The potential of a zero-day
Weekly purification
In 1984, when I was specialising at the University of Liège, Prof. Bosly taught analytical chemistry. At the same time, he was the dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. At sixty, he looked remarkably young and alert.
I graduated 14 years earlier as a pharmacist at the University of Ghent and was already an older Flemish student with whom he came for a chat while waiting.
Once I asked him if he had any secret about his remarkably excellent condition.
The answer was: for many years now, I don't eat anything for one day a week. I only drink water. I also ate nothing the next day and kept up this weekly fast for several years.
This energy supply interruption quickly felt like the ideal purification by forcing reserves to be used. In prehistoric times, the man was a gatherer, hunter or fisherman, so he was never sure of his daily food and had to rely on his reserves now and then, right?
A trained standby system
Everyone is born with a spare system, which we modern people hardly, if ever, use. Top-quality food is now widely available. We may be born, live a life and then die without going hungry for a single day. In the event of fasting, the biochemical reactions reverse, i.e. the system switches backwards.
My fasting day made me very calm, and I used energy sparingly. So from midday onwards, I started to unconsciously dose my efforts, quickly finding a chair to rest on. During the day, I felt my mind clearing with a blissful sense of balance before bed. That is why I always had my fasting day before the exam. The following day I took my time for a varied but not too copious breakfast. I had never achieved better scores in my entire student life.
Triggering the match rush
We assume by extension that a similar process exists for the supplements, which do not contribute to the energy supply (calories), only in their release through metabolism. We stimulate the optimal physiological processes of energy release and immunity building during the week (before the race). Suddenly, on the day of basketing, we drop this supply.
As a result, the body takes control naturally through alternative metabolic pathways and in doing so, it tenses up alertly and then discharges under solid resilience. A pigeon cut from the proper cloth is going to get a peak. Its functions will be boosted to the maximum and efficiently.
In the endless schemes for pigeons, everything from poor to rich nutrition has already been tried with varying degrees of success. Because measuring the effect with the racing pigeon beyond the Palmares is complex, and we are still groping in the dark here, we often rely on our intuition and experience. We call this empirical analysis. Through an example, one can easily see that when pigeons do not throw down, only a few days of a super-light mixture (extra barley, rice) will immediately solve the problem.
In church, Friday was the day of fasting ...
Since last year, Comed recommended refraining from giving supplements one day a week from this parallel reasoning. It is best to do this on the day of basketing for racing pigeons.
In the brochure we described our original reasoning, i.e. that we consider it very important on the day of basketing to have the best possible intake of food and drink, not the least affected by any particular taste. This ensures that they can freely consume the food and drink their natural nutritional instinct usually choose. I.e. without the presence of any enriched vegetable substances, however beneficial and innocent, they may be.
A buildup of resilience to the weekend
In return for the day's fasting, daily (for 4-5 days) maximised immunity and optimised energy metabolism are there one week before the race.
It is sufficient to cope with the basket pressure and the race challenges until they reach home.
We, therefore, emphasise again that the supplements prescribed in the schedule should always be given daily during the week. In top sports, deviating from this can mean the difference between winning and losing.
It is a short feedback to entirely natural. The pigeons will remember that zero-day as the signal before the big challenge.