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Fasters are often surprised that intensified healing can be uncomfortable. They have been programmed by our
culture and by allopathic doctors to think that if they are doing the right thing for their bodies they should feel
better immediately. I wish it weren't so, but most people have to pay the piper for their dietary indiscretions
and other errors in living. There will be aches and minor pains and uncomfortable sensations. More about that
later. A rare faster does feel immediately better, and continues to feel ever better by the day, and even has
incredible energy while eating nothing, but the majority of us folks just have to tough it out, keeping in mind
that the way out is the way through. It is important to remind yourself at times that even with some discomfort
and considering the inconvenience of fasting that you are getting off easy--one month of self-denial pays for
those years of indulgence and buys a regenerated body.
Chapter Three 38
Length Of The Fast
How long should a person fast? In cases where there are serious complaints to remedy but where there are no
life threatening disease conditions, a good rule of thumb is to fast on water for one complete day (24 hours)
for each year that the person has lived. If you are 30 years old, it will take 30 consecutive days of fasting to
restore complete health. However, thirty fasting days, done a few days here and a few there won't equal a
month of steady fasting; the body accomplishes enormously more in 7 or l4 days of consecutive fasting, than
7 or 14 days of fasting accumulated sporadically, such as one day a week. This is not to say that regular short
fasts are not useful medicine. Periodic day-long fasts have been incorporated into many religious traditions,
and for good reason; it gives the body one day a week to rest, to be free of digestive obligations, and to catch
up on garbage disposal. I heartily recommend it. But it takes many years of unfailingly regular brief fasting to
equal the benefits of one, intensive experience.
Fasting on water much longer than fifteen consecutive days may be dangerous for the very sick, (unless under
experienced supervision) or too intense for those who are not motivated by severe illness to withstand the
discomfort and boredom. However, it is possible to finish a healing process initiated by one long water fast by
repeating the fast later. My husband's healing is a good example of this. His health began to noticeably decline
about age 38 and he started fasting. He fasted on water 14 to 18 days at a time, once a year, for five
consecutive years before most of his complaints and problems entirely vanished.
The longest fast I ever supervised was a 90 day water fast on an extraordinarily obese woman, who at 5' 2"
weighed close to 400 pounds. She was a Mormon; generally members of the LDS Church eat a healthier diet
than most Americans, but her's included far too much of what I call "healthfood junkfood," in the form of
whole grain cakes and cookies, lots of granola made with lots of honey, oil, and dried fruit, lots of honey
heaped atop heavily buttered whole grain bread. (I will explain more about the trap of healthfood junkfood
later on.) A whole foods relatively meatless diet is far superior to its refined white flour, white sugar and
white grease (lard) counterpart, but it still produced a serious heath problem in just 30 years of life. Like many
women, she expressed love-for-family in the kitchen by serving too-much too-tasty food. The Mormons
have a very strong family orientation and this lady was no exception, but she was insecure and unhappy in her
marriage and sought consolation in food, eaten far in excess of what her body needed.
On her 90 day water fast she lost about 150 pounds, but was still grossly overweight when the fast ended.
Toward the end it became clear that it was unrealistic to try to shrink this woman any closer to normal body
weight because to her, fat represented an invaluable insulation or buffer that she was not prepared to give up.
As the weight melted away on the fast and she was able to actually feel the outline of a hip bone her neurosis
became more and more apparent, and the ability to feel a part of her skeleton was so upsetting to her that her
choice was between life threatening obesity and pervasive anxiety.
Her weight was still excessive but the solace of eating was even more important. This woman needed
intensive counseling not more fasting. Unfortunately, at the end she choose to remain obese. Fat was much
less frightening to her than confronting her emotions and fears. The positive side was that after the fast she
was able to maintain her weight at 225 instead of 375 which was an enormous relief to her exhausted heart.
Another client I fasted for 90 days was a 6' 1" tall, chronic schizophrenic man who weighed in at 400 pounds.
He was so big he could barely get through my front door, and mine was an extraordinarily wide door in what
had been an upper-class mansion. This man, now in his mid twenties, had spent his last seven years in a
mental institution before his parents decided to give him one last chance by sending to Great Oaks School.
The state mental hospitals at that time provided the mentally ill with cigarettes, coffee, and lots of sugary
treats, but none of these substances were part of my treatment program so he had a lot of immediate
withdrawal to go through. The quickest and easiest way to get him through it was to put him on a water fast
after a few days of preparation on raw food.
Chapter Three 39
This was not an easily managed case! He was wildly psychotic, on heavy doses of chloropromazine, with
many bizarre behaviors. Besides talking to himself continuously in gibberish, he collected bugs, moss, sticks,
piles or dirt, and switched to smoking oak leaves instead of cigarettes. He was such a fire hazard that I had to
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