Eating and fasting: Aware Fasting

Published: 03/30/2006 - Updated: 08/14/2019

Eating and fasting go together like sleep and wakefulness, respiration and expiration, are two sides of the same coin. The natural rhythm of our life contains both poles, we live in a continuous change between the periods of fasting, only varies the pace, not the thing itself. With the progress of the civilization, this truth has almost fallen into oblivion, the fasting periods are becoming shorter and the food has become so natural and abundant, that one could go through life eating, although this would not have achieved being happier or healthier.

[…] Fasting medicine has gone through many vicissitudes, always linked to official thinking of the time, always on the borderline between acceptance and rejection. At this time, it recovers space again, stressing the physical aspect. […] The reason for the rise of fast is obvious: Western man has been inclined toward the pole as much material that has begun to fear, rightly, for the well-being.

The overweight is not, after all, a widespread disease today, and addiction to fat, as its name suggests, is an addiction. But any disease carries within itself a challenge, an opportunity to cure, improving health, in short, an opportunity. Eliminating symptoms, it is so unlikely to overcome the addiction to fat as curing any disease. This is demonstrated in the case of addictions, the high number of relapses, and in other cases the displacement of the symptoms that lead a pilgrimage to another specialist. With the progress of medicine symptomatic may be that humanity is more quiet, but obviously not healthier. 

[…] Understand the meaning of the disease presupposes that, first, accepting it as such, taking responsibility, we make ourselves the unpleasant question of why this just pass to me?, and just that right now dispute with the destination to see who has the fault. […]

Thinking that other people eat more than others even though they are not overweight, makes us move away from us and healing, the bitterness and struggle with what we have to learn should not be compared or confused with the lesson we must learn. It is important to understand that everyone has and get what deserves to live. Everyone should consider their specific problem and it is no coincidence that we look harder, otherwise it would have been resolved and would have left to be our problem. Not that we want to play is a variety of explanations apparently valid. Clearly glands play a role, also the hereditary aspect, the constitution, the psychological burdens, and so on. All these explanations are important and also offer possibilities for the implementation of therapies. The risk of becoming an excuse for not reconciled itself with the problem, doesn’t focus "the real cause." "Apparently" this should not be interpreted as negative, rather seeks to place them in their place within the long chain that goes from the "ultimate cause" to the current symptom.

Extracted from the book "Conscious fasting"

Author: Rüdiger Dahkle

Publisher: Ediciones Obelisco .

About the author
  • Miriam Reyes

    Miriam Reyes is a professional expert in nutrition and dietetics. She has more than 12 years of experience in caring for patients with overweight and eating problems. She studied at the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac (UNIVA), where she obtained a degree in nutrition. Linkedin profile.