My new book “Sannas Fastebok” presents different types of fasts and describes their effect, seen both from experience, a historical perspective and what research shows. You get facts, advice and inspiration – as well as protocols so you can get started with your fast. I will now be releasing a series of blogs on fasting, starting with an overview with definitions of what different types of fasting mean.

• Text out Sannas fasting book, which is currently sold out and will be in second printing Sept. 6 – read more and order your copy here! In the vignette photo, I am fasting barefoot at the end of October 2018 between Falsterbo and Skanör – wonderful! That was before I started with VASS – Water fasting Sanna Special.

Lent

Fasting is abstaining from solid food and consuming only drinks. The word fasting means firm, steady, stable and solid. The original meaning in prehistoric Germanic languages was ‘restrained’, which means to have ‘firm control over oneself’, and to ‘be observant of oneself’. Abstaining from food requires self-control and the discipline to resist both cravings and hunger pangs, and it is also empowering on so many levels.

Food fasting

It involves consuming one or a few foods to cleanse and heal the body. This could be drinking only bone broth for a week or eating carnivores (grass-fed meat and/or wild-caught fish with ghee, and nothing from the plant kingdom). Alternatively, just eat a well-boiled mung bean soup (with ghee) for a week, nothing else.

Lent

Pre-fasting involves a reprogramming (detox) of your body, as a deliberate way of converting your body to a fasting state. This is to minimize the unpleasant cleansing reactions (called herxing) and hunger pangs that inevitably come if you have not done a pre-fast. I have developed a very effective Pre-Fast which can be found in the Sannas fasting book.

Calorie restriction (juicing)

It is the same as limiting energy intake by consuming beverages such as tea, bone broth, vegetable broth, fruit and vegetable juices. You are providing nutrients in liquid form and will lose weight and reduce inflammation in the body, providing a sense of lightness, well-being and inner peace. However, calorie restriction that adds proteins and/or carbohydrates does not activate the vital autophagy or high growth hormone (GH) production.

Periodic fasting (intermittent fasting)

The means giving yourself a break without food on a daily or weekly basis. This means that you eat food, or alternatively fast, spread over between 16:8 and 20:4 hours of the day, giving a food break of between 16 and 20 hours per day. You may take some coconut oil in coffee or tea. It may also involve longer food breaks, of 24-48 hours interspersed with periods of normal food intake.

Water fasting (therapeutic fasting)

Water fasting is the intake of only water. It is the real fast when autophagy and a series of biochemical processes are activated, which are not activated during calorie restriction because carbohydrates or proteins (even a few amino acids) break the essential autophagy directly. You can drink any cup of green tea, black tea or coffee (all organic and not sweetened or smoked) because it stimulates autophagy.

Good Friday fasting

It involves a 12:36 hour eating window and fasting, and is a type of intermittent fasting that improves markers of health and ageing. For example, it reduces weight (abdominal fat melts), lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and increases thyroid function. Research has shown that even starting to eat every other day late in life is enough to reduce age-related frailty. No food periodically = longer and healthier life!

Dry fasting

Dry fasting is as it sounds – no intake at all, neither food nor drink. Instead, fat stores are used and broken down into water and fuel, and after that, muscles start to break down. There are two types of dry fasting: hard and soft dry fasting. In the hard dry fast, water is not even allowed to touch the body. Soft dry fasting allows the body to absorb water through the pores of the skin, on contact with the environment. Dry fasting should take place in nature and not in cities. Water fasting does a lot of good for the body: activates autophagy, new stem cells and growth hormones. Dry fasting is supposed to make it even more effective, but there is limited research -> NOTE! I do not recommend dry fasting.

Lent-enhancing diet

Means eating about one-third as many calories as normal for five days and greatly reducing protein intake. It results in weight loss and improved metabolic health, but is calorie restriction (dieting) and therefore starvation.

Lenten walk

It’s walking in nature on an empty stomach, so only drinking water. It combines the best of both worlds in a simple way, and also provides a mental cleansing. Walking has a very invigorating effect on the body and mind, and research has shown that 20 minutes of walking, twice a day, is as effective an exercise as running for half an hour three times a week. Long walks with abdominal breathing double the oxygenation of the blood and provide a great energy boost.

Spiritual fasting

Means that fasting has a strong spiritual aspect because it provides opportunities for contact with ourselves on other planes, and can become a journey of discovery into our essence. Everything deepens, from presence, calm and sleep to stronger experiences of taste and smell. Both the sensual and the supersensible are sharpened.

Fixed pile!

A variety of feel-good hormones (such as endorphins) are released during fasting, so don’t become a ‘fasting junkie’. Avoid any excessive fasting, because it creates imbalances. Intermittent fasting is a good start, then adapt the level of fasting to your lifestyle, health, life goals and age (Chapter 4). Be your own self-healer: get to know your body, listen to the signals, learn to interpret and feel what works.

Dr. Sanna Ehdin

© author, text from Sannas fasting book

“Fasting is the greatest cure, the inner physician.” – Paracelsus, Swiss physician and pioneer of 16th century medicine