Lent began on February 22nd. If you want to practice doing without, try one of these fasting methods and detoxification cures.
It’s that time again: Lent begins – for many a detoxifying spring cleaning for body and soul. In 2023 it lasts from February 22, Ash Wednesday, to April 8, the day before Easter Sunday. Some people abstain from meat, sweets or alcohol during this time. To detoxify the body, the following fasting cures are recommended.
Therapeutic fasting according to Buchinger
Therapeutic fasting according to Buchinger is one of the best-known methods of therapeutic fasting. It goes back to the physician Otto Buchinger (1878-1966), who founded his first fasting cure clinic in 1920. With the method of the German naturopath, only the consumption of vegetable broth and diluted juices is allowed – a maximum of 250 to 500 calories per day. The optimal fasting period of the “diet for the soul”, as the founder called it, is two to four weeks. Fasting typically ends with the so-called breaking of the fast: first there is a ripe apple (raw or cooked) and in the evening potato soup.
intermittent fasting
With intermittent fasting, fasting people do not have to do without any specific food – only at certain times. In contrast to most forms of fasting, intermittent fasting is intended as a permanent form of nutrition. The best-known methods are the 5:2 diet and the 16:8 method. In the former, you eat normally five days a week, and around a quarter of the usual energy intake is allowed on the two “fast days”. Vegetables, whole grains and plenty of liquids are the main ingredients on the table.
With the 16:8 method, one of the usual three meals a day is skipped, so you go without food for 16 hours at a time, including bedtime. Only water, tea or black coffee is allowed. No dish is taboo in the eight-hour time window.
soup fasting
So-called soup fasting or “souping” means avoiding solid food completely – only liquid is allowed. This fasting method detoxifies and relieves the body. In contrast to the others, it is also relatively easy to keep up because you don’t have to do without carbohydrates and you always have something warm in your stomach. A smoothie bowl is recommended for breakfast, and a hearty vegetable soup for lunch and dinner. With plenty of liquid (two to three liters of water spread over the day) you also fill the stomach.
Fasting according to Hildegard von Bingen
Hildegard juice fasting works according to a similar principle, in which people who are fasting only consume liquids such as tea or soups. The spelled reduction diet, also developed by the Benedictine Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), is less radical. Spelled bread and fennel tea are on the menu every other day. Fruit and vegetables are added on the other days. Anyone who decides to fast on spelled bread relies on spelled in the form of bread and semolina soup.
Fasting cure according to FX Mayr
Detox with rolls and milk? Celebrities like the actress Rachel Wilson (45, “Im hoch Gras”), who lost 18 kilos with the cure, swear by this fasting method of the Austrian doctor Franz Xaver Mayr (1875-1965). With the help of rolls, milk, Epsom salt, tea, water, abdominal massages and sweating, the Mayr cure is intended to cleanse the intestines and stimulate healthy intestinal activity.
The cure consists of three phases, a duration of two to four weeks is ideal. During the tea fasting phase, no solid food is eaten – only water, herbal teas and vegetable broth from midday are allowed. In the morning there is 250 milliliters of warm water with a teaspoon of Epsom salt. Stage two is the milk-bread cure: a dry bread roll for breakfast, each bite – chewed 40 times if possible – is washed down with a teaspoon of milk. At noon the same procedure, in the evening there is tea. Finally, there is the derivation diet, which consists of basic light foods such as vegetables, ripe fruit, fresh herbs and little fat and salt.
alkaline fasting
Gentle but effective: you don’t have to do without solid food when fasting on an alkaline basis. It is probably the most enjoyable way to deacidify the body and can be easily integrated into everyday life. A duration of five to 14 days is ideal for the fasting cure, but it is generally recommended to integrate many basic foods into your diet in the long term.
Alkaline foods include ripe vegetables and fruits, herbs, sprouts, nuts, and cold-pressed vegetable oils and fruit vinegar. Around 70 percent of the diet should consist of vegetables and less than 30 percent fruit. Acid-forming foods such as meat, fish, bread, sweets, dairy products, white flour or eggs should be avoided by people who are fasting, as well as coffee and alcohol. Three meals three to four hours apart are allowed, the last before 6 p.m.
Schroth Cure
With the Schroth cure, mainly alkaline food without salt, fats and proteins is served. The fasting method named after Johann Schroth (1798-1856) supplements alternating drinking and drying days, spa packs and a mix of rest and exercise.
The Schroth cure, which lasts several weeks, usually takes place in a spa facility. There, fasting people start their day with herbal teas and steam packs, which are supposed to make the body sweat and detoxify. Depending on dry and drinking days, this is followed by rest or exercise. In the classic Schroth cure, three dry days alternate with two small and two large drinking days. Hardly anyone drinks on dry days. On drinking days, you drink half a liter or one and a half liters of liquid. Experts now advise against the once usual consumption of alcohol due to the already low fluid intake.
1 day fast
If you are not enthusiastic about a whole fasting cure, you should first practice doing without one day a week. A Saturday or Sunday when the body gets by with little energy is best. Inserting such a fast day at regular intervals has an effect According to a study positive for cholesterol levels. Provided you drink enough and eat a balanced, healthy diet for the rest of the week