Water fasting and B12

[fastfreedom]

Does any have any information on water fasting and B12?

I've read in two different places a couple days ago that the human body produces B12 to low in the GI tract so it's not absorbed by the body. But I know that when you water fast you don't have regular bowel movements. I suppose though that with a juice fast you don't have bm's every day either.

To me it kinda makes sense that if you're fasting and your body is producing B12 and you're not having any bowel movements then your body is gonna absorb that B12.

Has anyone personally experienced this? I kinda wanna get my B12 checked and then go on a water fast and then get my B12 checked again to know if this is valid. But I'm currently juice fasting so I won't be able to test this idea for a while. So if anyone else wants to test this let us all know.

Here's the two places where I read about the water fasting and B12. Well I can't find em yet and I don't want to lose this post. So I'll find em and come back and post em.

[Aleesha Sattva]

all i know is that i fast a lot and my b12 levels are goooooooooooooooood.

[fastfreedom]

Aleesha - Do you primarily do juice fasts. I've watched these boards for quite a while and I know you fast a LOT.:p And from what I've read it seems you focus mostly on juice fasting. I'm just wondering if the increase in B12 would happen on a juice fast the same as it would happen on a water fast. "Seems logical to me." I'm also wondering if one were to use SWF's or enema's while fasting if that would disrupt the process of absorbing the B12 because it would be removing it. "This also seems to be the case IMO." Cus as far as I know, you don't do either, SWF's or enema's. You just allow nature to run it's course right? Which in my opinion is the only way to allow the body to absorb that B12.

Also Aleesha, do you ever take B12 supplements?

I may have to get my B12 tested after I finish fasting. If it's through the roof then I think I may have proof. But it's not 100% proof cus I didn't test it before I started the fast.


It seems to me from the ten or so hours I spent reading about B12 a few days ago that the way for the body to absorb the B12 is by not having a bowel movement which would allow the B12 to be absorbed by the body. But while eating and having regular BM's then the body simply doesn't have enough time to absorb that B12. Basically if one is having BM's then it's just gonna be expelled. And juice fasting or water fasting and just allowing nature to dictate when one is gonna have a BM instead of using an enema or doing a swf is the way to do it if you wanna increase your B12. IMO, from all that I've read.


Here's the links.

http://www.healself.org/Vitamin%20%20B12.html

and

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/blog/?p=379 - This one has a person "Carol" all the way at the bottom sharing her story.

[Aleesha Sattva]

not sure if you've read this but thought i'd post it for ya:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=2898

okay on to your questions.

i seldom water fast. my fasts are on raw live juices. i don't do any SWF, enemas or colonics... i allow my body to eliminate as it needs to but if it needs assistance... i drink a litre of apple juice and that always gets my bowels moving!

i don't take any supplements... never been into taking pills.

hope that helps! :)

[fastfreedom]

That helps tremendously Aleesha. Thank you. I may have to get a B12 test after my fast. They seem kinda pricy though.

I had been contemplating the whole omnivore vs vegan thing for a while and it seemed that the only thing that the body really couldn't get from a vegan diet in sufficient quantity was B12. But I knew it was plentiful in raw meat/oysters/eggs/insects/etc... So it kept me thinking on what is the optimum nutrition for the human body.....

And it seemed the more I learned the more it said that the B12 in all plant matter was a type that the body couldn't utilize. And even worse, most of em blocked the actual B12 that the body needed. So it kept me searching and thinking. But we can get it from produce picked from the ground so long as the soil is living and organic....but.... I still wasn't convinced that that's a way to get the adequate amount. Especially if I can't get enough produce from an organic garden year round that still had dirt on it.

So in comes the idea of fasting to boost B12 levels. And if that's the case, which it sounds like it is, then I'm convinced that humans really are vegan designed for optimum nutrition.:D Periodic fasting is gooood for the body. LOL

Although I've read plenty about the goodness of raw meats/eggs/milk/dairy/etc.. But it seems that optimum and maximum healing that I've learned about is from those that switch to a raw vegan diet.

I may get a test done. I've read that fasting is a way to get the body to increase it's B12. But there's really not a lot I could find out there that verified this. And I really wanna be sure. If it is in fact something that boosts B12, then I'm convinced on what the best approach to nutrition is.

[Aleesha Sattva]

sooooo i have a question for you. if this is as important to you as it sounds... why don't you at least check your levels before you spend so much energy trying to increase something that you may no be lacking in?

[fastfreedom]

I'm not worried about my levels. Actually since reading about the raw food diet I had learned that one can become B12 deficient. And it's really the first time I had heard anything about the body being able to become B12 deficient.

I'm pretty much trying to decide what our bodies were designed to consume. And that's a world of opinions right there. LOL:p


I do know that fasting is something that is important to the body. It's even talked about in pretty much all religious texts as far as I know.

So if we can get all the nutrients we require through a raw vegan diet except B12, then I was wanting to know if we can get it through fasting. And if this is the case, my desicion swings heavily towards a raw vegan diet. I just want to do the healthiest thing I can for my body. I know that all we need comes from nature. And I was trying to figure out if all we need nutrient/nourishment wise comes from plants, or if we require animal product.

I mean what is gonna happen when people begin eating a raw vegan diet and we are able to look back at em in a couple hundred years. I'm thinking, and I have a gut feeling that if one is periodically fasting/cleansing, and eating a raw vegan diet with as much as possible as being all organic. Then I believe we are gonna see healthy people that are 150 years old that look like they are 30. This is my opinion/gut feeling.

If we do produce B12 through fasting then I heavily believe that our bodies are designed to be raw vegan. Cus from what I've read so far, B12 is the only thing that plants can't provide us, but animal products can. At least that's all I know of ATM.

And I kinda wanna do an experiment to find out if fasting really produces B12 in the body like those two links above describe they do. But of course I would have to wait a while before I try that experiment. I'll have to test before a fast and then test again after I end the fast.


Aleesha - If you have tested your levels and they are goood. Then I'm even more convinced that B12 is absorbed into the body during a fast. Cus I know you fast a lot.:p And I may test my levels after I end my fast just to see if they are up. But I really don't know what they were before I began the fast. So I may actually just end up waiting and test em as an experiment before my next fast then again after I end that one just to see if the levels increase.

[Aleesha Sattva]

when i had mine tested in the beginning... yes i fasted but not like i do now. i did short fasts and ate a raw live vegan diet.

so i doubt it was the fasting that did it. i think it's the food.

i edited your post... we don't discuss the pros and cons of eating animal products on this forum. sorry...

[fastfreedom]

Would you mind mentioning some of the food you thought increased your B12. I have turned my mind to mush a couple days ago reading about B12 and all I can recall about it being in plants/algae and such is that it's in a form that the body can't absorb and it actually will hinder the absorption of the actual B12 that the body needs.

I do recall though that dirty vegetables from organic soil will have B12 cus of the dirt on em.

And I know I can buy fortified stuff that's supposed to have B12. But I could also just buy a supplement.

No worries about the deletions. The message still conveys what I was wanting to say.

I still have a strong belief that the body absorbs it when fasting simply because the body does produce it. But of course it's in a place where it normally can't be absorbed if one is consuming food which is causing ya to have two-three BM's per day. Then if ya fast there's no BM for sometimes a couple days so I can imagine in that scenario that the B12 is gonna be absorbed.:D I kinda think that a two or three day fast would be enough to elevate the B12 levels. But an experiment is gonna need to be done to prove it for myself, which won't be for a while.:p

[Aleesha Sattva]

honestly... i don't worry about such things. i just enjoy my food and unless there's something amiss health-wise... i just enjoy my food. i don't worry about getting enough vitamins/minerals etc. i just eat raw live foods. period.