When I tell people that I’m fasting on my birthday weekend they look at me like I’ve said something sacriligious. “What about drinking and cake?” they say. I’m happy to pass that up to feel healthier. Besides, I had plenty of cake and pie last weekend and I eat pretty much every day, so I won’t miss it a for few days – much.
Of course people then ask why I’m fasting. The health benefits are debated by some, but seem reasonable and well documented enough to me. Fasting has been a part of major religions for a long time, and I think many religious traditions were implemented for health reasons as much as spiritual ones. Purported health benefits include detoxifying your body, boosting the immune system, and even prolonging life. Surprisingly, you can feel very energetic during a fast, and I’ve noticed that after my last fast I felt less sluggish in the mornings.
Kim and I started on Friday with what we call a let down day. We ate only raw, organic fruits and vegetables. We really should eat more of these anyway and have been doing fairly well at including them in our regular diet thanks in large part to a weekly delivery from Pioneer Organics. We chose to have the rest of the weekend to do our two fasting days since we would be better able to relax and take it easy while we flush our digestive system. While fasting I’ve felt a lot calmer, but at the same time less able to deal with stress. It’s easier to get overwhelmed when you don’t have any food. It’s also common to not feel well, to get headaches or nausea during the first few days of fasting, supposedly because toxins that have been stored in fatty tissues are being released and processed very quickly.
Saturday and Sunday we drank vegetable broth and juice. Some people do water fasts, but juice fasting seems much healthier to me because your body has a chance to get some vitamins and calories while still allowing your digestive system to rest. Besides, it’s a lot easier when you at least get some juice. We make the vegetable broth ourselves, which just consists of boiling some vegetables in a pot for a while to let the nutrients soak out of them. Warm broth is a whole lot tastier while your fasting too. It’s something that I defintely would take for granted as having very little flavor normally, but after not eating anything for a while, it’s wonderful. The juice we made wasn’t as tasty as stuff we would normally make juicing, mostly because we put beets in it since they’re really good for the liver. In addition to the juice we drink lots and lots of water and tea.
While fasting it’s good to relax as much as possible, get massages, take warm baths, and even get mild exercise. The exercise helps stimulate blood flow and speeds up the detoxifcation process, it should just be aerobic. Kim and I took walks and did some yoga. Another practice that we’ve been doing is drinking warm water with Epsom salt the first day of the fast to quickly flush out your system, and boy does it work. The water tastes absolutely vile with the salts in it, but with an hour you’ll definitely feel flushed out.
Last time we fasted for 3 days and by the third day I didn’t feel hungry or have many cravings. The first day is when I feel hungriest, but the second day is when food cravings are the worst. I’m not necessarily hungry when I get cravings, but I can’t help dwelling on a lot of really unhealthy foods. Mexican food, pasta and pizza are the things I crave most, but all kinds of greasy food sound really good too. Right now I’m at the end of my two day fast and I hadn’t felt hungry most all day, but now right before bed I’m really hungry.
Probably the most important and difficult part of the fast is breaking the fast well. The urge is to just start eating normally again, but after a few days of no food the stomach has shrunk and your digestive system isn’t what I would call awake. Tomorrow I’ll have 3 apples, some potato soup, some yogurt or quark with flax seeds. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but the first apple you eat is incredibly filling. The next day we get to add some whole grain bread and something else. I’ll probably add a little more this time than last time since we didn’t fast quite as long.
Kim has been keeping a more detailed journal about how she felt, what we ate, and what we did. I meant to do that this time, but just didn’t get around to it. I think another reason for fasting for me is the mental and physical discipline it takes to fast. I really understand my relationship with food a lot better when I’m able to control how I consume it. While fasting I begin to really feel that I have control over food much more than I did before. It’s easy to describe hunger pangs and cravings, but near impossible to describe the will power that goes into denying those cravings and getting and intuitive feel of how your body reacts. I intend to make multiple day fasting a bi-annual ritual, so I’ll hopefully write an even more detailed account of the process in about six months. I’ll consider it part of spring cleaning.