Fasting Set Back

So what I learned from my last fast was that I should follow directions. When things get to going good I have a tendency to take the progress for granted and either push too hard forward or lie down and think it will coast. Just for the record that doesn't work out! You would think by mid 40's I would get that!

So Paul Bragg's suggestion is to fast 24 to 36 hours one day per week in order to give your body a day of rest. After a period of time do a 3 to 4 day fast. He recommends doing the 3 to 4 day fast every 3 to 4 months. Then work up to a 7 day fast, then a 10 day fast , a 21 day fast, then a 30 day fast. This happens over a period of years, not weeks as I would like to do things.

I had attempted a 6 day fast three weeks ago and ended up breaking it after 4 days. I had flown out of town which slows down my digestion. I had gotten discouraged by that and broke my fast with the intent to do another one the next week. So the following week I did another fast with only water. Monday was great. Tuesday was great. But then late Tuesday and into Wednesday I became very weak. I had committed myself to several things on Wednesday that I didn't feel I could get out of . I was serving dinner at church on Wednesday night and almost passed out on the line. That wasn't really beneficial to anyone, should have gotten someone to take my place.

So what I learned was that your body needs more time to recuperate between fasts. It is unreasonable to expect that much of your body. Secondly don't commit yourself to anything on day 3. Paul Bragg's book The Miracle of Fasting states that day 3 is the hardest so you should make sure you can rest when necessary. I however think I am above recommendations. Those apply to other people and I again paid the price for thinking that way.

The most interesting part of this fast debacle was that I was left with angry, irritable feelings that I am still trying to recover from. It really set me back personally.

I am having to work really hard to get back on track. I have been eating horrible this past week, almost punishing myself. It is interesting how I have felt with all that "bad" eating. I didn't realize how cleaned out my system had become. I ate Mexican food one afternoon and my ankles instantly swelled and my lower legs ached. You get so used to feeling that way that once your body is cleaner and that is eliminated you feel it worse when it returns. My face is bloated again. My liver is back to aching.

So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and move on. I have had 45 years of eating poorly. I am probably not going to break all those habits without a fight from my flesh and my mind.

I am still drinking The Feast. I had backed down to once a day but am picking back up to three times per day. It fills my stomach so I can eat less, it makes me crave better foods and I feel more energetic when I drink it. And why wouldn't we want to do that as much as possible???? Dah!!!!

 

Continue to Trudge the Road to Good Nutrition,

Tammy

The Progress of the 4 Day Fast

Okay its day three of fasting. YUCK! I am not having fun. The first two days I felt energized. A little hunger pains but I could drink water and move past them. But then yesterday late afternoon I started feeling like I had the flu. I still have those symptoms today. You know the ones body aches, headache, tired, nausea, and feel like I could pass out at any time. I know it's just detox but it's hard to control your mind from thinking that if you just ate something you would immediately feel better. My flesh is screaming.

I keep reading Paul Bragg's book The Miracle of Fasting
for encouragement. There is actually an affirmation on page 77:

• I have this day put my body in the hands of God and Mother Nature. I turn to the highest power for internal purification and rejuvenation of body and soul.
  
• Every minute that I fast I am flushing dangerous poisons that do great damage from my wonderful body. Every hour that I fast I become happier, healthier and have more energy and youthfulness.
  
• Hour by hour, my body is cleansing and purifying itself.
  
• When I fast I am using the same method for physical, mental and spiritual purification that the greatest spiritual leaders have used throughout the ages.
  
• I am in complete control of my body during this fast. No false hunger pains will stop me from fasting! I will carry my fast through to a successful conclusion because I have total faith in God and Mother Nature!
  

I keep reading it but my flesh is loud today. My goal is to continue this fast through tomorrow evening at 8 p.m. That will be 4 days. I have already dropped 5 lbs in 2 days. My purpose for enduring this is twofold. I gained a lot of weight 18 months ago taking anti-depressants. I stopped the medications but the weight didn't go with it. The other issue is my liver aches most of the time. I know that it needs to be "cleaned" out. I had my gallbladder removed 5 or so years ago and my liver is overworking and I feel it.

I have been such a medicine junky my whole life and I know some of those medications are still stuck in my cells. Then we won't talk about the 20 year diet coke addiction or the alcohol and drug addictions or the eating junk that we Americans call food. All that on top of a sluggish digestive system. It has been hard for my body to process all this stuff out.

So writing today is about helping me remember why I am doing this. Losing weight is nice; making my heart, lungs, bones and vessels carry the burden of an extra 40 lbs is not in its best interest. I know when I am finished I will weigh less cause I already do, I will feel energized and alive because that is my past experience with fasting and my eyes will be clearer and bright.

You know all the changes that have taken place in my nutrition in the past 5 months have actually been encouraging other people to make changes. That is exciting. Considering my nutrition lifestyle would certainly not have gotten me "the most likely to eat healthy" award.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

Day 1 of the 4 Day Fast

I am going on another fast. I say that almost as if I am going on another safari. It feels like that of sorts. My body is sick, it has been for years. I have suffered from chronic pain (a 30+ year old motorcycle wreck injury) and my liver hurts. I had my gall bladder removed in 2001 so my liver hurts most of the time. I'm overweight because of the food choices I have been making. I have been burying my problems in pizza instead of a bottle. And of course there is that 20 year diet coke addiction that was broken in July. That one still amazes me. I tried so many times on my own willpower to quit. God is amazing.

So all that is said to lay the groundwork for the WHY someone would fast. My digestion has been slowed down most of my life. I vacillate between constipation and diarrhea. I have tried to take enzymes but anything that I have to remember to take gets left behind, period. Thus, why vitamins have never worked for me. I have struggled with depression, anxiety, rage, self pity, etc. It is time for a change in my life!

I did a fast last week using a green drink called the Feast. I drank it three times a day with a little fruit from Sunday to Thursday. This is a huge deal for me. I have never in my life considered fasting. I have always struggled with blood sugar but as I have started getting live, whole foods into my body that perceived problem disappeared. That is amazing.

That was actually my third fast. I have been fasting on Sundays, giving my body a day of rest from digestion. So for the record I didn't just wake up one day with this idea. A friend of mine suggested a book called Bragg Healthy Lifestyle by Paul and Patricia Bragg. They go into great detail about fasting, the benefits, the process, etc. It is amazing that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. If I would have read this a year ago I would have thought "I can't do that I am hypoglycemic, this is not for me" and that would have been the end of it. Of course I would have felt sorry for myself because I would have also thought "I am never going to get better, I'm always going to feel bad and be fat". As long as I was letting my mind believe that it was true. Since my mind has started to believe that there is a better way and that we are coming out of sickness, more and more has been revealed.

Okay I am getting fired up again. I wanted to say that the last fast was incredible. I unfortunately flew out of town while fasting and for some reason flying makes me constipated which defeated my purpose so I broke my fast. But I wanted to share the results of the fast. I began to get a lot of mucus in my stool. Dr. Bragg talks a lot about that in his book The Miracle of Fasting. "Every person living on the average American diet has more or less, a sticky mucus-clogged pipe system. This stored up toxic mucus results from the undigested and uneliminated, unnatural food substances and toxins that start accumulating from birth. This mucus not only clogs the nose, throat and lungs, but this mucus is also found all along the 30 feet of the gastrointestinal tract that humans suffer great distress from heavy mucus-clogging in their sinus cavities." Well that was what started coming out of my body. I want my body to be clean. I want my liver to not ache from trying to process all these toxins that I have been putting into my body for years. People around me are being diagnosed with different cancers and I want to do my part to try to clean out my vessel so that cancer has no place to develop in my body. I know I sound radical but when you were as big of a food addict and lazy as me you have to get fired up to get yourself into action. I have 45 years of bad habits it is taking some dynamite and commitment to keep on the path.

So yes, this is my safari. It is an adventure into better health and nutrition. But in a short amount of time I am already seeing the results of losing weight (great side benefit), feeling happier, joyful, no swelling in my hands and ankles, sleeping through the night, no Tums in the middle of the night and clearer thinking. I feel more alive right now than I have in years. That is my motivation for starting this next fast. Well that and Dr. Bragg talking about the results of doing a 4-day distilled water fast "You can hardly believe your eyes! A wonderful transformation is taking place during your fast. The powerful Vital Force that would otherwise be used to handle your food is now being used exclusively to clean out the debris, waste and poisons that have been locked in the body cells and vital organs. Rejuvenation is taking place in every one of the billions of cells of the body!"

We will see what progress I make with this fast. If you have any interest in fasting I highly recommend Dr.s Bragg's book The Miracle of Fasting. I would not be working on my fourth fast without it!

 

Disclaimer: This is my story. You and your physician have to make your own decisions about what is best for your body. I am sharing my story for encouragement to others that our on the journey to health and nutrition.

Fasting for Better Health

For years I have read about fasting. I thought that was other people (like weirdo) did for better health, spiritual reasons, etc. You see my system was "too fragile" to do such a thing. And then I find myself doing my third fast in the last three weeks. About six months ago I began adding a whole food mix to my diet. That has been my catalyst for change. My blood sugar has become more stable. This leads me to believe I didn't really have a blood sugar problem at all. It was most likely a reaction or allergy to what I was attempting to nourish my body with. You know junk!

I am like the rest of the American population; I am busy, running from event to event. Most of my food for the last 20 years has come out of the proverbial clown's mouth. There is nothing nourishing for your body in a fast food lane, especially those "foods" that you can easily eat and drive with. Okay so I am female, I can also talk on the phone while eating and driving. But as my friend Penny says, "the car is not an eating place". Whatever!

The reason some people fast is to cleanse the body. That is my purpose in pursuing this endeavor. I want to feel better! I want to have energy, mental clarity, lose weight, etc. There are multiple ways to fast. The so called best fast is to drink only water. I am not there yet. I did that my first fast but I was miserable the whole time. I decided to work my way into that.

Juicing is another way to fast. This allows you to have nutrients but keeping them in a liquid form so that they are not putting strain on your digestion system to process. For me it is about giving my digestion system a break. In all the reading that have done about fasting the best description was "to rotor rooter your pipes". Your "pipes" being your gastrointestinal tract, arteries, veins and the like. In Paul Bragg's book Bragg Healthy Lifestyle he states "as you begin to eliminate your body's obstructing toxic poisons your aches, pains and physical miseries vanish". What a miracle! With the two 24 hour fasts I have completed I have already experienced such benefits. I cannot wait to see what comes from a longer fast.

I always had all these restrictions around a fast. It has to be exactly this way or that. A fast is really about giving your body a rest in a way that works for you. This time I am going to do a week fast with drinking a whole food mix and eating water soluble fruits such as apples, pears, pineapple. Food that doesn't put a burden on my system to process. So as I complete my first day I am excited to see what God will reveal in this process. My goal is to fast from Sunday through Saturday. I will keep you posted on the progress.