Fasting is one of the oldest methods used when health becomes an issue. Surprisingly this isn’t only a human characteristic. Animals use it too. Sadly not much is known about its healing and transforming properties. It was the Austrian physician Breuss who discovered its amazing healing abilities.
Most doctors will advise you against it, which is odd since they use it in their daily practice.
For instance, before you have surgery you can’t eat anything. If you have food-sensitive blood tests done you can’t eat before the procedure.
Humans and animals naturally fast when we are sick.
Think about the last time that you had the flu.
Did you enjoy a steak dinner and baked potatoes, or did you prefer a light soup to warm and hydrate you?
By now you’ve probably figured out what my preferred method of losing weight and getting my health together is. And much I’ve already written about:
Can 42-Day Long-Term Fasting Make Us Thrive?
Long-term fast – how I turned my health around, lost weight, and cleared my skin, in 21 days.
How 6-week Long-term Fast Helped Me With Infertility
However, I’ve never written about what method of long-term fasting I use.
What types of fasting are there
I’ve searched the internet for different methods of long-term fasting but I didn’t have much luck.
I stumbled upon this article. But it didn’t give me the information I needed.
The article mentions everything from intermittent fasting to dirty fasting (which sounded interesting but was just another how-to-eat diet).
I couldn’t find anything even close to what me and my family had been practicing for more than two decades now.
I’m talking about long-term fasting.
Simply put that means you don’t ingest anything that you can chew for 3 weeks or more.
The only information I could find on long-term fasting that is similar to what we were doing (but not exactly) is from Dr. Jason Fung. Here is how he explained long-term fasting:
Who was Breuss and what was his long-term fasting method?
To be fair some of the methods of fasting sound like torture to me, for instance only drinking water for seven days. I would die of hunger.
Your next question will probably be:
‘But you managed to get through 42 days without food. How?’
When it comes to my health and my preferred way of losing weight this method is much easier. That’s why I’ve always returned to it.
This method of long-term fasting was developed by Austrian physician Rudolf Breuss in the middle of the previous century.
Who was Dr. Rudolf Breuss?
He was a fascinating man, born in 1899.
Don’t let the age of his birth deceive you.
He witnessed every historical event in the late 20th century up to the last decade and died in 1990, so he must have done something right.
If you’d like to know more about him, you can read about it here.
There isn’t a lot of literature about this man or his methods and this is what I’d like to improve.
He wrote a book about his successes in healing numerous types of cancer. Cancers that are ‘incurable’ in the eyes of today’s medicine.
This is the book my grandmother found in the library after which my family’s long-term fasting began. Unfortunately by the time this article was written, it wasn’t available on Amazon.
His approach was based on the hypothesis that our bodies can heal themselves if given the chance. If we deprive our bodies of daily intake of food, the body will ‘find food’ in itself, from the stored energy – fat cells and cells that aren’t essential for our survival – cancer cells.
Breuss came up with the method of denying the body solid food for 42 days, thus allowing it to seek alternative energy – by burning fat cells and foreign cells (like cancer cells).
I didn’t believe it. Until I saw its effects with my own eyes within my family. First my grandfather and his brain tumors, then my mother with breast cancer, and finally me with my infertility.
Every one of those was cured by Breuss’s long-term fasting method.
So, what is it?
42-day long-term fasting by Rudolf Breuss
Breuss believed that if we give our body a fighting chance it can heal itself.
Decades of improvement and iteration resulted in a simple working method.
His instructions were:
For 42 days you cannot ingest any solid food. What you need to ingest is vegetable juice and certain teas.
Vegetable juice
The only thing that you can ingest is freshly squeezed vegetable juice from:
- beetroot
- celery root
- carrots and
- black radish
One thing to remember. Vegetables need to be juiced not blended into a smoothy.
The juice has many different tasks to perform:
- it gives our body the necessary nutrients it needs
- it keeps the hunger away
- it gives you strength you don’t have when water fasting
- provides the body with everything it needs to function.
You sip it through the day to keep your energy high.
Tea
Along with the juice, there is another component to the Breuss method of long-term fast.
Several different types of tea.
Each tea is designed to fight different types of cancer. However, there are three that I drank each time even when only using it to lose weight:
- The mixture of tea for the immune system – sage tea
- The mixture of herbs to help kidneys extract the toxins out of the body – kidney tea
- The mixture of herbs to help with my menstrual cycle
Even in my first attempts at fasting with the Breuss method, when I didn’t do it for my health I drank all the necessary teas.
This was my health after all and even though I wasn’t sick, I wanted to do it properly.
Breuss tested and perfected all the tea and gave detailed instructions on how to prepare and drink it.
Is the length of the long-term fast after Breuss important?
My first attempt at fasting after Breuss was purely from curiosity and a desire to lose weight.
Plus, I didn’t think I could last without food for 6 weeks.
My goal was to get to 3 weeks.
I figured if this helps your body burn cancer cells it could do the same for my fat cells.
As it turned out, even a week of fasting had significant changes on my body, but to tackle the stubborn fat, cellulite, and skin issues, it took the complete 42 days (especially the cellulite to disappear).
In the beginning, I just decided to try. It worked wonderfully for my grandfather and mother.
What did I possibly have to lose?
Benefits I discovered after fasting for (almost) 3 weeks
As it turned out a lot.
Of fat that is. And cellulite. That too.
What did I gain?
- Confidence that I was in control of my body,
- A healthier, leaner body- in 18 days I lost 22 lb (10 kg).
- The excess amount of energy I didn’t know what to do with since my previous lifestyle didn’t include a lot of movement
- Clarity about what I wanted in my life regarding my future health habits.
- My imagination in overdrive. This was the time my writing took off.
- Excess of time I didn’t know what to do with.
- The self-confidence of a leaner body I never had before
- My 5 senses were heightened
- The sugar and salt addiction disappeared – no more chocolate cravings at night
- My period was painless after a decade – I found out only later this was one of the symptoms of the endometriosis that was the cause of my infertility (more on the subject here)
Downsides of fasting
Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games.
There were benefits and huge ones but I wasn’t eating for almost 3 weeks.
So, what was hard:
- Not eating for so long, not that I was hungry, but I simply missed chewing.
- The horrible taste and smell of the vegetable juice (I really don’t like celery…)
- My cravings were over the roof. Not for the sugar, a juicy steak, or baked potatoes. I craved for freshly baked bread and butter.
- The bad days when everything feels useless and I just want to give up
- The first three days of my body adjusting and the constant headaches
- By day 10 I was so fed up with the tea that I wanted to give up just for that
- My tongue covered by a thick layer of coating every morning
What helped me get through the 3 weeks?
Distraction is the key. Just like with small children. If you want them to stop the tantrum, you must redirect their attention.
Think about your body as that pampered little child wanting a lollypop before lunch.
He can’t have it. He can however run around having fun and forget about the lollypop for the time being.
What to do with the abundance of time I now had?
It’s unbelievable how much time we spend feeding ourselves: shopping for, preparing, cooking, eating, cleaning up afterward, and finally digesting the food.
My senses focused on people eating. Not in real life. I wasn’t bothered by that.
But in the movies.
Have you ever noticed that Brad Pitt snacks on something almost in every scene in Oceans Eleven…, it’s absurd.
I scrolled through the internet looking for recipes I would try out once I started eating again.
Many may think this would be torture, looking at pictures of delicious food that you couldn’t have.
But it was quite the opposite.
My favorite pastime during fasting was browsing through cooking channels. It gave my imagination something to do instead of thinking how badly I wanted an apple.
Is Breuss long-term fasting method worth the hassle?
In a word. Absolutely.
I’ve returned to it every year or so. It’s been my go-to for staying on top of my health. And to be perfectly honest I give myself less hard time if I indulge in my sugar cravings a bit too often.
I know, that in a year I’ll be unpacking my juicer again and hunting for the vegetables.
Usually, we do it together the whole family (except for the kids) and we get to encourage each other on the bad days.
Next week I’ll be focusing on the practical implementation of the Breuss long-term fasting method.
How I manage it as a mother and working 9-5 while fasting.
Until next time, stay open-minded,
Ann
