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Fasting in Hinduism

So today intermittent fasting is a thing to improve your health and to keep your human growth hormones up. This however has been implemented in Hindu society as part of religion since we have always had religion and science be part of each other than have them separately and contradict each other.
There are 2 different duration for fasting.

  1. Sunrise to Sunrise
  2. Sunrise to Sunset
3 levels of fasting
  1. Fruits and water
  2. Only water 
  3. No food, No water
Fasting based on meals
  1. No breakfast
  2. No lunch
  3. No dinner
Fasting based on day of the week.
Each day of the week is associated with one or more deities in Hinduism. Weekly fasting is something most do including my own family members.
  1. Fasting on monday
  2. Fasting on tuesday
  3. Fasting on wednesday
  4. Fasting on thursday
  5. Fasting on friday
  6. Fasting on saturday
  7. Fasting on sunday
Fasting is also done on a particular festival which comes ones a year.
  1. Fasting based on festival 
Fasting based on diet.
  1. Abstain from certain type of food on particular day of the week. Ex:- No meat on Wednesday or no garlic , no onion on tuesday.
Depending on ones house deity, your guru or mutt (school of thought), caste, sub caste and family lineage, one would follow a mix of the above.
I for example choose to fast on mahashivrathri which comes ones a year. Many a times I have done sunrise to sunrise, no food no water fasting. Now I do mostly no food, sunrise to sunrise fasting. My family however do sunrise to sunset, fruits and water is the only thing that they consume. Few of family members fast on one day of every week where they skip on one, two or all meals of the day. This is upto an individual and there are no hard restrictions as such that a caste, family or a group has to follow only a certain type of fasting. 
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