Buchinger Therapeutic Fasting: Method, Origin, Effect and Course

The essentials

• Buchinger therapeutic fasting is not a zero-calorie diet and not a primary weight-loss method, but a therapeutic method with tea, water, broth and freshly pressed juices.
• The method goes back to the physician Otto Buchinger (1878–1971), who transferred fasting from folk medicine into a medically guided form.
• Two processes run in the body at the same time: the shift to fat burning and autophagy, the cellular recycling.
• A fasting week has a beginning, a middle and a transition: relief, fasting days, breaking the fast and rebuilding over roughly one third of the fasting time.
• At Tannerhof, therapeutic fasting belongs to the history of the house and is medically guided across three generations of physicians, always individually.

What Buchinger therapeutic fasting means

Buchinger therapeutic fasting is the best-known form of therapeutic fasting in the German-speaking world. At its core stands a clear definition: the conscious, time-limited abstention from solid food and stimulants. It is not starvation and not a zero-calorie diet, but a guided process in which the body lives from fluid over several days – and changes in doing so.

Buchinger therapeutic fasting is more than a diet. It is a therapeutic method, a cleansing on several levels, and a meeting with oneself. Weight loss may be a side effect, but at the centre stand relief, a clear caesura, and the slow rediscovery of a good eating rhythm. For the course, packages and methodology at the house, see the Tannerhof Buchinger Method page, embedded in the Therapeutic Fasting and Schlanke Tanne hub.

Two sentences shape the house stance to this day. Otto Buchinger's fasting stimulates the inner physician and Johannes von Mengershausen's handed-down line, who brought therapeutic fasting to Tannerhof: In therapeutic fasting you discover a new freedom: independence from solid food. Fasting means stillness, listening to what happens inside, and turning to the essential. At Tannerhof, the place belongs to this method too: Bayrischzell, alpine meadows, mountain stream, clear pure mountain air and my hideaway in the mountains as the frame for a practice the house has carried for generations.

Otto Buchinger and the origin of the method

Otto Buchinger was born on 16 February 1878 in Darmstadt and was a physician. A severe illness from 1917 brought the turning point: only a fasting cure with the Freiburg physician Gustav Riedlin, as Buchinger later described, activated his self-healing powers. From his own experience grew a medical life's work. After years of preparation Buchinger opened the Kurheim Dr. Otto Buchinger in Witzenhausen in 1920; in November 1935 he moved the clinic to Bad Pyrmont.

Buchinger's achievement was to transfer fasting from folk medicine into a medically guided method. He combined the physical side – abstention, fluid intake, movement, warmth – with an inner, contemplative side. This combination of medicine and inner contemplation is to this day the hallmark of the method. In his book Das Heilfasten und seine Hilfsmethoden, published in 1935, he described it in detail.

From this work has grown a method that is today scientifically studied and applied in many medically guided houses – also at Naturhotel Tannerhof, introduced by Johannes von Mengershausen and carried since across three generations of physicians. Fasting in the DNA of the house describes how naturally therapeutic fasting belongs to Tannerhof.

Why people fast

Motivations vary. Many guests look for mental winding-down, a counterpoint to overstimulation and constant acceleration. Others want relief from abundance, where eating reduces to the essential – often with a more intense joy in eating afterwards. Others come with a medical concern or with the wish to reorder their everyday life after fasting.

Behind these motivations stands a well-documented research base. The Guidelines on Fasting Therapy come from the German Medical Society for Therapeutic Fasting and Nutrition (ÄGHE). These guidelines, originally published in 2002 and updated in 2013, describe methodology, patient selection, contraindications and medical accompaniment. They place its use under expert guidance for, among others, rheumatic conditions, high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, allergies, autoimmune diseases, asthma, migraine, type II diabetes and depression.

How well longer fasting is tolerated is shown by a large observational study by Wilhelmi de Toledo and colleagues from 2019, published in PLOS One. 1,422 people were accompanied across fasting periods of four to twenty-one days following the Buchinger method. No severe or lasting adverse effects occurred; physical and emotional well-being rose significantly across all groups. Of the 404 participants with existing health complaints, 84.4 percent reported improvement, and 93.2 percent of all participants experienced no hunger during fasting. Whether therapeutic fasting fits in an individual case still always belongs at Tannerhof to medical clarification.

What happens in the body: fat burning and autophagy

During fasting the body works on several levels. Two of them are often mixed up and should be clearly distinguished.

The first level is fat burning. When the quickly available carbohydrate stores decline, metabolism shifts within the first days from glucose to fatty acids and ketone bodies. This is the energetic side of fasting: the body increasingly draws its energy from its own reserves. In the PLOS One study, this shift into ketosis could be demonstrated via rising ketone bodies, which reached a plateau after about five days.

The second level is autophagy. It does not mean fat burning but the body's own recycling and cleansing processes at the cellular level: cell components are broken down, used and re-ordered. How fundamental this mechanism is is shown by the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016, awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for the discovery of mechanisms of autophagy. More briefly: all recycling processes are driven; cleaning happens everywhere – cellular, vascular, in connective tissue, in the gut, in the brain, in liver and kidneys.

Both processes occur together during fasting but describe different mechanisms. For certain metabolic and chronic concerns, fasting can be medically interesting; whether it fits in an individual case belongs to the conversation with the medical team. Mental effects belong too: often the need for sleep decreases, some experience mild fasting euphoria from altered serotonin metabolism.

The principle: tea, broth, juice and fluid

What is special about the Buchinger method is what comes to the table during fasting. Unlike pure zero-calorie diets, the body does not stay entirely without intake. Instead, a rhythm of mild fluids carries through the day, giving the metabolism some substance and making fasting bearable. At Tannerhof, this rhythm looks like this:

• Morning a herbal tea.
• Midday a mild vegetable broth.
• Evening a freshly pressed fruit or vegetable juice, optionally with buttermilk or Sojade as part of protein supply.
• Through the day around three litres of fluid: fasting tea, mineral water, lemon water, hot ginger water.

If needed, further protein and an alkaline preparation against acidic metabolites and uric acid crystals are added. And there is the small concession that does not break the fasting character: a spoon of honey or an espresso to bridge a low. This setup distinguishes the Buchinger method from complete food deprivation – it keeps the person moving rather than paralysing them.

The course of a fasting week at a glance

A fasting week does not begin with the first soup. Before arrival the doctors at Tannerhof recommend one or more relief days at home, for example as a fruit, potato, vegetable or raw-food day – how many is the guest's choice. The length of stay and fasting package are already booked at this point. In the intake consultation on the first fasting day the concrete course is agreed together within this frame.

Fasting guests take their meals in the Fasterstube, the dining room for fasting guests. People who fast need a different beat than someone enjoying the in-house 3/4-Pension. We recommend five fasting days and upward; for first-time fasters a week with rebuilding is a fine size, around ten days in total.

Movement stays part of fasting, measured. Moderate aerobic and moderate strength training are available, as are yoga, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Theraband training and breathing therapy. Summit tours and running are possible, only at a pace that fits the fast – the body nourishes itself from within. The Tannerhof Spa with indoor pool, historic sauna hut and the BadeHarpfe with its 25-metre outdoor natural pool stands for the quiet hours in between.

Medical guidance as Tannerhof practice

Medical guidance during fasting is not strictly required, but useful. At Tannerhof therapeutic fasting is always medically guided. The doctors at Tannerhof are fasting experts; they accompany vital signs and circulation as well as the individual course.

The medical appointments form a quiet arc: intake consultation on the first fasting day (holistic, with history-taking, physical examination including bioimpedance analysis and medication review), if needed a follow-up, at the end a closing consultation. The accompanying treatment offering is deliberately broad: bioimpedance analysis, IHHT altitude training, ozone autohaemotherapy when medically suitable, hay flower wraps, aromatic wraps, mud and warm packs, Kneipp alternating affusion, detoxifying baths, fasting massage, detoxifying massage with king's oil or acidosis massage, lymphatic drainage, foot reflexology.

For the mental side, psychotherapeutic coaching, nature coaching, business and communication coaching and art therapy accompany. Fasting experience is anchored across all departments. Anyone wanting to see the concrete frame and book online finds it in the programme Body Detox.

Breaking the fast, rebuilding and Schlanke Tanne

Rebuilding is not the afterword of the fast but its continuation by other means. Breaking the fast still counts as a fasting day: midday a small cup of faster's broth, then the apple, every bite chewed thirty to forty times. In the evening, a vegetable soup with un-puréed pieces. People who took five fasting days rebuild over two days; with seven fasting days, two to three.

At the centre: easily digestible vegetables, fermented foods, plenty of fibre and conscious chewing. In the closing consultation, nutrition afterwards is also discussed. If a sustainable change is wanted, Schlanke Tanne Low Carb can follow, the in-house low-carb form. It is not a Buchinger replacement but a way to carry fasting experience into everyday life. When the gain in enjoyment and joy of life replaces the language of abstention.

Buchinger, F.X. Mayr and intermittent fasting

Buchinger therapeutic fasting is compact fasting over several days, the conscious, time-limited abstention from solid food and stimulants, carried by fluid. F.X. Mayr works more with chewing schooling and mild, easily digestible foods. Both methods are serious and established.

At Tannerhof, fasting follows the Buchinger method. Intermittent fasting, for example in a 16/8 rhythm, is in turn not a Buchinger replacement but the recommended form for taking the benefits of compact fasting into everyday life. Schlanke Tanne Interval can be a Tannerhof way for that.

Who can fast and who needs medical clarification

What matters for fasting are the will and readiness to engage with it. During pregnancy, breastfeeding and anorexia, therapeutic fasting does not belong in the plan. With chronic conditions, ongoing medication or uncertainty, a telephone medical pre-consultation can be arranged before arrival; what remains decisive is the intake consultation on the first fasting day.

Discovering therapeutic fasting at Tannerhof

Naturhotel Tannerhof has offered Buchinger therapeutic fasting for over 70 years: medically guided, fasting-experienced across all departments and embedded in Bayrischzell, between alpine meadow, mountain stream and the view to the Wendelstein. Anyone wanting to see the concrete frame and book online finds it in the programme Body Detox and on the Buchinger Method page. A narrative impression in the magazine piece Feel, Drink, Spoon – a faster's day at Tannerhof.