Is a Fast a Thing of the Past?
Issue #11
“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.”
Fit Tip: Fasting
Fasting (going long periods of time without eating) is no new practice; but it has come into the spotlight again as a tool with health benefits. While there certainly are some health benefits to fasting, the way in which this tool is used is usually ineffective. Fasting as a means to lose weight is never something I personally recommend. This often leads to obsessing even more about food, losing precious muscle mass, or binge eating when the fast is broken. However, it has become pretty clear that the body does need a break from eating and digesting to perform some other maintenance processes within. Some people refer to these shorter breaks from eating as intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is a pretty loose term as one person might use it to say they skip breakfast and another person might restrict eating to the hours of 2pm to 6pm each day.
The practical way to space out your eating for health is quite simple: Stop eating after dinner, do not eat during the night, and don’t eat breakfast immediately upon waking. Ideally your dinner is done at least 2 hours before you go to bed so you can sleep a little better. If you ate at 6pm and did not have breakfast until 8am then you “fasted” for 14 hours, and that is a practical and long-term health-promoting practice. An occasional even longer fast has proven benefits as well.
I hardly consider what I just suggested as fasting; it really is just normal eating. A true fast was historically done for religious purposes, and that has been lost on us. Its purpose was not a physical health effect, but mental and spiritual: to take a break from something (not necessarily eating) in order to focus on God rather than self. The way Jesus prescribed fasting is not how most are doing it now. In Matthew 6 Jesus says when you fast, do it in secret. An effective modern day fast might be shutting off your phone for a whole day so you spend time thinking about more important things.
News: Measles Outbreak?
Not many people watch the news on TV anymore, but the stories still travel faster than ever. One of the latest stories being repeated is the current measles outbreak. Like all mainstream media, this ought to be evaluated with some discernment. First, what defines an outbreak: the occurrence of disease cases in excess of normal expectancy. When the normal expectancy for something like measles is incredibly low (fewer than 300 cases per year) then having 222 cases in the first three months of 2025 can be considered an outbreak. Sounds scarier than it is. I live in Iowa, where 0 cases were reported in 2024, and 0 cases exist during this 2025 outbreak. It might be alarming to suddenly have 30 cases of measles in one week, but a lot less alarming when you view the table like this:
So why bring it up? If you did see this “breaking” news on TV, it was almost inevitably followed up with the fun fact that our current United States Secretary of Health is a ‘known vaccine skeptic’. It is strategically placed information like that that makes me doubt the news and educate myself on the topic. Outbreak? Sure. Danger? Probably not. Political issue!? Nope.
The best person to take care of your health is you; be your own advocate.
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html
Challenge for the Week: Shoulder Wall Test
Not long ago, we tested our hip strength mobility with the sit-and-rise test. I hope you have added some hip mobility to your routine if that test revealed some room for improvement. Now I introduce a simple method to both test and improve your shoulder mobility.
The Shoulder Wall Test is performed with your back against a solid wall. The points of contact on the wall are your head, butt, back, and shoulders. Raise your arms up to 90 degrees with elbows making contact with the wall along with all other points of contact. Then, try to rotate your hands toward the wall so your forearms, hands, and even wrists make contact with the wall, all without cheating by arching your back, rotating your rib cage up, or tilting your head up or off the wall. This is hard to do well. Again, use this as an assessment that may reveal something you need to work on, not as a disheartening failure.
Good mobility requires some hard work at times, but often will just become part of your routine and not require specific attention after a while. My workouts include exercises where mobility is built in; I know my hip mobility will be maintained because I am squatting and lunging regularly with a deep range of motion and strong form. I know my shoulders are still doing well because I program some one arm shoulder presses and intentionally use full range of motion when doing so. My warm up for a workout is often a few mobility tests relevant to the workout I am about to do.
Test yourself out this week, and if the wall test is a big ‘yikes’ for you, let me know and I will be sure to share some helpful shoulder mobility drills and strength training exercises.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CfYKNZFRG7U
Win the weekend!
Brad
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