Most people fast for two reasons, one of the reasons, is for the health benefits of fasting. The health Benefits of fasting is wide and varies. The other is for spiritual benefits and there is no end to the spiritual benefits of fasting.
There are two means of breaking a fast one is predetermined by the faster either at the end of the prescribe period of time or before. However, the predetermined decision is a decision you made to bring the fast to an end.
However there is a second method of breaking the fast. which is accidentally. This does not affect a person who is fasting for health reasons, but it sure affects a person who is fasting for spiritual reasons. This is when one accidentally or inadvertently breaks the fast.
Before we get into inadvertently breaking the fast there are some cool and interesting facts you need to know that will eventually tie into the topic.
When you begin to fast for a prolonged period of time; over two days, there are some interesting things that occur. after the first 24 hours of not eating, the body sense a potential danger, and it goes into safety mode. Because the mouth is the main organ that is responsible for nutrition, and the stomach and the digestive track are the place where the body observes nutrients, the body put a lock down on the digestive track. Since no food is coming in, the body refuses to allow solid waste to leave the body.
It will be important to note, the content of our stool, is loaded with useful but excess nutrients that can be use, in the function, growth and the production of energy and the replacement of body cells, tissues, etc.
Sensing danger, the body refuses to dump even the stool, for within the stool there are good nutrients it can use just in case things get worse. As your fast continues, the body begins to extract the nutrients, from the contents of the digestive tract. It starts with the content of the Colon and it works its way up to the small intestines.
As our fast progress, there are some other biological changes that happen without our knowledge and or awareness. One such thing is because, we are no longer taking in food, or taking in minimal amount of food, there is no need for the pancreas to produce the digestive enzymes, so the pancreas stop producing enzymes in the quantity it use to.
Another thing that happens, is because we are not consuming any food, our guts get smaller and smaller as the day goes by. The body also put new standards on what it will accept as a meal. The average adult body requires just about two thousand (2000) calories to function each day.
Because the body is in crisis mode it may lower the amount of calories that constitutes a meal, to a very low number. Sometimes in your effort to replace, what we think is electrolytes, even the simple sport drink, with its very low caloric make up, may be considered a meal. Therefore, the body may empty such into the intestines and cause a bowel movement.
The discharge of the gut contents, into the small intestines, even though that discharge may be comparatively minuscule, may be sufficient to cause bowel movement.
Bowel movement is a sign that the body have concluded the fast. The fast is done! The amount you ingest may not be anything close to what you are accustomed to. The body now has a new normal and new standard. Like it or not the fast was inadvertently broken.
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