all agreed on one thing...

This is the most powerful, natural healing solution ever.

One that's been used by all cultures all over the world

and one that's virtually forgotten today.

What am I talking about?

Fasting.

What is fasting? I can feel your eyes rolling in your head right now.

I get this reaction all the time.

You're going to starve people? That's your solution?

No, that's not my solution.

Fasting is not the same as starvation.

Fasting is the controlled voluntary abstinence of food for different reasons.

You can do it for spiritual reasons, you can do it for health reasons,

you can do it as a political protest... any reason.

It is still called fasting. It's not the same as starvation.

In fact if you look back through all of recorded human history

people have always fasted.

We can start with Hippocrates who is considered the father of modern medicine.

He famously said, "Our food should be our medicine,

our medicine should be our food."

But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.

What is he talking about is this idea that we have a fasting instinct,

that this is something that we instinctually do.

Think about when you get sick.

When you have a cold, when you have a flu, whatever.

The last thing you're thinking about is eating at a big buffet.

It's something that naturally comes to us, our bodies are designed to fast.

They're designed to store food in times of availability

and during times of scarcity to release it.

And that's just what comes naturally to us

and it's not just us, but all animals have the same ability.

So is not something unnatural,

is not something that we're just trying to force on our bodies.

This is something natural and good.

Other people that liked fasting include Benjamin Franklin,

who was world-renowned as one of the smartest men who had ever lived.

What he said was very wise indeed.

He said the best of all medicines are resting and fasting.

Now that's very profound! Think about that for a second.

Resting, which is freedom from stress, relaxation

and fasting which is designed to cleanse the system,

which is what used to be called the cleanser or purification.

Well, those are the two best medicines.

Not drugs, not surgery. Resting and fasting.

Amazing!

Mahatma Gandhi also said a genuine fast cleanses the body, mind and soul.

Jesus Christ said Satan and his plagues may be cast out only by fasting and prayers.

So if you look at the Christian faith

you can see that there are many, many prescribed periods of fasting

all throughout the year.

Yes, there are going to be times when you are going to be feasting

or when you're going to be celebrating, and that's balance.

But these periods when you're fasting to cleanse the body, to cleanse the soul.

Buddhist monks also do the same sort of thing, but they do that on a daily basis.

Very typically they'll fast from noon until sunrise the next day.

So every day there's a very prolonged period of fasting.

In addition to that they also have periods through the year

when they'll only have water-only fast

and that will help them cleanse themselves for the year.

The Muslim faith has also very profound believers in fasting.

The prophet Mohammed said fasting brings us to the door of his palace.

Many people have heard of the holy month of Ramadan.

During that period Muslims would fast from sunup until sundown

every day for an entire month.

All of these religions did not prescribe fasting to their believers

because they wanted to harm them.

In fact that's something that's deeply intrinsically beneficial

and we know this from the science that there's so many benefits.

Benefits for weight loss, benefits for insuline sensitivity,

and type II diabetes, for heart disease, for cancer, for liver disease,

and also just to feel better, for mental clarity.

There's so many amazing benefits.

Everybody's always worried about fasting.

They're always worried, "Well can I really do it?"

Well, think about this for a second.

Consider all these religions,

Christians, Muslims, Buddhist, Mormons, all of these people...

All of these people are fasting on regular basis

every year for their entire adult lives.

So can you do it?

Well, millions and millions and millions of people do it.

There's no reason why you can't do it.

So there's lots of people who will tell you not to fast.

Who? Well, this guy, Ronald McDonald, he doesn't want you to fast.

And this happy little mermaid, she doesn't want you to fast.

They're not going to make any money. Right?

They need you to eat. There's profits, shareholders, right?

In the end you really got ask yourself

when it comes to your health, to your well-being,

who are you going to trust?

Jesus Christ or Col. Sanders?