A trend in these times is to go on retreat on weekends to disconnect from the city, the rush, the hustle and bustle and other stressors.

Attentive to this healthy fashion, there is a great variety of offers for these escapes, but few as interesting from the point of view of physical and psychological well-being as the one proposed by Damien Carbonnier with his company MiAyuno.es.

Interview with Damien Carbonnier, director of MiAyuno

To deepen the advantages of the fasting retreats, there is nothing better than talking with Damien Carbonnier, who will update us on how one of these retreats works, and what the person who decides to embark on this introspective adventure will experience.

Xavier Molina: When talking about fasting, the focus is usually on the benefits it has for physical health. Does it also have psychological benefits?

Damien Carbonnier: The mental and psychic benefits are the physiological and therefore inevitable consequence of the benefits that fasting has at the digestive level. Nowadays, studies are being carried out which show the benefits of fasting for the intestine, both on a functional level and for the intestinal flora or microbiome. The intestine rules over the brain. Well-being is not what you think but what you feel.

Our brain produces energy on a daily basis mainly from Glucose, but during a fast, the first 2 days, we consume most of our glucose reserves. Thus, from the third day on, the body needs to activate the physiological mechanisms that transform our fat reserves into energy. This process takes place in the liver and from this process some molecules known as Ketone Bodies derive, which among other functions serve as an energy source for the brain, ensuring that the brain has enough energy during the fast.

As Dr. Dominique Lanzman Petithory demonstrated in the early 2000s, these ketone bodies represent a real alternative, as a source of energy, to glucose and explains in part why mental clarity during a fast (a brain with energy is an optimistic brain).

In recent years, neuroscientists such as Mark Mattson have published work on Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease in relation to caloric restriction (fasting) and intermittent fasting and their benefits for the brain.

People who fast experience at the end of the process and during the weeks or months afterward a sense of calm and serenity that allows them to be more connected to themselves and their environment, and therefore live “more present and in the now” which for many is synonymous with happiness.

Gandhi, who fasted several times in his life, summarized fasting as follows: the eyes serve to look at the outside world, fasting to see the inside world…

Can anyone notice these benefits, or are they significant for only part of the population?

As we have said before, well-being is the physiological consequence of fasting, that is why we dare to answer yes and even though anyone who presents a good state of health and if not being supported by a doctor, who knows in depth the physiology during fasting (as it is the case in Miayuno.es) will notice these benefits.

From our experience we can say that our clients when they come for the first time come looking for the benefits at a physical level (lose weight, decrease pain and inflammation, improve digestive discomfort,…) while repeat clients usually come more looking for that feeling of well-being and emotional or mental calm that is experienced at the end of the retreats and during the following months.

While it is true that there are not many if any situations that contraindicate fasting:

  • Pregnant or lactating women
  • Minors (preferably not fasting before age 16)
  • People with eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia…)
  • Some serious diseases, according to their stage of evolution
  • Diabetic patients Insulin dependent

In My Fasting you organize fasting programs in contact with nature. Why do you consider that these two elements, fasting and natural environments, fit well together?

Because basically you can contemplate reconnecting with yourself when you get away from the day, the city, the stress, the family and professional environment. RE-CONNECTING with oneself demands, for the human being, a reencounter with his origins and these we find in nature. That is why during a retreat our clients walk, breathe pure air, relax and reconnect.

At Miayuno we don’t just offer fasting, we offer Fasting Retreats. We consider the word Retreats to be just as important as Fasting.

And how do you combine fasting and physical exercise?

During the MiAyuno retreats we combine fasting from solids with aerobic exercise, which allows us:

  • Consume fat reserves
  • Protect the muscle

We all remember seeing a movie with the army running and singing at the same time. Physiologically, it is explained because when we practice aerobic sport ( it allows us to continue talking normally or even singing ), fat can be used as an energy reserve which does not happen when we do anaerobic physical activity, in which we can only use glucose as an energy source. For this reason, during retreats we propose a gentle but prolonged physical activity (up to 3-4 hours)

What steps should be taken to ensure that fasting is not impaired by lack of control or experience?

The best measure would be to go to a professional at least the first few times we intend to do so. The second measure would be to get serious information, the third would be to be able to organize a week of low intensity where, let’s try to move away momentarily from the family and the work.

How is someone who fasts professionally supervised?

Rather than supervising, accompanying, fasting carries very little risk, the human being has always fasted. It is also controlled, talking to the person and giving them guidelines so that they can feel better, encourage them to do some physical activity (not necessarily every day) to stop the detoxification. Possible dizziness is controlled with honey or bicarbonate depending on the type of dizziness, headaches are minimized by cleansing the intestine on the first day and with natural balsams until entering the fast on the third day.

Nothing of the other world however the few risks that they entail must be known and above all one must be able to act quickly to avoid any problem, that is why the assistance of a professional is important. I insist that fasting is natural and ancestral, in all religions there is talk of fasting, today fasting is recognized internationally. In our current society of sub-abundance, we continue to fast every night, that is why the first meal of the day is called “breakfast” after fasting. Although it makes less and less sense to have dinner so late and breakfast so early because we don’t really let our bodies go into fasting.

Finally… Can fasting be more than just a habit performed with some frequency, and become a philosophy of life?

Of course, in fact in Miayuno we have 1 out of 2 clients who repeat year after year and take it as an annual health pattern.

Apart from this, the best thing is to be able to practice intermittent fasting in order to justly combine it throughout the year. There are several types of intermittent fasting. We recommend starting with 12/12 in which we leave 12 hours of fasting between dinner and breakfast but the most scientifically studied is 16/8 in which we eat twice a day with 16 hours of fasting per day. The idea is to start with 12/12 and let it flow to gradually go towards 13/11 or 14/10 and assess how the body responds in the day to day.

It should be noted that this practice of intermittent fasting is much easier to perform once you have experienced a fast of several days as we have designed in the Miayuno centers in Spain.