One thing that helped on Days 1 and 2 was creating a motivational playlist. Mine consisted of "Corduroy" by Pearl Jam, "Bleed It Out" by Linkin Park, and "Hungerstrike" by Temple of the Dog. Whenever I felt a bit weak, I just played the playlist and I was back in no time. The lyrics from "Corduroy" served particularly well as a mantra for the whole venture:
"I don't wanna take what you can give
I would rather starve than eat your bread
All the things that others want for me
Can't buy what I want because it's free"
When I got to 10pm on Monday (my original goal), I felt so good that I decided to extend to the next day. On day 3, to prep for breaking the fast, I had organic chicken stock. German fasting programs do this twice a day throughout the fast. When I got to work, all through the day I wondered why I was bothering to eat anything at all today. But I tend to take things to extremes, so I decided to call it a successful initial experiment and finally broke the fast at 3pm Tuesday with 20 almonds. I chewed the almonds 25-30 times a piece, and I feel absolutely full.
Overall, the past 65 hours have been a very, very eye-opening experience. I thought that a multi-day fast would be difficult after the first day. Day 2, while I did get hungry a couple of times, I felt pretty good. Going to bed last night (around hour 48), I felt absolutely great. At peace. Even dealing with two kids. It's hard to explain, but I suppose it was the euphoria that everyone in the documentaries described. And it kept going from there. I felt great all day on Day 3.
Over the course of this little experiment, I have been totally blown away at how little I have actually wanted to eat over the past 65 hours. I suppose I didn't go far enough to get to the acidosis crisis that is mentioned in the documentary, but hey, to feel this good, how could it be so simple?
Before the fast, I stopped eating gluten and sweets for five days. Not sure if that helped me adjust to fasting, but I suspect that it did. In the first 5 days of gluten/sweet free, I lost 7 lbs. This morning, when I hit day 7, I had lost another 6lbs during the fast, for a total of 13 pounds in one week. Still TBD how much of that is water weight, but I know at least some of it was fat. Medical studies show that once you switch over from burning sugar to burning protein / fat, about 96% of the energy comes from burning fat.
Based on these results, I plan to do a week-long fast (SmartWater and chicken / vegetable stock only) in the near future. From there, who knows?
It is no wonder fasting is so despised, even reviled, by our capitalist culture. It is the exact opposite of wanton consumerism and conspicuous consumption. After all, if you don't need food….what else can you do without? Could the answer be….all of it?
Another shockingly weird side effect is that I actually enjoyed work this morning. I got more done this morning than I have in probably the last 3 weeks combined. Methinks our corporate overlords have this wrong as well. Instead of juicing everyone up on caffeine, making them overhyped, brain-dead zombies, maybe a fresh approach would actually help their bottom line. We all know that they prefer to suck you dry than to build you up any day, though. So shortsighted.
As far as going off the fast, this past week has solidified my belief that sugar is all things evil. So, I am going to keep the gluten-free / sweets-free diet going, and try to eat a lot of protein, whole foods, and veggies. Beans, sure. Rice, maybe, but severely limit. It's long past time to turn this sugar burning loaf of fat into a fat burning machine. Will check back soon once I initiate the weeklong fast.
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