Keeping myself busy lately is something I’ve been focusing on since I, like most everyone else have significant time on my hands. One of the things I decided to do was research further into a topic that caught my interest quite a while ago but I let lapse; fasting. First time I really heard about fasting was when my daughter mentioned it to me a couple of years ago and I have to admit I was a little horrified. The thought of intentionally NOT eating is not something I was used to having heard all my life about how you decrease your metabolism when you don’t eat, and while this may be true for your body when you’re on a diet (explains the yoyo dieting) research has shown that the same isn’t true for fasting. Hmmmm….
My eldest had a significant illness over fifteen years ago and though she came through the event it has certainly not always been without consequence, some I’m sure she doesn’t even share with me anymore. At any rate it was a couple of years ago that she came across the idea of fasting as a way of forcing your body to fix itself. I remember when she told me about this it was as she was coming over for dinner and told me she hadn’t eaten all weekend. My reaction was less than helpful I’m sure though I can’t remember my exact words. What she was talking about was specifically autophagy wherein your body cleans up all the dead cells and debris in your system when you’ve stopped keeping it busy digesting food. Sounded interesting but not eat? Really? Are you sure?
As an aside my husband is someone who is always whatever he wants, while typically healthy, he never stays away from all the junk food he loves, and yet never really struggled with weight and had health issues, no muscle issues or any other issues. I on the other hand have been suffering with muscle issues my whole adult life; as well as migraines add to that over the last few years I’ve been struggling with my cholesterol and increased A1C. It never seemed fair and I’ve always wondered how someone got so lucky with his or her genes. Genes is what I attributed it to given his mother was healthy and full of energy right up until she had a stroke just prior to her death at 93. Now I wonder, is it genes or could they have been doing something I was not. Certainly not scientific by any means it was definitely something I was interested in looking into some more.
My mother-in-law pretty much ate simple unprocessed food most of her life and from what I understand she didn’t eat much that was processed. Interestingly my father recently (last few years) seems to have lost interest in eating. He seems to subsist on very little food and seems to be doing fine. Is he instinctively allowing his body to maintain itself? While no one of these factors made me seriously consider fasting they were all definitely factors in seeking more information and having done that I’m interested in giving this a valiant effort.
Housebound at my computer I have serendipitously come across some fasting information and find myself now digging into all sorts of research about fasting. There are a couple of people I really have found fascinating, one of them being Dr. Jason Fung who is a nephrologist in Toronto, Canada. He has done significant work in reversing the effects of and type 2 diabetes in many of his obese patients and has numerous videos online explaining how the body actually works and the results of all his research regarding fasting. Some of his information can be found here and here though certainly you can Google him yourself. Though he has several books much of the information can be found free online including YouTube. The other person I’ve also been checking out Thomas DeLauer who has numerous YouTube videos on fasting, not exactly a medial expert like Dr. Fung but still helpful.
I could talk about my interest in fasting for pages here and I’m sure you would get completely bored with me. And who am I, certainly no authority. I will tell you that we have been doing this for a week now, alternate day fasting (ADF) and have three fasting days under our belts. My husband finds this easy since he’s used to eating only ‘one meal a day’ (OMAD protocol) though he never did it as part of any plan it was just how he was used to structuring his eating. Having said that his “plan” also allowed for significant junk food in the evenings; something we aren’t doing currently. I’m finding it manageable. I’m not nearly as hungry as I thought I would be and have come to understand that hunger comes and goes in waves. My biggest surprise is that having NOT eaten all day I’m fine going to bed and sleeping soundly without any issue and don’t wake up hungry the next day.
The one thing that has made this manageable is that our fasting, according to Dr. Fung, allows for a cup of home made bone broth or what I call liquid gold on fasting days and so I have made some incredible bone broth. It is definitely a million times better than any stuff you buy and super easy to make, especially now when you’re sitting at home all day anyway.
Liquid Gold – if you haven’t made it before you should try it now for sure. What else do you have to do? 🙂 This recipe leave a LOT of room for variation so add what you would normally want to put in soup.
Scratch Made Bone Broth
- As many bones as you have – I collect chicken, turkey, beef and/or pork bones leftover from meals and freeze them in bags marked for soup. I also buy beef marrow bones for our dog as a treat and usually have them in the freezer – these are fantastic for this.
- Various vegetables – carrots, celery, onions, garlic, parsnip, ginger, a pepper or two (red, yellow or green), lemon (if you like)
- Place meat bones on a pan and roast or broil in the oven until almost brown
- Add vegetables starting with the ones that take longer to cook: onions, celery, carrots, garlic, parsnip, then the peppers if you like, sprinkling a little olive oil on them. Allow roasting for 10 minutes or until they are browned, caramelized a bit. Check on this frequently as it can burn very quickly and you don’t want that, you want a nicely browned tray of meat and veggies*.
- Remove all bones and vegetables from oven and add to a large stockpot or instant pot. Add some bay leaves, peppercorns, salt and 2 teaspoons or so of apple cider vinegar* and fill with water. Bring to a boil and simmer 3-6 hours or pressure cook for an hour. If you are simmering on the stove, make sure you check frequently adding water as it evaporates. It shouldn’t be boiling but just a low easy simmer.
- Allow cooling then strain and place in jars. The fat will harden at the top and will be easy to scrape off and remove before eating and it creates a nice seal in each of the jars. Kept this way I’ve found the jars to keep for at least a week in the refrigerator or you can choose to freeze if you want them to last longer.
*You can leave out the roasting of the bones and veggies but the flavour is really intensified if you include that step.
*The cider vinegar helps to extract all the good stuff from the bones but doesn’t really contribute any discernible flavour.
Bon Appetite and stay healthy out there!