Water Fasting - Refeeding Plan Observations

For the refeeding process I have a specific plan that I'm supposed to follow, in summary I have the following two basic rules (on top of some others of course):

• Avoid drinking water 30 minutes before eating
• Avoid drinking water 45 minutes after eating

Also it's important to handle the food that I'm eating in the best way possible:

• Cut the food in small pieces
• Chew the food until is completely dissolved into the mouth

One thing I planned for my refeeding days – at least the first 2 full days – is to stay home and dedicate the days to the process, since I will basically: drink, eat and rest in between; the digestion phase will take a lot of energy from me that I'm used to anymore since days now, so my body will need for sure.

So I will stop drinking 30 minutes before my first meal starts, I'm supposed to take my time to eat my 2 ounces of water melon, so it might take up to one hour, I don't want to rush it and I really want to enjoy the experience, enjoy the re-discovered taste of the fruit that I'll be having.

After my water melon I will take a rest, just trying to sleep or just watching TV on the couch, to let my digestion system wake up gently. After 2 hours or so I should have my second meal – another 2 ounces of water melon – but let's see how I feel; I read of people sleeping more than expected or just not feeling eating much, so I will just listen to my body and see how it goes. I'm not planning to have more than 2/3 meals anyway, but only if I'm hungry.

The coconut water that I planned to use for breaking my fast I actually thought I could drink it the Friday before my refeeding weekend, so I sort of prepare my body for the fast. A read a lot of contradictory suggestions on what food can be the best one to break the fast; some people suggest juice instead of fresh fruit, some other even vegetables or bone broth.

I personally don't want to start with nothing complicated, I think a small piece of well chewed water melon should not harm my digestion system, so I'll take this path for now; I am also thinking on checking out some juice-maker places to see what are my options out there, just in case I change my mind.

Water Fast Day #21 - My Experience Updates

Today is my 21^st day of my Water Fast experience, so far is going well, I've been a bit weak and with no much energy in the past couple of days, but overall I managed to do everything I had planned, Friday afternoon I even went to the movie theatre by myself, which is a great achievement for me and my mood challenges, and also I can say that not having my usual M&M's during the movie was not that bad at the end, I sipped on my water and I was fine.

This morning my ketosis was still in large traces, which is great since I want to lose a bit more weight before the end of my fast, planning on being around 53 Kg, but I'm not sure I can achieve this goal before real hunger comes; I've lost quite a bit so far, all my clothes are fitting me large, but I'm not complaining; I feel I have a new whole wardrobe now that I can choose from; till few weeks ago nothing was fitting me and I was frustrated every single morning. I hope after the end of this fast my weight doesn't come all back, I know some will but I have to do my best to maintain a healthy Diet, possibly raw vegan diet.

This afternoon I planned to go to a grocery store to buy coconut water, I never had it before and really I hate coconut but for the re-feeding it might be a good choice, I saw some YouTube videos of people breaking the fast with it, let's see… I'm still not sold for it.

During this past weekend I had some breakouts which I believe were part of my skin detox, strangely they were gone in a day, which usually doesn't happen that fast, I'm really looking forward on seeing my skin cleared out thanks to this water fast, one of the priceless benefits for me. Another odd thing that is happening to my skin during this fast is the hydration; usually during my past diets, every time I was eliminating fats, my skin was getting so dry, I had to constantly put on creams, which was also in contradiction with the diet – since I was supposed to refrain to use anything had oil or any type of fat. This time around I really don't need it, my skin is good is not breaking as usual so I'm not using anything unless I really think is needed a little help.

Watching one YouTube video the other day made me realized that really I'm not drinking much water maybe, most of the people suggested drinking roughly 4L of water daily, sipping and never drinking too much in once, but even sipping here and there I cannot manage to have more than 2L so far, I would rather drink the whole bottle than sipping, I just cannot remember to drink!

One good thing that is improved during these past days has been the number of times I wake up at night to go to the washroom; I heard that this thing would happen eventually but I never believed it, well it's actually true and I'm basically not waking up anymore, actually last night I think I had a full night sleep, the first time since days now. I have to say my sleep is improving with the days, at some point I really had hard time sleeping, often I would wake up, and just didn't feel sleeping but always forced myself to rest and stay in bed. Lately I have increased the amount of hours that I'm in deep sleep and I believe now is much better and I can manage to stay in bed as any normal person without feeling like a night owl.

Weight = 55.1 KG

Ketosis = 80mg/dL large traces 
FAT = 23.3%
BMI = 20.0%

Water Fast Day #18 - Updates and discomforts

This morning I had a confirmation that being lazy is not good not even when you are Water Fasting! My weight did not change and my traces of Ketosis were small this morning at 40mg/dL, while I had a solid Large traces for the past few days. I worked from home yesterday, that's the main reason, in my small apartment there's not much to walk around or to do, and I was also mostly sitting at my desk doing some work.  Today I'm back in the office and TGIF, because I'm getting bored with my assignments and I can't wait to actually do some real work here. I also planned to go to the cinema after work, there's a new Tim Burton's movie that I really want to see, and I don't mind going by myself really.

Tomorrow I want to do a couple of errands, and relax also, weather is getting colder here in Toronto e I don't feel walking around same way as during summer, guess why! This morning my back hurts a bit, nothing crazy but some pain is there; I admit it every time I have some sort of discomfort in my body I wonder is it's part of the detox process, I don't have any confirmation about that but I like to think so though.

My main discomfort so far is my mouth, not just the white coated tongue but the feeling of dryness and the bad breath, unfortunately there's not much I can do about it, even if I try to sip water it still feel the same, I guess I just need to wait till the detox process goes to an end, apparently the tongue will turn pink while the Fasting Process needs to end…let's see if I can reach that point first, I'm planning to stick to the fast at least for 25 days, to ensure my Candida is harmless, but really my body will tell me when it's time to end it.

My emotional issue behind my binge episodes

Believe it or not my Water Fast journey helped me so much to understand my issues with food, my binge episodes and the reason why food became such an uncontrollable dependency for me in the past years. Thanks to my Water Fast my mind is now able to see things clearly, to have the whole picture of my eating disorder, the emotional reasons underlying my BED, amazing right?

So I analyzed why in the past I was bingeing, my usual answer was because of my very restrictive diet, which could be the triggering factor yes, but the persistence of the episodes made me wondering if there was more, a subconscious reason that I was not dealing with, mostly because unknown to me.

So I found it. It goes back in my past, in my family, my mother is an amazing cook, she cooks to express her love to her children, she is happy knowing that everyone is always well fed, that the fridge is full of all kind of things that we love, and always in abundance. Since I moved to Canada few years ago my family is not with me anymore, I'm alone in this country, no relative, no family of my own; sure lots of friends and acquaintances but nothing compared family relations. My subconscious started to miss all the love that my family used to give me, my mother's attentions, and the dinner table full of her way to give us love, so I binged. Binging is my way to compensate for what I miss: affections from my parents, from my sisters, closeness from what is my most important thing in my life: my family. Every time I binge I feel a sense of happiness, gratification, is my way to give love to myself that otherwise I will not receive.

I hope this Water Fasting journey will help me to understand that food is just food, that cannot substitute emotions, cannot replace the love of my family, I need to deal with the fact that I am here in this country alone, that my family is always there for me when I need, just not here physically. 

Water Fast Day #17 - My symptoms while fasting

It's been already 17 days since I started my Water Fast and overall I am very pleased that I took this decision of fasting. My results are great from many points of view, just only the idea that my body is somehow healing itself is priceless for me, I had too much going on in my past months that I wanted to get rid of in any way I could.

In these days I'm often anxious, mostly impatient I would say, but I'm not sure why; I'm wondering if this is part of the healing process and soon will go away, I hope so. I don't feel hungry, my ketosis are still in large traces every morning, I noticed that I don't wake up at night anymore to go to the washroom, before it was like 3 times at least! Very annoying while sleeping really. My sleep is not great though, I have hard time to sleep deeply with no interruptions at night, I know that is a common thing while fasting but it really bothers me, I love sleeping and psychologically I feel I'm not resting enough if I don't have a full night deep sleep. My breath and my mouth are absolutely terrible in the past few days, I do brush my teeth regularly but it seems that there's nothing I can do to avoid this thing, I still have a white coat on my tongue, I feel my mouth like I didn't brush my teeth since weeks…disgusting, no options though, so I just have to suck it up I guess.

One thing I noticed in the morning is that I cannot drink a full glass of water, I have to sip slowly and not too much, otherwise I would feel my heart beating fast and I'll be light headed, don't know why and I don't have a logic reason for that since during the day I have no problems whatsoever while drinking water.

I'm losing lots of weight, which is good, although I know I might regain part of it but hopefully not all; I planned to follow a raw vegan diet till is completely stabilized maintaining the fat consumption to a minimum, so what they called it LFRV Diet – Low Fat Raw Vegan Diet. People started to notice my lower weight, not that I had any comments about it, just coworkers saying that I look amazing, which is great for me, especially because I do feel amazing with this Water Fast. If anyone tells you that people don't notice your weight, well let me tell you it's not true, I have proofs.

Water Fasting - Importance of how to break a fast

Here's an interesting article that explains the importance of breaking a fast, I think everyone should carefully break a water fast to avoid dangerous side effects, I will definitely keep in mind all these advises while breaking my Water Fast:

"Breaking the fast is equally or more important a stage than the fast itself. It is the most dangerous time in the entire fast. If you stop fasting prematurely, that is, before the body has completed detoxification and healing, expect the body to reject food when you try to make it eat, even if you introduce foods very gradually. The faster, the spiritual being running the body, may have become bored and want some action, but the faster's body hasn't finished. The body wants to continue healing.

By rejection, I mean that food may not digest, may feel like a stone in your stomach, make you feel terrible. If that happens and if, despite that clear signal you refuse to return to fasting, you should go on a juice diet, take as little as possible, sip it slowly (almost chew it) and stay on juice until you find yourself digesting it easily. Then and only then, reintroduce a little solid raw food like a green salad.

Weaning yourself back on to food should last just as long as the fast. Your first tentative meals should be dilute, raw juices. After several days of slowly building up to solid raw fruit, small amounts of raw vegetable foods should be added. If it has been a long fast, say over three weeks, this reintroduction should be done gingerly over a few weeks. If this stage is poorly managed or ignored you may become acutely ill, and for someone who started fasting while dangerously ill, loss of self-control and impulsive eating could prove fatal. Even for those fasting to cure non-life-threatening illnesses it is pointless to go through the effort and discipline of a long fast without carefully establishing a correct diet after the fast ends, or the effort will have largely been wasted."

Water Fasting - Stage 3 and its amazing benefits

Today I was looking online to see if I can find which one are the different stages of a prolonged Water Fast, so I found this website which I found Stage 3, in the specific, to be perfectly explaining some of the great benefits of a fast. It is a must read article!

Stage 3 (Day 8 to 15)

On the latter part of an extended fast, you can experience enhanced energy, clear-mindedness and feel better than you have felt since childhood, On the downside, old injuries may become irritated and painful. This is a result of the body’s increased ability to heal during fasting. If you had broken your arm 10 yrs before, there is scar tissue around the break. At the time of the break, the body’s ability to heal was directly related to lifestyle. If you lived on a junk food diet, the body’s natural ability to heal was diminished.During fasting, the body’s healing process is at optimum efficiency. As the body scours for dead or damaged tissue, the lymphocytes enter the older-damaged tissue secreting substances to dissolve the damaged cells. These substances irritate the nerves in the surrounding region and cause a reoccurrence of aches from previously injured areas that may have disappeared years earlier. The pain lasts as the body is completing the healing process. The muscles may become tight and sore due to toxin irritation. The legs can be the worst affected as toxins accumulate in the legs. Cankers are common in this stage due to the excessive bacteria in the mouth.