What is Fasting?
Fasting in its literal sense involves abstaining from something. Fasting, in its true sense, means the total abstinence from food. Sometimes called a water fast, a true fast means the taking of only water into our body.
What some people call juice fasting and fruit fasting is only figurative fasting. I am not implying that remaining only on fruits and juices for a short period of time is bad. Such a practice does have some benefits and is sometimes more practical than complete fast which involves complete bed rest and water fast. I am just saying that fruit fasting is not truly fasting.
There are two types of fasting I have found referred to in literature.
The first type of fast as we have already noted is the Full Fast where you drink only water.
Time is another subject. It may be one day, sun up to sundown, three days, seven days, etc. Do not think that you have to do it forty days to have been fasting.
Our very language says otherwise. In the morning you have a breakfast, a break-fast. When you eat the morning meal, you are breaking a fast of the night.
Next some refer to the Daniel Fast. A better term for this might be the Daniel Diet. When you do this you usually eat no bread,
and no sweets.
You will only water and juice.
[I do not know why I have to say this, but often when I say this, some people think they can eat fish.
Fish is a meat. No fish.]
You will eat only fruits and vegetables.
This is a form of vegan diet. In this you consume nothing that comes from an animal.
They use the term fast for this because they consider a fast in some limited sense to be a fast if you are taking an individual thing or some things out of your diet. There can be great benefits to this. But technically it is not a fast.
The other fasts referred to in the literature are merely giving a time for the fast or Daniel diet. However as we noted time is irrelevant to a fast. But it should be said that the length of time for a fast may be important to consider, when you are ending the fast. And time may be important in obtaining the beneficial results of a fast, for which you may be looking.
Fasts may be done for spiritual purposes,
self-discipline purposes,
or health purposes. While we may touch upon the other purposes, we will be looking at health fasting.
