The Science of Fasting

Today I went to see my acupuncturist. Little bit of background: I started going to acupuncture a couple of years ago when I started having a lot of gastrointestinal issues such as massive stomach bloat, acid-reflux, heart burn and just feeling sick all the time. I literally couldn't even drink water without bloating up and getting acid-reflux.

I went to a gastroenterologist who did nothing more than do an ultrasound to check for gallstones and ensure my spleen was not enlarged and scan whatever other organs in the abdomen that might be able to show abnormalities on an ultrasound, try a certain diet and then prescribe Prilosec and a probiotic. He then put me in the hospital for 3 days as I was bleeding internally and nearly needed a transfusion when my hemoglobin dropped so low after he cut a blood vessel while taking a sample of my small intestine (to test for Celiac) during a routine endoscopy. The BEST part was that I got to pay the hospital bill for his mistake.

After going through all of that without any answers or relief from my symptoms, I decided to go to acupuncture as I'd gone in the past for allergies and had great results.

Anyway, I've been going regularly for the past couple years. I go more frequently when my stomach is acting up and less frequently when everything is running smoothly. I am fully subscribed to the TCM school of thought. So I asked my acupuncture doctor about fasting and the TCM views on fasting.

What she stated was that TCM philosophy does not believe in fasting in the sense of going without food. She said that this philosophy is more aligned with religious or spiritual deities and the belief that going without food will somehow enable some form of longevity or allows you to become more spiritually connected and that TCM believes in cleansing the body via diet and herbs and the spirit with meditation, qigong and other such activities that make you feel more connected with yourself and the universe.

That being said that TCM fully embraces a very clean diet that is specific to your constitutional needs i.e paleo or raw food diets while healthy are not necessarily good for someone like me based on my constitution and the issues I have.

She also talked about a method they subscribe to that basically is the same as those in here who have described eating only within an 8 hour window and typically the cut off hour is 6pm (no eating after 6pm). So I think for me, I'll implement the 8 hour eating window and see what results I can get with that.

Note: This is not meant to discredit results that anyone on here has had with fasting or make any claims that it is bad in any way or a suggestion to stop doing it. Just wanted to follow-up since I had expressed a desire to do a fast but since I am also a big believer in TCM, I don't want to do anything to disrupt the success I've had with it. There are many schools of thought and many forms of fasting and I believe that people can and should do what works for them.