Below is the definition of Intermittent Fasting according to Wikipedia. If you read it carefully, toward the bottom of the definition you will notice that a common IF regimen involving a 24 hour eat 24 fast may induce CR (Calorie Restriction). CR has been well documented to increase health and extend life. In fact, it's the most commonly known methodology for extending life in yeast, flies, worms, mice and other studied subjects. The problem is that most people overeat on the off days.
Intermittent fasting (IF) is a pattern of eating that alternates between periods of fasting (usually meaning consumption of water only) and non-fasting. A specific form of IF is alternate day fasting (ADF), which is a 48-hour routine typically composed of a 24-hour fast followed by a 24-hour non-fasting period. (ADF is also sometimes referred to as every other day (EOD) fasting, or sometimes every other day feeding (EODF).)
There is some evidence that intermittent fasting may have beneficial effects on the health and longevity of animals—including humans—that are similar to the effects of caloric restriction (CR). There is currently no consensus as to the degree to which this is simply due to an (often) concomitant overall decrease in calories. (IF and CR are forms of Dietary Restriction (DR), which is sometimes referred to as Dietary Energy Restriction (DER).)
Scientific study of intermittent fasting in rats (and anecdotally in humans) was carried out at least as early as 1943
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
If you have read through some of my other posts regarding fasting, you will notice that I don't support the use of a weekly 24 hour fast for the purpose of extending ones life. If you told me that you wanted to fast 4 days this month to improve your health and asked me how I would go about it I would give you the following advise. First and foremost, I am not a doctor...I am simply a research fanatic. Perhaps I have a touch of OCD, but I do read a LOT. That's not to say that my advise is the only advise you should consider. Its just to say that after reading extensively on the subject and experimenting on my own I have drawn a few conclusions.
So without further ado...Here they are. To begin with, for someone with toxic buildups within their fat tissues and internal organs, a 24 hour juice fast weekly would be an excellent start. I say a juice fast for the following reasons. Lets face it, if your reading this you may have more knowledge on the subject of health benefits related to inviting the state of ketosis into your daily metabolism. If your like the average American however, you consume carbohydrates on a daily basis and probably never fast. If your also like most Americans, you regularly consume some pretty bad toxins either knowingly or unknowingly. Examples may be high levels of caffeine from not healthy sources, processed and or refined foods, excess gluten and wheat products, alcohol, nicotine ect. ect. For these people, who may look like a million bucks or like a 500 lb couch potato, the act of fasting and eating whole, live natural foods may be a foreign language to them.
For these people, I would recommend starting with a 24 hour fresh juice fast once per week. This will prevent muscle breakdown while allowing for a digestive period of rest. Your body will be able to take a break from processing foods and can begin working slowly but diligently at healing itself. If you were to start doing a water fast 24 hours every week without being in a state of ketosis from a very low carb diet, then you would be losing muscle mass every week. So before anyone gets defensive with my lack of a complete explanation for beginners avoiding a 24 hours water fasting once weekly, understand there is a method to my madness. If you can get through a couple of weeks without a problem with excessive cravings and the like, you are ready for step 2.
Step 2, once you have successfully been able to do a juice fast once weekly, it's time to up the anty. Now you may want to try doing a 36 hour water fast. Yes I did just jump from juicing to water only. Why you may ask? Simple, now you want to drain the body of glucose. After 24 hours, your body will begin to enter a deep cleaning cycle for an additional 12 hours. If you start your fast at midnight on a Monday and end it at noon on Tuesday, the deep rest cleaning portion will be benefited greatly as you will be asleep for a portion of that time, allowing more energy to go to the immune system and detox.
Once you feel comfortable doing this weekly for a while, try increasing the duration slowly. Once you can make it to a 3 day water fast every 2 weeks, stop increasing the time you fast for. As you will see in the 2 Week Zen Diet I am experimenting with, a 24 hour juice fast is used on day 5 of the 2 week period and a 3 day water fast at the end. Another variation would be to eat normal for 10 days, then juice fast for 12 hours, followed by a 3 day water fast and broken with a 12 hour juice fast. This equates to a 14 day or 2 week period.
In addition to adopting this method of eating and fasting, a few times a year longer fasts may be achieved under observation. I would try doing a 4-7 day fast twice a year in addition to the bi weekly fasts.
So to use a 4 day fast in one month, I wouldn't waste it personally. I would either juice fast for 24 hours followed by a 3 day water fast for maximum benefit, or I would do 2 (2 Day) water only fasts. But that's just me.
A few scientific study excerpts for those interested in the science behind fasting and CR (caloric Restriction)
Three weeks of caloric restriction reduced leucine flux and oxidation during exercise in normal weight young men. However, despite negative nitrogen balance and loss of lean mass, whole body exercise performance was well maintained in response to CR.
it is conceivable that DR conducted in old age can be beneficial not only to retard age-related functional decline but also to restore functional activity in young rodents. Interestingly, recent evidence that involves DNA array gene _expression analysis supports the findings on the age-related decrease in protein turnover and its reversion by late-onset DR. DR (Dietary Restriction)
in mice, CR maintains higher rates of gluconeogenesis and protein catabolism, even in the hours after feeding. The data are consistent with the idea that CR continuously promotes the turnover and replacement of extrahepatic proteins.
CR enhances and maintains protein turnover, and thus protein renewal, into old age. These effects are likely to resist the well-documented decline in whole body protein renewal with age. Enhanced renewal may reduce the level of damaged and toxic proteins that accumulate during aging, contributing to the extension of life span by CR.
Overall, the current findings indicate that changes in the level of caloric intake may reversibly affect the concentration of oxidized proteins and sufhydryl content. In addition, chronic restriction of caloric intake also retards the age-associated accumulation of oxidative damage. The magnitude of the reversible and chronic effects appears to be dependent upon the tissue examined and the nature of the oxidative alteration.
Oxidative damage to cellular macromolecules has been postulated to be a major contributor to the ageing of diverse organisms. Oxidative damage can be limited by maintaining high anti-oxidant defenses and by clearing/repairing damage efficiently. Protein turnover is one of the main routes by which functional proteins are maintained and damaged proteins are removed. Protein turnover rates decline with age, which might contribute to the accumulation of damaged proteins in ageing cells. Interestingly, protein turnover rates are maintained at high levels in caloric restricted animals. Whether changes in protein turnover are a cause or a consequence of ageing is not clear, and this question has not been a focal point of modern ageing research. Here we survey work on protein turnover and ageing and suggest that powerful genetic models such as the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are well suited for a thorough investigation of this long-standing question.
http://www.anti-aging-guide.com/34proteinturnover.php
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