3 Ways You Can Make Fasting Easier

Many people think that a fast is the worst thing that could happen to them! Fasting involves deprivation of some kind, after all, and we're used to eating as a shared social bond, to fulfill hunger pangs, and out of habit. Whether you're doing a total fast for religious or awareness-raising reasons, a water fast, or a juice fast, fasting is not the easiest task to undertake. Here are three ways you can make fasting easier on yourself. Incorporate juices to get your nutrients every day Unless your fast specifically prohibits it, drink plenty of juice. Breakfast, lunch, and supper aren't enough when you're living on liquids. You will need to drink juice every few hours in order to stave off hunger pangs and get your body the energy it needs to function. If you don't give it any sustenance at all, you will have trouble getting the energy and motivation to work or even stay awake. One type of juice will get boring within a day, if even that long, on a juice fast. Make sure you look up many different juice recipes and drink the juices of a variety of fruits and vegetables. If your stomach doesn't like one type of veggie, cut back on the amount in a juice or try another vegetable instead. Foods that you don't react well to in solid form won't be much better in liquid form. Don't binge beforehand or afterwards Most people conduct fasts for a reason such as cleansing their body or detoxing. Consuming a huge quantity of food beforehand will only make your fast harder, and it will make you hungrier because you (and your body) will remember the large quantity of food you just recently ate. If you have leftovers, you might break your fast and nibble on them. Binging afterwards makes equally little sense. Your body is clean again and you might have higher energy, a settled stomach, or other benefits, so why throw them away by eating unhealthy foods afterwards? Make sure you are stocked with healthy, nutritional foods for your post-fast meal so you will eat lots of healthy things instead of unhealthy ones. Start your meal with milk, juice, or water – something light that your body is more used to than solid foods – and gently ease into eating again. Don't talk, think, or obsess over food Fasting will be much harder if you can't stop thinking about what you're missing out on. Try to keep your mind focused on other things. If you're fasting for a religious or social awareness reason, focus on this reason. If the fast is for health reasons, find something creative to do like painting, writing, or photography and focus on these activities. Watching TV will only torment you as food ads play, and you may have surprising creativity when you're forced to focus on something other than food. Also, prepare the meal you will eat or buy the ingredients before you fast. Make sure you go to the grocery store and get enough ingredients to juice for the duration of the fast, or you will see solid foods and be far hungrier than you otherwise would have been. If you think about the meal you will eat after the fast for the duration of the fast, time will seem to go by much slower. Fasting doesn't have to be a terrible chore. Juice fasts can be made far easier if you follow these simple tips for pain-free fasting. Make sure you get your doctor's advice beforehand and you'll reap the benefits of fasting, no matter why you're doing it.