to turn into a binge. Having a bowl of ice cream might not have been the best decision, but it is much better than a binge session fueled by negative emotions. Since the ice cream isn’t odd limits, and the consumption of food comes from a place of self love rather than self hate, feelings of guilt, shame, or self loathing never manifest. With personal growth and patience, you can empower yourself to skip the ice cream or eat something else entirely, even if the ice cream is allowed.
Empower Yourself to Eat Healthier Foods
To elevate beyond the junk food, practicing a inclusive diet is much more powerful when we examine healthy foods. Take the following example:
Let’s say you have a goal to reduce your processed grains consumption, and now it’s dinner time. On your plate you have a baked potato, chicken breast, and bread. You notice that there are no green vegetables.
If your goal is to reduce processed grains consumption, there are two ways to approach the issue.
The first is to totally exclude the bread and test your discipline. The second option is to simply add an additional healthy food to the meal. For example, add some salad greens and make sure to eat the salad greens before the bread. By doing using this method, the bread isn’t banned, but rather selected against. Overtime habits like this will become second nature, and overall food quality eaten day to day will improve.
When following inclusive dietary practices, time is given to the dieter to make the health connections they need to understand in order to fix the underlying problem. In this example, this person realizes when they eat bread, they don’t feel well, experience big energy swings, and have poor digestion. Once realized, why would they want to eat bread?
By practicing mindfulness and the gradual reduction of trouble foods, these connections between trouble foods and negative physiological effects are made possible. Once the connection is made, it’s no longer a question of willpower to not eat something, it’ll be a decision that is consciously made and stuck with.
With an inclusive mindset, unhealthy foods can initially be used to encourage healthy food behaviors. If these inclusive principles are structured right, lasting healthy food behaviors can be established. As healthier foods start to make up a majority of the diet, taste-buds will change and now junk food once desired becomes gross and overly sweet.
You might have noticed this strategy is one that many parents will use with their kids to encourage them to eat their vegetables. “You can’t have your dessert until you finish your vegetables!” For old or young minds alike, this strategy works.
One of the caveats to this method is that food allergies and intolerances should be strictly avoided. It is possible to reverse a food allergy and/or intolerance, but it takes a significant amount of time, as the gut needs to heal many times over and the immune system needs to completely forget the trigger it learned and become non-reactive to those food proteins. For allergies or intolerances, it will take many months if not years for these issues to possibly be resolved.
Food Frequency: Weekly vs Daily
Another important aspect of any diet is food frequency. Everyone has their stable foods they enjoy, and the depending on what someone eats in a day, their calories, macronutrients (fats, carbs, protein), fiber, vitamins, and minerals can vary dramatically.
When considering starting a new diet, often macronutrient and micronutrient goals are established. For example, a new diet could dictate the following:
Macronutrient Ratios:
35% fats
40% carbohydrates
40 grams fiber daily
25% protein
Micronutrients:
100% RDA magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc
100% RDA B-vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12)
2000-5000 IU Vitamin D
100% RDA vitamins A, C, E, K
If using a calorie tracking app like MyFitnessPal, it can satisfying hitting macronutrient and micronutrient targets daily, but what happens is overtime discipline wanes and it becomes harder and harder to hit exact macronutrient targets. Or maybe you hit your protein target early in the day through protein heavy meals. Later in the day, in order to stay “in range”, all protein must be avoided. Having a healthy unprocessed meal without any protein is difficult, but it sure is easy with a large bowl of ice cream! Macronutrient tracking certainly can be effective, but it also create situations at times when it is okay binge on junk food because macros must be met.
For micronutrients, things get even trickier. When trying to hit exact micronutrient targets everyday, it is very difficult to get every exact micronutrient to 100% daily with a healthy diet composed primarily of unprocessed foods
Supplements then can be seen as the answer, with certain supplements needing to be taken on certain days to bump everything to 100%. You can use protein shakes, ice cream, and supplements to hit macronutrient and micronutrient targets, but is the diet healthy or sustainable?
“For a diet, when macronutrients and micronutrients are the priority, and not the consumption of whole organic unprocessed foods, it is still possible for food quality to decrease while being within the parameters of the diet”
For further illustrate the point, let’s use magnesium. Magnesium is the second most common micronutrient deficiency worldwide, a master micronutrient used in hundreds of chemical reactions and cellular tasks. Clearly it’s important to get enough magnesium, and in the context of a holistic diet, which do you think is better? A magnesium supplement, or eating a 1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds? Both with provide 200 mg of magnesium, but the bioavailability of the magnesium in pumpkin seeds will be much greater, while also providing unique phytochemicals, helpful health benefits, and satiating fiber, protein, and fat. The supplement won’t come with calories, but the bioavailibility will be lower, and the fillers it is combined with is questionable. You need calories to survive, so don’t shun calories from health foods so you can indulge in junk foods.
Macronutrient ratios and micronutrients are lower priority than eating for health, longevity, and wellness. When eating a well-rounded diet from a variety of whole unprocessed foods, macronutrient and micronutrient targets might not be achieved everyday. The mindset of hitting targets daily can be very limiting, but thinking of hitting targets on a weekly time schedule is very liberating. This is especially true in the context of the modern agricultural system, where quality and nutrition of the same foods have been declining for decades. Think depleting soil nutrients, increased pesticide and dangerous herbicide usage, monoculture farms, etc.
The body is able to store glycogen, fat, amino acids, and micronutrients (2). On some days ratios or RDAs might vary from the weekly target, but over a week long period, everything typically will come into balance. Additionally, with a weekly mindset, having a treat now and then isn’t “allowed” or “banned” based on macronutrient rations. Instead emotions and energy levels can guide food choices intuitively, an important step towards outgrowing an eating disorder. How you arrive at a desirable outcome is just as important as the outcome itself.
Think and Act Long Term
The journey towards wellness is one of patience. When your health is suffering, it is highly seductive to reach for the solution that promises the quick fix. If it took many years to develop an eating disorder or add 30 pounds of body fat, you cannot expect the fix to be quick. It might take as long to heal as it took to become unhealthy, though typically the journey is shorter by at least a factor of two.
Patience, love, understand, and being at peace with your current situation are the first steps that need to be taken in order to begin the healing process. Until honesty and truth are at the forefront of your wellness journey, expect to yo-yo between progress and setbacks.
Mindfulness is one of the most powerful tools available at your disposal. Bring conscious awareness to your actions and the decisions and you’ll be surprised by how fast things can accelerate when setbacks no longer occur.
Develop a long term mindset, and instead of eliminating your worst food offenders, incentivize the healthy foods, making sure to include those first into your day. Before you realize it, you’ll be past any prior plateaus you struggled with accelerating towards your long term health goals!
References
Wing RR, Phelan S. Long-term weight loss maintenance. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;82(1 Suppl):222S-225S.
James Collier. Storage of Micronutrients in the Body. Dietetics
Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Disclosure: Wild Free Organic is a member of various affiliate programs and if a purchase is made through one of our affiliate links a small commission is received. This does not affect your purchase price. Visit our disclosure page for more information.
Dairy vs Plant Protein
Protein is an important macronutrient, used throughout the body. Protein supplements are one option for increasing protein intake, with diary and plant proteins both being commonly available. Dairy and plant proteins both have their pro and cons; let's discuss!
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated January 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
There are many different types of protein found in nature, but for protein supplements the divide begins at whether the protein is animal or plant based. A protein molecule is made from a long chain of amino acids, and each type of protein has a unique sequence of amino acids. Therefore, the protein chains found in broccoli differ from those found in eggs. As science had discovered the different types of protein, we have started to learn the chemical differences between different types of plant and animal proteins and how they affect the body differently. Proteins differ in their effects on muscle protein synthesis, level of satiety, and immune system response.
For both athletes looking to improve their performance or regular folks trying to look better and live healthier, protein is an important macronutrient to understand and to know how to utilize. The general recommendation for protein intake is 2 grams/kg body-weight, or 1 gram/lb. For a 70 kg (155 lb) individual, that means they should aim to consume 140-155 grams of protein daily for optimal body composition and maximum wellness benefits.
It can be difficult to achieve that target consistently solely from whole and unprocessed foods, especially if you follow a lower protein vegetarian or vegan diet, and protein supplements like shakes and bars can help you meet your daily protein goals. For decades the only protein supplements were dairy based, specifically casein and whey protein, but now plant proteins are more and more popular. Uncommonly used supplemental protein sources like beef and egg proteins will not be discussed. Below we examine the pros and cons of dairy and plant-based proteins so you can understand how to best use either protein source when appropriate.
Dairy Proteins
Dairy-based proteins, typically derived from cows milk, can be separated into casein and whey proteins. Before whey and casein are separated, they are known as "milk protein", and that's the type of protein Orgain uses in their Grass-Fed Clean Protein Shake (as pictured).
PROS:
Milk proteins are extremely bioavailable (1), easily absorbed from food sources and then efficiently incorporated into the proteins of an organism's body.
Milk proteins contain abundant Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAA's) (2), the main amino acids responsible for stimulating an increase in muscle protein synthesis (MPS). With all other factors equal, more MPS, more muscle!
Milk proteins are widely available! Due to the size of the dairy industry, milk, casein, and whey protein can all be had at a relatively inexpensive cost, with different levels of quality from concentrates to hydrolysates all having different price points.
CONS:
Any food can be allergenic, but dairy-based foods are the most common food allergy (3), and should be strictly avoided if you have a dairy allergy. Likewise, those with a lactose intolerance should steer clear, even from products from like whey isolate which contain virtually zero lactose.
Dairy protein products are derived from animals and for vegans and vegetarians looking to reduce their animal product consumption, plant proteins are a lower impact alternatives.
Plant Proteins
Plant-based proteins, once a niche product, have dramatically increased in popularity recently. Soy protein, once the plant protein of choice, has recently taken the backseat to newer options such as pea, pumpkin seed, and hemp proteins. The Vega protein drink pictured contains those three plant-based proteins.
PROS:
Plant proteins are not commonly allergic, with soy protein being the exception (4), and in my experience, it's harder to develop an intolerance to plant-based proteins. For those with sensitive guts and damaged intestinal tight junctions, plant proteins are a better choice until gut health is restored.
While plant proteins typically contain less protein per gram of product, they also contain more fiber! As it has been shown, fiber is one of the most important variables which determines the satiation value of a food (5), and a plant-based protein drink will stave off hunger longer than a dairy alternative.
Vegan friendly!
CONS:
Plant proteins, due to their structural makeup, don't have as pleasing of a texture or taste as dairy derived proteins, and often protein manufacturers add extra sugar, emulsifiers, and stabilizers to plant protein products to make them more palatable.
Plant proteins aren't as efficiently absorbed as dairy protein, having lower biological values. This means that you'll need to consume more plant protein than dairy protein to ensure you receive an adequate amount of protein for your desired goals.
Protein Recommendations
To simplify, there are two reasons you would consider buying a protein powder or drink.
Your goal is to build muscle and improve body composition as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Your want to improve protein intake for overall health and wellness inspirations.
If your goal is #1, and you are not lactose intolerant, then a hydrolyzed whey protein will be the best protein supplement for your goals. Whey hydrolysate empties out of the stomach faster, is absorbed faster, increases muscle protein synthesis the most, and creates the biggest insulin response. Hydrolyzed whey protein is the most anabolic form for protein known. Whey hydrolysate should not be used by those with blood sugar problems.
If your goal is #2, then a plant-based protein is recommended. Soy protein is not recommended because it is allergenic, contains high levels of phytoestrogens, and doesn’t stimulate muscle protein synthesis well. Pea, pumpkin, and hemp seed proteins are recommended instead. These proteins, used individually or together act as a complete protein source, digest easily, stimulate muscle protein synthesis, and come paired with plant fiber.
The best protein source though is from whole unprocessed foods. Protein supplements are a means to an end, not the end destination. Protein drinks should not be your main source of protein. Having a protein drink occasionally is OKAY, but consistent protein drink use is overall more less healthy than eating whole nutritious foods.
References:
Hoffman JR, Falvo MJ. Protein - Which is Best?. J Sports Sci Med. 2004;3(3):118-30.
Rafiq S, Huma N, Pasha I, Sameen A, Mukhtar O, Khan MI. Chemical Composition, Nitrogen Fractions and Amino Acids Profile of Milk from Different Animal Species. Asian-australas J Anim Sci. 2016;29(7):1022-8.
Milk Allergy Vs. Lactose Intolerance. Food Allergy and Research Education.
Soy Allergy. Food Allergy and Research Education.
J. Slavin, and H. Green. Dietary fibre and satiety. British Nutrition Foundation.
Swap Oats for a Buckwheat Breakfast
Buckwheat is a type of flowering plant whose seeds resemble grains, and as such is often referred to as a psuedocereal. Due to its biology, buckwheat is easier to digest than oats and has a different micronutrient profile, containing lots of magnesium which most people are deficient in. Buckwheat like oats can be made into a warm porridge and makes for a great breakfast.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated October 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Millions of people around the world start their morning with an oatmeal breakfast, either from steel cut, rolled, or instant oats. Oatmeal is delicious, fiber dense, and convenient. Buckwheat may be better for many people than oats, especially those who need be more mindful of their gut health, and it’s buckwheat!
Containing different micronutrients than oatmeal overall, buckwheat is a great breakfast for those looking to distance themselves from wheat production and glyphosate usage or simply for those who want a second hot creamy breakfast porridge option with a different micronutrient profile. It’s fiber dense but not as hard on the intestinal lining at oats or wheat, and it takes other foods easily like bananas, almond butter, nuts, dried or fresh fruit very well, making a vegan nutritious delicious meal.
What is Buckwheat?
Buckwheat is not a type of wheat. In fact it’s not even a cereal grain. Buckwheat is a type of flowering plant whose seeds resemble grains, and is referred to as a psuedocereal (like chia seeds and quinoa). It is rare for flowering plants to have strong defense mechanisms, instead working with animals and insects symbiotically to reproduce.
Grasses (like wheat) aren’t as cosmopolitan, and grasses have evolved serious defense mechanisms throughout time. The leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica (glass) phytoliths (crystals), which discourage grazing animals. The parts we actually eat, cereal grains, are pleasantly referred to as spikelets, and then you have fibrous chaff surrounding the grain. Next is a hard protective bran shell, and then finally the germ and endosperm, which are the parts of the grain containing the most desirable and evolved nutrients.
Field of buckwheat. Not a grass, but a flower!
Digesting Wheat and Oats is Paleo Difficult
Grasses are so hard to digest that the holy grass chomping animal, the cow, has four stomachs just to digest them. The first three stomachs of a cow help break down the fibrous plant material, and the last stomach more closely resembles ours. Even then, cows are known for their prodigious flatulence, a byproduct of the process. Humans don’t have four stomachs, and even with the advanced processing we use to strip wheat grains from chaff, we evolutionarily aren’t predisposed to being able to digest wheat and other grains like oats well.
Add in many pesticide applications during cultivation, harvest, and storage as is done with non-organically grown whole grains like wheat and oats, gut health and wellness suffer. Toxins like glyphosate (the main herbicide found in Roundup) disrupt the shikimate pathway and has an antimicrobial effect on the microbiome. Pesticides also erode the mucus lining of the digestive system and degrade epithelial cellular junctions underneath. These three factors together cause stress to the digestive system. When tested non-gmo crops were found to have glyphosate residues at 0.07 mg/kg to 0.09 mg/kg. For a GMO crop, the range was found to be between 3.3 and 5.7 mg/kg (1).
Those with sensitive or compromised digestive systems will experience bloating, indigestion, volatile digestive motility, and loose stool from consumption of whole grains sprayed heavily with pesticides. Some people can handle it for a time.
The reason many people experience digestive upset from non-organic cereal grains is because the body eliminates them from the digestive track in order to avoid absorbing toxic pesticides into the body, which then cause stress on other organs such as the liver, kidneys, spleen, etc.
The goal of eating is to extract as much goodness from food as easily as possible, and any food which the body can’t or refuses to process efficiently should be eliminated from the diet and can reintroduced again at a later time for testing.
Buckwheat is Easy to Digest
Unlike oats or wheat, buckwheat is relatively easy to digest. This is due to the fact that buckwheat comes from an angiosperm plant and not a grain. Buckwheat shares many of the same culinary traits as oats though. Buckwheat cooks similarly, has similar taste and texture, and has a nearly identical macronutrient profile. Buckwheat also has the advantage of often being gluten free as it’s processed on separate machinery free of wheat residues.
Cooked Buckwheat (left) vs Cooked Oats (right)
Oats, even organic oats, unless specifically stated “gluten-free” contain residual gluten and wheat proteins from having been processed on the same machinery as wheat. To anyone with a gluten intolerance, Crohn’s disease, and celiac disease, this “hidden” source of gluten can wreak havoc.
Buckwheat will have lower levels of trace gluten from processing, but is still sprayed with glyphosate as are most crops in the USA, though not as much. Only non-gmo organic buckwheat will have very low to zero glyphosate contamination, and this what I recommend you find if you love having a breakfast cereal in the morning.
Buckwheat Macronutrients (100g)
Calories: 343 calories
Fat: 3.4 grams
Carbohydrates: 71.5 grams
Fiber: 10 grams
Protein: 13.3 grams
Oats Macronutrients (100g)
Calories: 379 calories
Fat: 6.5 grams
Carbohydrates: 67.7 grams
Fiber: 10.1 grams
Protein: 13.2 grams
For all their differences evolutionary and processing wise, buckwheat and oats have similar macronutrient ratios as seen above. Both buckwheat and oats are a good option when a high carbohydrate meal is desired.
When it comes to micronutrients, buckwheat and oats are similar but overall I think buckwheat is the better option for reasons I’ll explain. For 100 grams of oats vs 100 grams of buckwheat see the nutritional differences below:
|
Vitamins |
Buckwheat | Oats | Greater Than By |
|
Thiamin (mg) |
0.1 | 0.46 | 360% |
|
Riboflavin (mg) |
0.43 | 0.16 | 168% |
|
Niacin (mg) |
7.02 | 1.13 | 521% |
|
Vitamin B6 (mg) |
0.21 | 0.1 | 110% |
|
Folate (mcg) |
30 | 32 | 6.6% |
|
Vitamin B12 (mcg) |
0 | 0 | -- |
|
Pantothenic Acid (mg) |
1.23 | -- | -- |
|
Vitamin A (IU) |
0 | 0 | -- |
|
Vitamin C (mg) |
0 | 0 | -- |
|
Vitamin D (IU) |
0 | 0 | -- |
|
Vitamin E (mg) |
-- | 0.42 | -- |
|
Vitamin K (mcg) |
-- | 2.0 | -- |
|
Minerals |
|||
|
Calcium (mg) |
18 | 52 | 189% |
|
Iron (mg) |
2.2 | 4.25 | 93% |
| Magnesium (mg) | 231 | 138 | 67% |
|
Phosphorus (mg) |
347 | 410 | 18% |
|
Potassium (mg) |
460 | 362 | 27% |
|
Sodium (mg) |
1.0 | 6.0 | 500% |
|
Zinc (mg) |
2.4 | 3.64 | 51% |
|
Copper (mg) |
1.1 | -- | -- |
|
Manganese (mg) |
1.3 | -- | -- |
|
Selenium (mcg) |
8.3 | -- | -- |
Macronutrient and Micronutrient data pulled from the USDA database.
Oats have more micronutrients which have greater values than buckwheat (7 vs 5), but buckwheat has higher levels of the micronutrients more commonly deficient in the diet. Buckwheat also contains much higher percentage levels of those certain micronutrients, so they come out ahead.
Buckwheat contains 67% more magnesium, magnesium being second most common micronutrient deficiency and vital for hormone health, skin, sleep, and bone strength. Buckwheat also has 27% more potassium, which helps to balance sodium/potassium ratios in the body which is important for the heart, brain, digestion, and nervous system.
Oats do have significantly more calcium, iron, phosphorus, and zinc than buckwheat. Buckwheat contains significantly more of the B vitamins riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin B6, only containing significantly less thiamin than oats does. Nutritional yeast is the highest source of thiamin, unfortified unlike artificially fortified grains, and completely vegan.
Try Buckwheat for Breakfast for One Week
Watch your Gut Health Get Better
Next time you reach to buy a bag of oats at the grocery story, reach for a bag of buckwheat instead!
Try it out and see if you like buckwheat’s flavor and texture, and pay attention to your energy levels and state of digestion after eating it. Worst case you don’t notice any positives eating buckwheat over oats, and best case you improve your digestion and get more of the critical micronutrients such as magnesium that are missing from most modern day diets. In my experience buckwheat has never made my digestion worse, and it’s good to have reliable food like that on hand.
Buckwheat could very well be your perfect food (2). If you are of Eastern European ancestry that is more likely to be the case as a lot of buckwheat has been grown in those areas historically.
Try out some organic hulled buckwheat groats and explore a whole new world!
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. In 88 pages you’ll be provided each and every possible advantage you can have on your gut health journey that I have discovered.
References:
Glyphosate-tested. Healthy Traditions.
Wijngaard HH, Arendt EK. Buckwheat. Cereal Chemistry Journal. 2006;83(4):391-401.
Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Disclosure: Wild Free Organic is a member of various affiliate programs and if a purchase is made through one of our affiliate links a small commission is received. This does not affect your purchase price. Visit our disclosure page for more information.
Other Articles on Nutrition
Heal Tight Junctions of the Gut
Where the epithelial cells of the digestive system press up together, they form what are known as tight junctions. These tight junctions keep undigested food and microbes from entering the bloodstream. Compromised tight junctions lead to inflammation and a stressed immune system. Learn of 4 proven methods to heal tight junctions.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated July 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Food and water are the two building blocks for the human body from which everything is made of. The digestive system is what takes food and water and turns the nutrients pulled from them into all the various cells, proteins, enzymes, and compounds that keep life going. In the process of digestion, the body decides what nutrients it wants and which it doesn’t, and it uses a variety of mechanisms to make those discriminations.
The cells that make up the outside surface of the intestines have in-between them what are known are tight junctions. Epithelial tight junctions maintain the intestinal barrier while regulating permeability of ions, nutrients, and water. The tight junctions are effectively where the cells of the intestine press up against each other, leaving no spaces for things to pass into the bloodstream without first going through the cells themselves.
Cross-section view of intestinal epithelial cells. In this depiction, tight junctions are tight and the cells are healthily pressed up against one another.
When the epithelial tight junctions of the gut are weakened and cells spread out, intestinal permeability is increased. Microbes and partially digested compounds that pass through these no-longer tight junctions can act as triggers for the development of intestinal and systemic diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and Crohn’s Disease (1). A more general term for these conditions is leaky gut.
There are a few methods that have been investigated and found to be successful in healing tight junctions. Read how zinc, phytonutrients, bacteria, and dirt can help you heal your digestive system.
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. Give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Heal Tight Junctions with Zinc
Zinc deficiency is known to result in epithelial barrier leak in the GI tract (2, 3), though the exact methods of which are still unknown. In order to learn about about this symptom of zinc deficiency, researchers took colon epithelium (Caco-2) cells and measured the electrical resistance of the tight junctions before and after 7 days of zinc supplementation (4).
The zinc increased the electrical resistivity of the epithelial tight junctions by 61%, a good sign of a strong healthy gut. It was found that the the zinc-induced barrier tightening held true for small electrolyte ions but not for small non-electrolytes. More research is needed here, but increased permeability for non-electrolytes after zinc supplementation is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, during active transport of glucose from the gut to the bloodstream (such as after a meal), increased permeability is observed in intestinal epithelial cells. It has also been observed that zinc supplementation strengthens the lung epithelial cell barrier (5). There is a deep interaction between the digestive system, zinc, and the immune system.
Zinc supplementation tightens intestinal cell junctions yet also aids absorption of beneficial nutrients. To supplement with Zinc, it’s best to take it with copper at a 15:1 ratio, so as to avoid a copper deficiency (6).
I personally supplement with Jarrow Formula’s Zinc Balance supplement everyday which contains 15 mg of zinc and 1 mg copper, taken with a meal to avoid nausea. If you’re look for a natural food source, oysters are the way to go! Six medium oysters provide 32 mg of zinc and are packed with other micronutrients. The recommended RDA for men is 11 mg and 8 mg for women, but daily supplementation of zinc between 10 - 40 mg is safe.
Consume Flavonoids to Heal Tight Junctions
Flavonoids such as apigenin, genistein (soy phytoestrogen), quercetin (plant pigment), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG, green tea polyphenol) exert protective effects on the intestinal tight junction barrier (7). Besides these specific phytochemicals, eating a diet rich in organic fruits and vegetables is the cornerstone of a healthy diet and with consistency will transform gut health.
Genistein
Genistein was found in multiple studies to have a protective effect on the gut. Genistein ameliorate (improved upon) oxidative stress (8) that colon epithelium (Caco-2) cells were subjected too. Studies have also observed that genistein ameliorates the impairment of intestinal tight junction barrier function by inflammatory cytokines (9) and enteric bacteria (10). If you want to consume genistein for these protective gut effects, fermented soy products like natto and tempeh are the healthiest and most bioavailable.
Quercetin
Quercetin was recently investigated for it effects on intestinal tight junction health. When rats were fed a quercetin rich (1%) diet, intestinal tight junction function was enhanced through the increased assembly of important tight junction proteins (11). Quercetin is found in many fruits, vegetables, leaves, and grains, with red onions and kale containing appreciable amounts. Quercetin is also found in green tea.
Green Tea Catechins (EGCG)
EGCG is a polyphenol found in green tea well known for its positive anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects. When human intestinal T84 cells were exposed to a stressor, tight junction function was reduced but subsequent administration of EGCG completely reversed the changes (12). Related to the next section below, supplementation of EGCG to rats improved nutrient absorption from fats and proteins, which simultaneously reducing adipose tissue (13). It was found that in rats dietary EGCG positively affects the growth of certain species of gut microbiota partly responsible for regulating energy metabolism in the body through the production of short chain fatty acids in the colon. Store bought green tea is heavily oxidized and contaminated with herbicides, and therefore is not a good source of green tea catechins.
Pique Tea sells cold brew extracted and crystallized tea crystals which have up to 12x the antioxidants of normal green tea, and they are triple screened for hazardous compounds. For the most gut-healing polyphenols, I recommend their Sun Goddess Matcha or their Matcha Green Fasting Tea. A hot cup after a meal helps soothe the digestive system, and 2-3 cups a day during a green tea fast can heal the tight junctions of the gut very quickly. Use the coupon code WILDFREEORGANIC for 5% off at checkout.
Flavenoids and other plant polyphenols such as anthocyanins (found abundantly in elderberries) can have powerful beneficial effects on the gut. The best way to make sure you consume adequate amounts of these compounds is to eat a diet rich in organic vibrantly colored fruits and vegetables.
Take Care of the Microbiome
The human body contains 10x as many microbes within the body as human cells, and the interactions between our gut microbiome and digestive system can have profound impacts on health. A healthy gut contains an entire ecosystem of commensal (helpful) bacteria which work in unison with each other and the human gut to produce a safe stable environment for the absorption of nutrients.
It’s been shown that intestinal bacteria can help beneficially regulate tight junction permeability (14). For example, the molecule indole, secreted by commensal Escherichia coli increases epithelial tight-junction resistance, attenuating indicators of inflammation in the process (15). Indole also prohibits pathogenic E. coli movement, motility, and attachment to epithelial cells. Attachment of pathogenic bacteria to epithelial tight junctions is one of the main stressors the gut can experience (16, 17), and one of the best ways to fight pathogens is to maintain a strong healthy gut full of symbiotic bacteria.
A healthy diet that prioritizes organic unprocessed foods is a great way to build a healthy gut microbiome (18), and supplementing with probiotics has also been shown to be helpful in improving the microbiome (19).
I don’t use probiotics often as I prefer fermented foods, though I have taken probiotics extensively and have a couple recommendations. Thorne makes a great leaky gut supplement, Perma-Clear, which contains key probiotic strains while also adding gut boosters like ginger and L-Glutamine. Mixing probiotics with herbs or supplements like SCRAM for parasites is a great way to favorably shift the microbiome.
Heal Tight Junctions with Prehistoric Dirt
Interesting research has been performed on the effect a supplemental lignite extract had on the tight junctions of epithelial cells. Lignite is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat which contains traces of plant structure and materials. It is believed these ancient plant materials have protective effects on the gut.
In one study (20), researchers cultured small bowel (IEC-6) and colon epithelium (Caco-2) cells, and then the lignite extract was administered to one group of each while the others were left as the controls for 12 hours. After 12 hours had elapsed, glyphosate, a herbicide more commonly known as Roundup and also a known gut disruptor (21), was applied to all groups.
The control groups showed a large degradation in cellular tight junctions from the application of glyphosate, while the lignite extract group nullified the effects of the glyphosate. Basically supplementing with a lignite extract was shown to increase epithelial tight junction strength, and when exposed to glyphosate, a known gut disruptor ubiquitous within the food supply, it nullified the harmful effects of the glyphosate.
In another study (22) with the same survey design, small bowel (IEC-6) and colon epithelium (Caco-2) cells were cultured. Half were left as a control and the other half were administered the same supplemental lignite extract. After 12 hours, researchers this time used gliadin, one of the main components of wheat gluten, to damage the tight junctions of the cells. Same as the glyphosate, the application of gliadin peptides severely damaged the tight junctions of the small bowel and colon cells, while the lignite extract nullified the effects.
After reading this lignite research, I bought a bottle of the same supplement used in the research, Restore, and supplemented with it fairly consistently for 2 months. This was back when I are much more gluten, and I noticed that supplementing with Restore helped my gut issues tremendously. Restore helps by binding to gluten, and also dangerous pesticides. You can get this same effect if you eat any food that contains microparticles of clay and silt such as salad greens, squash, beans, and lentils.
Knowing this, Restore can be kept on hand as a protective supplement for the occasionally dietary one-off. Restore your gut health.
Heal Tight Junctions, Heal the Digestive System
There is a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to healing digestive maladies. and it is very difficult to know who to trust, what to do, and how long healing your gut will take.
I have a predisposition for gut health problems. My mother had Crohns and my aunt’s side of the family has celiac disease. I’ve struggled with leaky gut, IBS, SIBO, food allergies, gluten intolerance, and fructose intolerance for years. It was a very long process guided by research, experimentation, and mindfulness before I began to see rapid health improvements and my digestive system healed. This whole process was set back by the lack of scientific data on the microbiome, a critical component of the digestive system. It had to be learned intuitively.
One of the biggest breakthroughs I made was when I discovered glyphosate and the terrible effects it has on your microbiome and epithelial tight junctions. Once I made a serious effort to reduce my glyphosate exposure, by not eating foods laden with glyphosate (wheat and non-organic GMO produce) my gut health improved remarkably, and afterwards switching to a flexitarian diet healed my gut completely. When the gut is healthy, the rest of the body is healthy, and I have seen numerous other health improvements from healing my gut, starting with my hormonal system.
Take it from me, one of the most important things you can do to heal your gut is to heal your epithelial tight junctions. The easiest way to accomplish that goal into your routine is with a regular cup of green tea. Each cup of polyphenols will scavenge for undesirables and help your body to process the toxins out. Matcha Green Tea is one of the most effective gut healers known, just mind the caffeine.
If you read all the way here then it’s clear to me that you’re ready to do what it takes to finally restore your digestive system and gut microbiome back to healthy and optimal function.
I wrote the Holistic Gut Health Guide to help you accomplish exactly this! It contains all the information that you need to understand the gastrointestinal system, gut-brain axis, and microbiome in-depth, and the Holistic Gut Health Guide also educates you on the natural methods you can holistically use together like fasting and herbalism to transform your health from the inside out.
I’m so excited to be able to help you along your gut health and overall wellness journey with the Holistic Gut Health Guide! Please contact me with any questions you have and wishing you the best.
Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Disclosure: Wild Free Organic is a member of various affiliate programs and if a purchase is made through one of our affiliate links a small commission is received. This does not affect your purchase price. Visit our disclosure page for more information.
References
Lee SH. Intestinal permeability regulation by tight junction: implication on inflammatory bowel diseases. Intest Res. 2015;13(1):11-8.
Bao S, Knoell DL. Zinc modulates cytokine-induced lung epithelial cell barrier permeability. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2006;291(6):L1132-41.
Finamore A, Massimi M, Conti devirgiliis L, Mengheri E. Zinc deficiency induces membrane barrier damage and increases neutrophil transmigration in Caco-2 cells. J Nutr. 2008;138(9):1664-70.
Wang X, Valenzano MC, Mercado JM, Zurbach EP, Mullin JM. Zinc supplementation modifies tight junctions and alters barrier function of CACO-2 human intestinal epithelial layers. Dig Dis Sci. 2013;58(1):77-87.
Bao S, Knoell DL. Zinc modulates cytokine-induced lung epithelial cell barrier permeability. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2006;291(6):L1132-41.
Hoffman HN, Phyliky RL, Fleming CR. Zinc-induced copper deficiency. Gastroenterology. 1988;94(2):508-12.
Suzuki T, Hara H. Role of flavonoids in intestinal tight junction regulation. J Nutr Biochem. 2011;22(5):401-8.
Rao RK, Basuroy S, Rao VU, Karnaky KJ, Gupta A. Tyrosine phosphorylation and dissociation of occludin-ZO-1 and E-cadherin-beta-catenin complexes from the cytoskeleton by oxidative stress. Biochem J. 2002;368(Pt 2):471-81.
Wells CL, Jechorek RP, Kinneberg KM, Debol SM, Erlandsen SL. The isoflavone genistein inhibits internalization of enteric bacteria by cultured Caco-2 and HT-29 enterocytes. J Nutr. 1999;129(3):634-40.
Schmitz H, Fromm M, Bentzel CJ, et al. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha) regulates the epithelial barrier in the human intestinal cell line HT-29/B6. J Cell Sci. 1999;112 ( Pt 1):137-46.
Suzuki T, Hara H. Quercetin enhances intestinal barrier function through the assembly of zonula [corrected] occludens-2, occludin, and claudin-1 and the expression of claudin-4 in Caco-2 cells. J Nutr. 2009;139(5):965-74.
Watson JL, Ansari S, Cameron H, Wang A, Akhtar M, Mckay DM. Green tea polyphenol (-)-epigallocatechin gallate blocks epithelial barrier dysfunction provoked by IFN-gamma but not by IL-4. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2004;287(5):G954-61.
Unno T, Sakuma M, Mitsuhashi S. Effect of dietary supplementation of (-)-epigallocatechin gallate on gut microbiota and biomarkers of colonic fermentation in rats. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol. 2014;60(3):213-9.
Ulluwishewa D, Anderson RC, Mcnabb WC, Moughan PJ, Wells JM, Roy NC. Regulation of tight junction permeability by intestinal bacteria and dietary components. J Nutr. 2011;141(5):769-76.
Bansal T, Alaniz RC, Wood TK, Jayaraman A. The bacterial signal indole increases epithelial-cell tight-junction resistance and attenuates indicators of inflammation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010;107(1):228-33.
Guttman JA, Samji FN, Li Y, Vogl AW, Finlay BB. Evidence that tight junctions are disrupted due to intimate bacterial contact and not inflammation during attaching and effacing pathogen infection in vivo. Infect Immun. 2006;74(11):6075-84.
Eichner M, Protze J, Piontek A, Krause G, Piontek J. Targeting and alteration of tight junctions by bacteria and their virulence factors such as Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin. Pflugers Arch. 2017;469(1):77-90.
De filippo C, Cavalieri D, Di paola M, et al. Impact of diet in shaping gut microbiota revealed by a comparative study in children from Europe and rural Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010;107(33):14691-6.
Hemarajata P, Versalovic J. Effects of probiotics on gut microbiota: mechanisms of intestinal immunomodulation and neuromodulation. Therap Adv Gastroenterol. 2013;6(1):39-51.
Gildea JJ, Roberts DA, Bush Z. Protective Effects of Lignite Extract Supplement on Intestinal Barrier Function in Glyphosate-Mediated Tight Junction Injury. J Clin Nutr Diet. 2017, 3:1.
Samsel A, Seneff S. Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance. Interdiscip Toxicol. 2013;6(4):159-84.
Gildea JJ, Roberts DA, Bush Z (2016) Protection against Gluten-mediated Tight Junction Injury with a Novel Lignite Extract Supplement. J Nutr Food Sci 6: 547.
Control Food Cravings with Fasting
Fasting, that is, not eating, can be used to understand the difference between psychological food cravings and actual hunger. Fasting brings conscious awareness to eating habits, and a 24 hour fast can be used as a tool to understand and address a root cause of modern unhealthy life styles; food cravings.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated December 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Fasting, that is, not consuming calories, is becoming increasingly popular, and for good reason. The incredible benefits of fasting are numerous, from extending lifespan (1) to curing diseases (2), and fasting is certainly a wellness tool everyone should learn to use properly in their quest for optimal health. Fasting has such powerful effects upon the body because it removes a key component to life, food. Basically the larger the lever you pull (water, sleep, food, sunlight, air quality, etc), the larger the potential effect, positive or negative.
When an organism starts to fast, cellular autophagy ramps up (3) and metabolism increases (4), and a whole host of other important bodily systems are adjusted in ways that boost longevity and promote health. Because fasting is free and requires little more than perseverance, water, and electrolytes (for extended multi-day fasts), it has a low barrier of entry for anyone to try, no matter how inexperienced. While extended multi-day fasting can be a powerful weight loss tool, a better approach for those new to fasting is to first start small with a 24 hour fast, and potentially experiment with longer fasts from their after consulting with their doctor.
Fasting for the sole purpose of losing weight can be incredibly successful, but with that success a misguided behavior may establish itself that the best way to maintain weight is to not eat. The best way to maintain a lean and healthy body is to be mindful of metabolism, not just choosing not to eat for 3 days every week. To be clear, fasting is a powerful tool and is best not used irresponsibly.
Hunger vs Cravings
During a 24 hour fast body fat is burned and the digestive system is partially healed and reset. For a first timer though, what is learned about the interaction between eating, psychology, and behavior is even more valuable. Fasting is a fantastic way to learn how to differentiate between two types of hunger everyone has experienced: Physiological hunger and psychological hunger (also known as cravings). A good example demonstrating the difference can be summarized with the following hypothetical conversation:
Rebecca - “Oh my god I’m so hungry! Hey Dave what should we have for dinner?”
Dave - “I’m ravenous too! How about we grab some burgers?”
Rebecca - “I’m not feeling burgers, does Mexican food work (cravings)?”
Dave - “Yeah sure I’ll eat anything (hunger)!”
Dave was experiencing physiological hunger. His body required calories, and anything would suffice. Rebecca on the other hand wasn’t physiologically hungry. If Rebecca was more aware of the difference between hunger and cravings in this instance, she might have decided to not eat again until she was actually hungry, therefore consuming less calories and likely maintaining a healthier body weight.
A 24 hour fast is a great way to learn the difference between cravings and hunger. Over the course of that 24 hours, the average person will usually experience food cravings a couple times because they are used to eating every day consistently. By remaining strict and continuing with the fast, it’s discovered that 10-30 minutes after the food craving first started that it subsides or disappears. Focus the mind on something else and completing a 24 hour fast is easy.
A 24 hour fast will also teach how the body becomes adapted to receiving food at regular intervals. Eat breakfast everyday at 7 am? Guaranteed your stomach starts growling everyday at 7 am or shortly afterwards. That signal isn’t necessarily a sign that you’re hungry, it’s just your stomach contracting via muscle memory as it’s used to processing food around that time. Muscle memory and psychological behaviors are often intertwined, and it’s easy to confuse a normal biologic process with a conjured up signal of “I’m super hungry right now”.
Fasting Resets the Microbiome
Schedule a 24 hour fast on a day where there will be little if any food temptations, and once a few 24 hour fasts have been successfully completed in that manner, do a 24+ hour fast on any random day where temptations of junk food may arise. Armed with the knowledge that you’ve already successfully completed a 24 hour fast, when food cravings are encountered because someone brought cake or donuts, you’ll be well equipped to handle the situation in order to successfully complete the 24 hour fast. If you slip up, simply refocus your willpower and try again! Once you’ve broke your fast with a healthy meal, follow these 3 digestion improving steps.
The 24 hour fast is a great tool to intuitively learn the difference between cravings and hunger, but it won’t make much of a dent on serious digestive health issues. A diseased gut is an inflammation machine, placing your body into a state of chronic inflammation which can result hundreds of known health issues which manifest in other parts of your body like the brain, skin, or other organs. Additionally, a weak gut leads to a weak immune system, as the gut is the bodies primary barrier which keeps pathogenic microbes out. Fasting can heal the digestive system and restore balance to the microbiome.
Together the digestive system and microbiome are the foundation of health from which everything else is dependent on.
The Holistic Gut Health Guide contains all the information you need to identify and understand the gastrointestinal and microbiome problems you may have while also providing you the most effective natural methods you can use to heal your gut. No gut health problems are unsolvable, give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
Some of the information in the Holistic Gut Health Guide isn’t common knowledge but when implemented it is highly effective in healing the gut and shifting the microbiome towards symbiosis. Give yourself every possible advantage along your gut health journey by reading an implementing the advice shared in the Holistic Gut Health Guide.
References
De cabo R, Carmona-gutierrez D, Bernier M, Hall MN, Madeo F. The search for antiaging interventions: from elixirs to fasting regimens. Cell. 2014;157(7):1515-26.
Documentary. The Science of Fasting. Directed by Sylvie Gilman and Thierry de Lestrade.
Jung CH, Ro SH, Cao J, Otto NM, Kim DH. mTOR regulation of autophagy. FEBS Lett. 2010;584(7):1287-95.
Knapik JJ, Meredith CN, Jones BH, Suek L, Young VR, Evans WJ. Influence of fasting on carbohydrate and fat metabolism during rest and exercise in men. J Appl Physiol. 1988;64(5):1923-9.
Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.
Disclosure: Wild Free Organic is a member of various affiliate programs and if a purchase is made through one of our affiliate links a small commission is received. This does not affect your purchase price. Visit our disclosure page for more information.
Break Sugar Addiction by Avoid Added Sugars
Look at the ingredients label for most foods and you'll see that sugar was added. Sugar is cheap to produce and has addictive properties, therefore processed food manufacturers love adding it as it helps their bottom line and keep customers coming back. Healing a sugar addiction by avoiding added sugars is one of the first steps to reclaiming your health.
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated December 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Being healthy and free from sickness, pain, and disease is as simple as consistently following and adhering to a collection of small healthy habits. Depending on your current state of health, becoming well can seem impossibly daunting, for one, where do you start? If you keep a lifestyle unchanged, but add one healthy habit, then wellness has been improved. To create a healthy habit, you must first be hyper-conscious of your actions until they become second nature, becoming a habit you do unconsciously. The hard part of being healthy isn’t following wellness habits, but rather forming the habits one at a time, and performing them long enough that they become second nature.
One of the most impactful wellness habits you develop is to kick a sugar addiction (1). Like other addictive chemicals, sugar is toxic (2), creates widespread inflammation in the body (3) when consumed in excess, shifts the microbiome to a less diversified pathogenic state (4), and desensitizes dopamine receptors (5). The average American consumes 10 times more sugar than 100 years ago; in 2017 this totaled 90.7 grams of added-sugar everyday (6).
For reference, Canada clocked in about 1/3 lower than the USA in 2017 at 58.5 grams per day (7), and the average per-capita added-sugar consumption for rural China in 2017 was only 3.75 grams. In India, Israel, and Russia, people on average consume 5.1, 14.5, and 20 grams of additional sugar per day respectively (8).
For most countries in the world, the processed food industry is driving the ever increasing consumption of sugar, and the health complications are piling up. Over-consumption of sugars together with other factors contributes to the current obesity epidemic
A healthy habit to form which would transform your life would be to kick a sugar addiction. Some sugar in a diet from natural foods and sugars is fine, but a strong effort should be made to avoid heavily processed added-sugars if true health and wellness is the goal.
Symptoms and Complications of Sugar Addiction
Sugar addiction has many of the same symptoms of other common addictions like tobacco or opioids. When sugars are consumed, natural endogenous opioids get released. Outside the context of a healthy balanced diet, substantial parallels between sugar and drugs of abuse can be observed in behavior and brain neurochemistry.
Animal studies have shown sugar to be addictive than cocaine (9). You might be a sugar addict if you display any of the following behaviors:
Free yourself from the toxic behavioral influences of sugar
You make excuses to consume more sugar.
You make special trips to buy more sugar laden products
You drink sugar sweetened beverages.
You eat sugar dominant foods to breakfast.
You reward yourself with a sweet for motivation or as a reward.
You have a secret stash that you binge from when alone.
You previously tried to stop eating sugar, and couldn’t.
Beyond these behavioral patterns, there are two types of symptoms when it comes to sugar addiction. There are symptoms present when actively feeding the sugar cycle, and there are the symptoms of sugar withdrawal.
Symptoms of Sugar Addiction
Persistent brain fog
Volatile swings in energy
Intense cravings disguised as hunger
Mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, ADHD
Persistent fatigue
Racing thoughts
Strong sexual urges
Regular foods like fruit and vegetables taste bland and dull
Vehement denial of a sugar addition when questioned
Being overweight or obese
Symptoms of Sugar Withdrawal
Intense cravings
Depression
Fatigue
Anxiety
Nausea
Irritability
Altered sleep patterns
Cognitive issues, brain fog
Low blood sugar, dizziness
Other symptoms associated with drug withdrawal
These symptoms themselves can cause serious complications towards everyday life, but there are more insidious long term health complications from being addicted to sugar.
When naturally occurring sugars are paired with a healthy dose of fiber, like with fruit and vegetables, overall the known negative health effects of sugar appear to be negligible. The issue with sugar is when it is consumed without fiber. When sugar is consumed in excess and without fiber, inflammation in the body rises dramatically. Inflammation is not the root cause of disease, but it is a complicating factor in 100+ diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental health disease, and more. More sugar also means more cavities, so oral health and hygiene is also affected (10).
Chronic levels of inflammation keep the body in a state of fight-or-flight, with the now dominant sympathetic nervous system being out of balance with the rest-and-relax parasympathetic nervous system. This over activity places stress on all the major systems of the body such as the immune system, liver, digestive system, circulatory system, and more.
Besides being predisposed to 100’s of different chronic health ailments, chronic inflammation increases body fat storage and can lead to obesity. Obesity itself is another complicating health factor, and now what was one health issue became two.
We are what we eat, and sugar is toxic. We know excess sugar consumption leads to inflammation, obesity, and disease, but what is the step that sits in-between sugar consumption and chronic inflammation?
Sugar and the Digestive System
After sugar is consumed, before it can supply energy to the body through the mechanisms of insulin transport, it needs to be digested. Different sugars have different chemical structures and therefore different rates of digestion and absorption. Sugar is a general term used for sweet-tasting soluble carbohydrates. There are simple sugars which composed of a single sugar molecule, or compound sugars, where two sugar compounds are connected together. Whether sugars are consumed as simplex, compound, or as a starch (a chain of many sugar compounds), the digestive system will break apart and hydrolyze carbohydrates into simple sugars for transport into the blood stream. Let’s examine the most commonly consumed simple sugars:
Monosaccharides
Fructose - Fruit Sugar
Glucose - The basic form of sugar used by the body
Galactose - Present in milk
Disaccharides
Sucrose - One fructose and Glucose sugar combined
Lactose - One glucose and galactose sugar combined
Maltose - Two glucose molecules combined
There are also alcohol sugars, polysaccharides (which are larger chains of sugars), artificial sugars, and many more. The chemistry of sugars is complex, but what is clear is that excess sugar consumption is dangerous, and it all starts with the gut.
The microbiome is the collection of symbiotic (helpful), commensal (indifferent), and pathogenic (bad) microorganisms that inhabit your gut. Your gut is technically “outside” of your body, and it contains 10x more organisms than cells in your body, over 100 trillion! When the microbiome is well diversified and balanced (containing primarily symbiotic organisms) food will digest best and qualitative health markers are improved across the board.
The villi connect the digestive, immune, and circulatory systems.
We know the body only transports simple sugars into the circulatory system by passive and active transport through the cell membranes of the finger-like villi structures of the gut. Fats, proteins, and carbs which are still too large for transport need to be broken down. This is where the microbiome plays a critical role in digestion. The chemical and mechanical processes of the digestive system help break down food into smaller pieces, and the microbiome performs the finishing touches breaking apart food into sufficiently small compounds.
When excess simple sugars are consumed, it becomes much easier for the microbiome to access the energy of the sugar first for their own survival needs rather than needing to break chemical bonds first. Over time, this can shift the balance of the microbiome, creating sugar craving microbes with a mind of their own. In order to keep their over-sized populations stable, an unbalanced microbiome will directly interact with the body and brain through the release of chemicals and neurotransmitters. The gut is the second brain of the body, and for many people it’s not under their control. This will manifest as the affectionately known “sweet tooth”.
With an unbalanced microbiome, issues like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or more serious complications like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), irritable bowel disease (IBD), and Crohn’s disease can arise. Considering the gut is the boundary between the barbarian (microbes) and gate keepers (epithelial cells), the immune system is most active at the gut. A compromised digestive system with failing tight junctions which lets microbes and undigested molecules slip into the bloodstream is the source of inflammation that sugar causes. Sugar without fiber or not existing in long polysaccharide chains is too easily accessed and used by the microbiome, shifting the balance towards pathogenic microbes. It is this easy access to cheap resources with no nutritional value beyond calories that compromises the integrity of the entire digestive system, leading to chronic inflammation, and therefore obesity and disease.
And there are other complicating factors. Where did the sugar come from? Depending on the plant a sugar ultimately derives from is very important. Modern agricultural practices use heavy amounts of herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides which contaminant everything they are sprayed on. These compounds have can take decades to break down. A GMO cane sugar will be genetically modified to survive when exposed to greater amounts of dangerous herbicides like glyphosate. Glyphosate is an effective herbicide because it interferes with the The shikimate pathway, an ancient seven-step metabolic pathway used by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, some protozoans, and plants for the biosynthesis of folates and some amino acids.
While the shikimate is not found innately in humans, it is found and utilized for the survival of our microbiome. Unless sugar is label organic, and even that can have its flaws, it is mostly likely contaminated with glyphosate and other compounds which interfere with the shikimate pathway and other similar metabolic processes. Consumption of this sugar will disrupt the growth of symbiotic microorganisms which might be content munching on fiber all day, and simultaneously fuel the growth of short-lived commensal and pathogenic microbes. Natural sources of sugar like honey are best because they are free or much less contaminated by these dangerous herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.
When the food source is taken away from these overgrown and unbalanced microbiomes, microbes will release chemicals and neurotransmitters in an effort to acquire more resources (aka you need to eat some sugar NOW) while simultaneously having their population die-off in the wait for more resources. This die-off reaction can release built-up toxic compounds, stressing your gut and liver while you simultaneously experience volatile swings in energy as you’ve become insulin resistant and blood sugar levels have dropped dangerously low.
It’s a terrible health predicament that can be frightening to experience, but feeding the microbiome with more sugar will only make breaking the addiction harder or inevitably lead to the genesis of a deadly disease down the line.
Does your microbiome work for you, or against you?
There is no one living without a microbiome, a healthy microbiome is a critical component to living a healthy disease-free life. If conscious awareness isn’t given to the microbiome through a healthy, organic, unprocessed diet, the microbiome will make itself known to you, either physically, chemically, or behaviorally, demanding nutrients. Understanding the 100 trillion microorganisms that make up your microbiome is the the key to unlocking your health, and the first step towards breaking a sugar addiction.
Now that we’ve laid everything out, lets formulate a strategy that best increases your chances to kick sugar while also reducing the negative health effects that will be experienced during the healing process.
How to Kick a Sugar Addiction
To kick a sugar addition, you need to be aware of what drives a sugar addicition, and how you can break the cycle. Below is a simplified version of the vicious cycle that can form when consuming excess sugar. To break an addition, there isn’t any one strategy that will work, you must first have the innate desire to be free of addiction, have the willpower and discipline to see it through, devote time, and have strategies developed for each step of the cycle. Relapse can occur at any of the stages, so preparation is required for each stage.
In preparation for the following sugar reset, your environment must be made to be conductive to change. Follow the steps below first:
Eliminate all sugar from the household. This means throwing out all sweets, treats, desserts, sources of simple carbohydrates, etc.
Make a list of your favorite sugar pit stops (convenience markets, coffee shops) and blacklist them, vowing to not visit them again.
Practice saying no. Other people might offer you sugar-rich or other unhealthy foods during this reset, rehearse your line and practice saying no in order to avoid temptation, such as: “No thank you John, I am currently working to break my addiction to sugar”. The more truthful and to the point your words are, the less others will try to convince you that taking a bite or having one small treat isn’t a big deal.
Identify your trigger foods. Tracking your diet, mood, and energy in a journal for a week before starting the reset will help you identify your trigger foods that must be completely avoided during the reset.
Develop a plan for how you will drink 1 gallon of filtered water a day. Tap water containing fluoride kills microbes, so for the microbiome to survive more sugar is required, and they will release neurotransmitters for this. Filtered or spring water is pure and free of chemicals.
Once the steps above have been taking, find a 7 day chuck of time in your schedule which is expected to be lower stress. Breaking a sugar addiction takes longer than seven days, but the first week accomplished 80% of the work. Stress triggers sugar cravings, so to increase the chance of success this should be scheduled around a time period of low stress.
The fastest and most painless way to get the ball rolling is to start this week long period with a 24 hour fast, that is no eating from dinner on day to dinner the next. Unless you’re in a state of serious health complications, a 24 hour is safe and achievable by anyone to do. A 48 hour fast is even better as it takes you right to the edge of ketosis (fat only metabolism), but this can be trickier for those really dependent on sugar for their energy levels.
Fasting simultaneously does the following:
Improves blood sugar levels
Sensitizes insulin
Kills off an overactive microbiome
Reduces inflammation
Heals the digestive system
Burns body fat
Fasting promotes health in the exact opposite ways sugar addiction promotes disease. Fasting is a powerful wellness methodology. Fasting also removes many of the questions “like what should I eat instead” and removes analysis paralysis; there are only two objects, don’t eat and drink water! If you carry significant levels of body fat, an every other day strategy for fasting has been shown to be highly effective in breaking the sugar cycle, improving microbiome diversity, and lowering body fat.
An every other day 24 hour fasting schedule would look like this:
Day 1 fasting, drinking only water (1 gallon recommended)
Day 2 refeed with organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, minimally processed grains, animal protein
Day 3 fasting
Day 4 refeed
Repeat
If you do this, expect body fat to melt off as it is used to cover your energy needs throughout the week. Blood sugar, lipid, and insulin markers will improve, energy levels will stabilize, mood will brighten, and sleep will improve. Fasting is the “rip the band-aid” off approach. It’s the most effective and ultimately causes less pain and suffering in the long run, but can be nerve racking to start.
If you think you’ll be more comfortable with a gradual approach, then the first step is to cut out the main offenders. This means cutting out sugar and all sweetened beverages, desserts like cookies and ice cream, and bread products, anything that contains almost exclusively sugar.
Even if you just stop drinking soda, that has a huge impact over time! According to the CDC, 5 out of 10 adults and 6 out of 10 youth drink a sugar sweetened beverage at least once a day. This equates to on average an extra 145 calories for both adults and youth consumed everyday, with one 12 oz soda containing 39 grams of sugar, double than the upper limit we recommend of 20 grams.
If you’re overweight and carry an unhealthy amount of body fat, then either replacing 1 soda a day with water over the course of a month reduce your caloric consumption by 4200 calories, or 1.2 lbs of fat. Over the course of a year of no soda, that equals 14.4 lbs of fat gone.
Once the main sugar offenders have been removed from your diet, you’ll want to replace them when the cravings hit with healthy fats and fiber rich foods.
Foods Containing Healthy Fats
Avocado
Nuts - walnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans,
pistachios
Seeds - pumpkin, sunflower, chia, flax, etc
Animal Fats (grass-fed) - butter, ghee, cream, cheese
Eggs (pasture raised) - chicken, quail
Cacao (fair trade) - Dark Chocolate 70% +
Oils (cold pressed) - olive oil, coconut oil, red palm oil, avocado oil
Foods the contain both healthy fats and fiber:
avocado, nuts, seeds, olives, coconut, and cacao
Foods Containing Fiber
Squash - butternut, winter, zucchini
Seeds - pumpkin, sunflower, chia, flax, cacao
Nuts - almonds, cashews, walnuts, pecans, pistachios
Legumes - beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas, peanuts
Fruits - such as avocado, pear, jackfruit, berries, mango, banana, papaya, coconut, guava, kiwi, etc
Vegetables - carrots, eggplant, jalepeno, tomato, artichoke, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, sweet potato, radish, etc
Dark Leafy Greens - spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, mustard, etc
Grains - quinoa, popcorn, oats, black/brown/red rice,
As you can see, there are plenty of delicious foods which contain fiber and fats, excellent additions to any diet. All of the foods above are also micronutrient dense, and a sugar based diet is lacking in critical vitamins and minerals, the deficit of which can have massive health implications.
Homemade Raw Trail Mix
1/4 cup Almonds
1/2 cup Cashews
1/4 cup Walnuts
1/4 cup Pecans
1/2 cup Pumpkin Seeds
1/2 cup 70% Mini Dark Chocolate Chips
In your purse, bag, or on your person, keep a bag of raw trail mix with you. When a sugar craving hits, unless you’re in the middle of a fast, a few handfuls of trail mix is a nice healthy treat that will keep you satiated and content. Right now do not be concerned about calories.
Make sure to buy nuts and seeds which are raw. Raw foods are those that aren’t heated for pasteurization, and eating raw foods helps diversify your microbiome. Raw foods also contain higher levels of vitamins and minerals since the heat didn’t break them down.
Building your Fat Metabolism
A sugar dependent diet is skewed heavily towards carbohydrate metabolism for energy. Carbohydrate metabolism isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself, but often the carbohydrate metabolic cycle will be overdeveloped and out of balance with fat metabolism. The metabolism of fat for energy, either from food or body fat, provides longer lasting and more sustainable energy levels. Having a well-functioning fat metabolism fills in energy dips that are experienced when eating carbs. By stabilizing your energy levels, fats will help keep you calm and emotionally stable, reducing your chance of giving into temptation and reaching for that sugary treat when your sugar starved microbiome and low blood sugar levels are saying you need it most.
Fatty acid metabolism can be improved by eating a diet higher in fats for an extended period of time, or more quickly through a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet is a very low carb diet where the body has to produce ketones for use by the brain. The brain exclusively runs on simple sugars or ketones for energy. Since a ketogenic diet is <5% carbs and 70% of greater fat macronutrient wise, it will very quickly improve your ability to metabolize fatty acids. Be aware that you might initially experience what is known as keto flu. Keto flu is a set of flu like symptoms that people first transistioning to a ketogenic diet might experience. The same smptoms can be expereinced during longer duration fasts too as the body as enters ketosis 36-48 hours after fasting has begun.
The digestive system is the seat of power for the immune system, and there is a removal of sugar & nutrients, a die off reaction will occur and many diseased microbes will die. Now these microbes are diseased waste that need to be expelled by the body, causing immune symptoms until this occurs. If tight junctions of the intestines are compromised, then some of these dead microbes will filter into the blood stream and cause an immune response, hence flu-like symptoms can be experienced. If you wish to avoid these flu-like symptoms during the start of fasting or ketogenic diet, then it is important that the tight junctions of the body are healed and have no gaps that undigested food or microbes can exploit to enter into the blood stream. It’s also been shown that glyphosate damages tight junctions, so be mindful of that information. I wrote a guide on how to heal tight junctions naturally with four methods. Luckily the digestive system regenerates very quickly, so even just following those recommended steps for one or two weeks before kicking your sugar addiciton will greatly reduce your risk of experiencing flu-like symptoms when resetting your microbiome and metabolic systems.
Quit Sugar Quick Start Guide
Putting everything discussed into practice, below is a quick start guide with actionable steps you can follow to kick your sugar addiction, balance your microbiome, heal your digestive system, and build your fat metabolism.
Week 1 - Keep a food and mood journey for 1 week. This will help you identify your trigger foods which need to be blacklisted
Clean your Environment - Remove all junk food, sugar, and treats from your home, work, and car.
Practice Saying No - Be honest, and formulate a game plan for your first 7-14 days sugar free.
Prepare - Stock up and buy the healthy organic foods you require to be healthy and successful with this important health endeavor. Figure out your plan on how to drink 1 gallon of water daily (24 oz wakeup, 84 oz day, 24 oz bedtime)
Week 2 - Commit to one of the two dietary strategies listed above. Either do a 24 hour fast every other day, or keep a baggie of raw trail mix with you at all times for those moments when cravings strike.
Week 3 - The hardest part is over, continue with your wellness schedule. If fasting, you can ease up from the every other schedule and do two 24 hour fast every week instead. Keep eating whole unprocessed organic foods!
Week 4 and Beyond - It takes four weeks to create a habit, congratulations! Kicking a sugar addiction is a major accomplishment and over time your body will heal from the damage created by the consumption of added sugars. Now is not the time to relapse, stay disciplined!
If you’ve made it 30 days without added sugars, congratulations! At this point you might be tempted to experiment with “moderation” and have a bite of your favorite treat again, do not do this! Physiological addictions can be broken in a few weeks, but psychological addictions can take months or years to erase. The mind is a powerful thing, and overtime you’ll discover your old definition of moderation was not in fact moderation. By this point your taste buds will have changed, and sugary treats you once found delicious might now be revolting. Trust your instincts and give yourself the time needed to heal from that traumatic period of your life. Ask yourself, what was feeding my sugar addiction? Examine your emotions and look inwards. Food is often the cover for emotional turmoil, and true healing won’t occur until emotional healing can take place.
References
Dinicolantonio JJ, O'keefe JH, Wilson WL. Sugar addiction: is it real? A narrative review. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52(14):910-913.
Lustig RH, Mulligan K, Noworolski SM, et al. Isocaloric fructose restriction and metabolic improvement in children with obesity and metabolic syndrome. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2016;24(2):453-60.
Aeberli I, Gerber PA, Hochuli M, et al. Low to moderate sugar-sweetened beverage consumption impairs glucose and lipid metabolism and promotes inflammation in healthy young men: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011;94(2):479-85.
Di rienzi SC, Britton RA. Adaptation of the Gut Microbiota to Modern Dietary Sugars and Sweeteners. Adv Nutr. 2020;11(3):616-629.
Gene-Jack Wang, Et al. High sugar intake linked to low dopamine release in insulin resistant patients. Stony Brook University
Sugar and Sweeteners Yearbook Tables. USDA.
Consumption of Sugars in Canada. Canadian Sugar Institute.
Roberto A. Ferdman. Where people around the world eat the most sugar and fat. The Washinton Post
Shah SGS. A Commentary on "Ensuring safe surgical care across resource settings via surgical outcomes data & quality improvement initiatives" (Int J Surg 2019 Aug 5. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ijsu.2019.07.036). Int J Surg. 2019;72:14-15.
Moynihan PJ, Kelly SA. Effect on caries of restricting sugars intake: systematic review to inform WHO guidelines. J Dent Res. 2014;93(1):8-18.
Fasting is the process of abstaining from all food, and by activating different aspects of human biology, fasting is an incredible healing tool that can be used to reduce inflammation throughout the body, lose weight, heal the gut, reset the microbiome, improve the immune system, and much more. Get started on the first foot with this beginners guide to fasting.