Water Fast Day #22

Thursday – Water Fast Day #22
11:30 AM
In these days I’m thinking and thinking on how to break the Fast. One very important thing to be aware of, when breaking a prolonged fast, is that right after the Fast is broken a famine hunger comes very suddenly; so strong that I could eat the entire McDonald’s menu 5 times! So I will need to have a very detailed plan on how to break my Fast and be very strict to stick with it 100%. That’s why I am trying to figure out what is the best way of refeeding. In my previous fasts I always ate watermelon, to begin with, but this time around I would like to start with some vegetable juice too; actually I was thinking on having a drink of 50% juice of veggies and fruits and 50% of water – this to avoid a big spike of insulin. The first day I would have 8 ounces of this mix, 4 times during the day and with the days I would increase the ounces and decrease the frequency of my meals. I will post a detailed plan when I finalize it.
Today I don’t feel great in terms of motivation, I often think about eating or drinking something, but I’m being strong and not surrender to these temptations. I think it might be also due to the fact that is Christmas time, all around is a feast of colours, food, gifts, and of course I would like to enjoy the season and eat everything I could possibly eat, all those cookies, pastry and tasty sweets! But I guess is a good thing for me that I’m fasting during the holidays, so I won’t gain back in a snap everything I lost with so many sacrifices.
When doing a prolonged fast is normal having some weak moments; it’s part of the process for sure; but being in Ketosis helps, no food can certainly tempt me enough to break my fast. The only thing that could force anyone to give up a Water Fast, after so many days, is a physical issue that is compromising the wellbeing of the individual itself, this danger can be scary enough to break earlier…or not, any fast. So learn to listen carefully to your body and not push too much to reach too fast a breaking point.
It is Day #22 today but it’s still so early for me, I have lost basically nothing compared on how much I still need to lose, so I must keep going no matter what, otherwise I would be just wasted 22 days for nothing. But I’ll keep on going, I know it’s boring but the days will pass and I’ll be thankful that I did it; after all this is just between me myself and I.

Combined Dry and Water Fast - 30 days completed!

So I successfully completed 30 days of my combined Dry/Water Fast; who knew I could go so many days without eating, not so much for the absence of food rather than the willpower of staying away from food itself. Oh well, time passes after all and at the end of the journey looking back does not seem that difficult, if done once in a while.
Today I planned on refeeding with Bone Broth, I’m now sipping on my Mason jar with 1/3 of Bone Broth and some boiling water; I must to say it taste awful, I added too much water and the end result is not great at all. I’ll do better with the next jar I hope.
Last night I had hard time sleeping, as often happens, but this time my mouth was extremely dry, as I never felt before, I was trying to drink water during the night, but it wasn’t helping. I was wondering if it was a sort of sign that I should break my fast, but I didn’t feel hungry at all, just thirsty. Well this morning I was very weak, I could not walk to come to work, I took the streetcar for most of the way here and walked with lots of challenges the rest of the way, thinking that I could faint any time. Most probably it was just my mind making up this scenario, but I didn’t like how I was feeling and I was ok with the idea of refeeding on Bone Broth today, I need to have a normal life and functioning properly, otherwise I cannot continue any fast whatsoever.
My eyelids are still twitching often, a sign that I have some nutritional deficiencies for sure, but I hope once I start to eat again things will be better. I cannot wait to eat a hearty salad from my favourite restaurants. Now that I’m drinking I feel really tired, the refeeding process, let’s face it, it sucks; eating after a prolonged fast takes so much energy from the body that basically shuts me down while I’m digesting, and I’m just sipping on a little bit of Bone Broth with tons of water at the moment!
I still have lots of weight to lose unfortunately, the rate on which I was losing weight was not that fast so I would’ve needed another two weeks to reach my ideal target weight, but I could not handle another 2 weeks of Water Fast, I’m getting tired of not eating; I hope with good food and exercise I can reach my goal, and maybe I’ll do short Water Fast here and there to stabilize my weight and lose another couple of Kg. The important thing is that I don’t gain any weight and I maintain wherever I am now, or less of course. Wish me luck!

Combined Dry and Water Fast - Day #27

I’m almost at the end of another week, on Day #27; so far I’m ok but I’m definitely feeling the side effects of so many days of Fasting. I cannot do long walks, well at least not today, sometimes one day can be totally different from another. My arms are still very weak; I don’t have much strength to do heavy lifting or things like that. Yesterday I had to change the system inside the toilet that control the water tank with the lever and so on; well it was a real challenge for me removing the old pump and unscrew the various pieces! I thought I could not do it at some point, that I had to call a plumber; fortunately I managed to find some strengths and I was able to change and fix everything, I was proud of myself at the end; not only for my handy-man skills but because it was tough on my body the overall process.

My mother is becoming a bit worried about me not eating since so many days and she keeps on asking me when I’m going to end my Fast; but I told her that I planned on refeeding by the end of next week, if everything goes well; at the end I listen to my body and how I feel day by day, and really the days pass, once into a Water Fast you don’t realize how time can be so erratic and it goes, no matter what you do, you just need to have some patience, let things go, let your mind being distracted by the bigger picture not the challenges of the moment, it won’t work easily if we engage in analyzing too much how we feel now, rather than how we would feel if we give up.

For today I was thinking on doing another enema, I don’t feel constipated or uncomfortable, but I had feelings that I could have still some residual food sitting in my GI tract that would need to be removed, so not to poison my body. I was also wondering if I would ever see any parasites coming out of my body; not that it is something that I’m looking forward to, but lots of people doing Water Fasts are reporting of getting rid of parasites and worms and nasty things like that; which is a good thing to know that they are leaving the body anyway; I personally cannot say that I ever got rid of any of those things, who knows if they are hard to go or just I didn’t notice and I actually did removed parasites in my previous fasts.

My weight loss is still very very slow unfortunately, but there is not much I can do I guess, I was hoping I would be at 57Kg by the end of this week, but clearly is not going to happen, I’m still in the 59Kg and it’s already Thursday today. I hope at least by Monday I will be able to see the 57Kg somehow. If I am in the 56/57 Kg by the begin of the next week I was thinking on switching my Water Fast to a Bone Broth Fast, always drinking water on the side but starting to add some proteins and vitamins from the broth. I already know that I won’t be able to handle too much Bone Broth for too many days without being sick of it, so I might have it only here and there during the day and for the rest my usual water intake. But I’m not sure yet, since much would depends on what my weight will be by begin of next week.

My mistakes after breaking a prolonged Dry Fast

After few failed attempts I finally found the strengths to start a new prolonged Dry Fast. I managed my refeeding process very poorly last week after completing my 6 days with no food and no water. In my defense I have to say that I broke my Dry Fast as planned, drinking Coconut Water, Bone Broth and I had 2 soups and 2 mud puddings to go easy with my digestive system. Even Coconut water was giving me diarrhea so I couldn’t eat anything solid anyway.
Unfortunately the long weekend out of the country came by and all my good intentions were out of the window, sabotaged also by my man and his food obsession. I started to eat whatever I wanted from the menus, without not even thinking that my metabolism was too slow to manage all that food. My boyfriend started also to ask me if I wanted an ice-cream, a chocolate bar or anything sweet every five minutes! It was exhausting, he knew I didn’t want to fall back into my dirty habits, but this didn’t stop him to keep on buying me junk food in any occasion. At some point I felt he was doing it in purpose so I can gain weight and eat more than him, so he wouldn’t feel guilty with his food pleasures.
Although I broke my Dry Fast on Wednesday morning, I felt that I was still detoxing on Saturday and partially also Sunday. I had lots of BMs, due also to the pudding I guess but I certainly noticed a difference. Still today, my digestive tract is efficient, and I’m eating very bad in the past few days – just to mention yesterday I had a big Toblerone with crunchy almonds, a full bag of praline Pecans, 2 double OH!Henry and 2 Hershey white chocolate big bars, not to mention 4 McDonalds English Muffin sandwiches and a wrap, oh I also had some Coconut Water and my mud pudding at the end of the day. I know - I am ashamed of myself.
Today I was thinking that it’s been months since I didn’t go to a store to do grocery, since last time I cooked something for myself, like a salad or one of my favourite Raw Vegan sauces. I’m always struggling to stay away from food and then I see my man and I’m off the wagon again. I don’t want to stay on diet forever, I want a healthy relationship with food and, although I believe keeping Fasting as part of my life, it’s not easy doing a prolonged Fast, days feel like weeks, weeks feel like months when not eating or drinking anything. Yesterday I even thought of breaking up with my boyfriend, because his way of sabotaging my efforts on losing weight and stay away from sugar. I know he means well but he’s not stupid, he should understand that buying me chocolate bars is only damaging me, not making me happy. In the car eating all those chocolate bars, I was sad and happy at the same time, because I could see on my body already, those few days of eating so much what had done, my metabolism was too slow to handle.
If you Dry Fast for a prolonged period of time, remember your body will take at least 7/10 days to get back to normal, don’t eat too much of anything, or you’ll regret it – as I did.

Completed a 10-Day Water Fast!

Ok, so I have successfully completed 10 days of Water Fasting and I'm now in the 11^th day planned on breaking my fast this evening with bone broth. I do not feel hungry though, and a part of me would like to keep going and enjoy this amazing feeling that the fast is gifting me with. But everything has to end eventually and since I'm going to Italy in just few days I might as well start refeeding and be ready when I'll be with my family.

The mental clarity while I'm fasting is great, I am absolutely astounded every time I do a sort of longer fast. This is my second longest Water Fast after my 24 days, I think I could do another 10 days without any problem…but, as I said circumstances are against me at the moment.

Today I had for the third day in a row the same weight at 55.6Kg, but my Ketosis has been very high, over 100mg/dL; which is a value I rarely see in shorter fasts. So I don't mind much the plateau for now, I'm sure I'm losing inches somewhere and considering the colour of my Ketostix, I still have lots of fat to lose here and there.

I'm happy to report that I'm still having a sort of BMs, I did few enemas every other day just to help my detoxing process. I used to buy the Fleet enemas at the Drug Store but they're too expensive so I'm recycling it and reusing it after a deep deep cleaning! I know it sounds gross but $10 every other day is not affordable for me at the moment.

I believe that my weight plateau might be also due to the fact that I've been home in the past 3 days and not moving much around, since my condo apartment is very tiny; is not that I'm thinking of doing strenuous exercise or anything but walking at least one hour per day is definitely beneficial for my weight loss.

After I end this Water Fast I want to try to reduce as much as I can the carbs, in particular the fruits. I noticed that I tend to binge on bananas especially if I eat them with the peanut butter powder. Delicious combination by all means, but it makes me gain weight back in 2 days, which is not ideal for me. I also want to try stick on a 2 meal daily plan, basically IF, trying to eat first at 11:30 in the morning and then dinner around 5:30pm. Hopefully I can do it in Italy too, we usually eat late in the evening there, so it might be tough for me smelling all the amazing food my mother cooks without feeling hungry. But I'm planning on having big meals, mostly green leafs and fats like nuts and seeds. Wish me luck!

Starting a new Dry Fast

I'm starting a soft Dry Fast today and I'm thinking to buy 2 Bone Broth jars on my way over, so I can break this fast with the Bone Broth in few days. Because of the TOM I don't feel extremely well, I did not weight myself today because I'm confused, between the gym, my weight gain and the period, I don't know exactly how much fat I gained vs muscle or water retention. The Dry Fast will definitely help me with most of these symptoms. I wish I could stay all day in bed today, I might leave earlier if I don't feel staying in the office, there's not much to do for me here today anyway.

So far I'm taking every day probiotics, one in the morning with 50 billion and one in the late afternoon with 30 billion, going forward though I want to stick with only an 80 billion per day – I found it way more effective for me and easy to remember than 2 dosages. I didn't take anything this morning though, because of the Dry Fast I don't want to ingest anything that might need to be processed by my body; I want just to be focused on healing whatever needs to be healed. I still have some problems on my right knee, especially when I go into the cold, I wish all the issues I have on my ligaments can be fixed with this Dry Fast, sometime I'm afraid that exercise can further damage whatever is wrong with it.

 I am not crazy about Dry Fasting I must to say but – based on my researches – it is the most effective and absolute Fast out there, so whenever you're doing such an extreme action for your body you want to go with the most effective way on doing it. But in general I want to give another chance to Dry Fasting, I feel my body needs to be accustomed to this type of Fast to get all its benefits, plus every time we fast is different from the previous one. It also helps with the water retention and since I'm under TOM in these days, it would definitely help my body with that.

Yesterday I went for a 20 minutes run outside, it was a bit cold but not much to be unbearable during the run, what I didn't like though it was the pollution from the traffic on the street that I breathed while I was running. I can feel it now, coughing here and there….but I don't have a park nearby my place where I can go running and using the thread mill is not always appealing to me, sometimes I just want to try doing some HIIT changing speed while running. I know that often people say to change city, location if living in such polluted places, but seriously do you think I wouldn't like living and working in Costa Rica? Eating fresh juicy fruit every day? Staying in the sun every time I can? Of course I would! Who wouldn't?! But I live in Canada and we're not in the Tropics here - let's face it, this is a huge city and pollution is the least we can expect when living in the downtown area of such a big metropolis. Fasting also helps to get rid of those toxins we ingest, breath every day – it might not help with the Vitamin D but at least cleanses something else from the body.

Bone Broth Fast - My results after successfully completing 4.5 Days

So I completed successfully 4.5 Bone Broth Fast Days. I cannot say it was a pleasant experience I have to admit it, but after finding the low sodium Bone Broth at the store downstairs my office, it was definitely easier keep going. Overall I did not feel sense of hunger or weakness during the Fast; it was easy to compensate my cravings with a mug of warm broth – that might sound gross I know, but I always added so much water I could barely feel I was drinking the broth of dead animals bones.

At the end of the fast I did not feel miraculously younger, neither my skin looked different, so I thought that for me it was just a chicken soup, nothing to look forward to do again. I did not feel any mental clarity during the fast; nothing improved comparing to other regular days. However something different happened to me after 2/3 days of completing my Bone Broth Fast. My mental clarity came back, my cravings too ok…but slowly I felt lots of energy and motivation that brought me to exercise 4 days in a row without feeling tired or sore after that (maybe the L-Glutamine supplements that I'm taking helped too).

Yesterday TOM came back, regular period – after just a month! It didn't happen since at least 2 years – so I'm wondering if this could be due to the Bone Broth I drunk in those 4.5 days. It might be only a coincidence by all means, but I feel good so far, I gained some weight during the refeeding, trying to eat less fruits, mostly blueberries and half persimmons but my sugar addiction is still there unfortunately.

I usually start very well my refeeding process, I eat slowly, very clean, portion controlled; and then a bit more fruits, a bit more shredded coconut, maybe a couple of dates….maybe more, and on and on – out of control on everything, even my salads look for a 5-people meal! Good thing though is that the refeeding process for a Bone Broth Fast is not so drastic as the Water Fast or worse like the Dry Fast. I still needed to go easy on what I was eating but I didn't have 5 watermelons as the other Fasts!

During my Bone Broth Fast I had lots of BMs, maybe helped by the probiotics I was taking regularly twice a day, it was mostly liquid of course but I felt that definitely helped in my cleansing process, I did an enema only once during the 4.5 Day of my fast – just to give a cleanse to my colon. So far I'm not 100% negative on the Bone Broth Fast but I might need to try it again to collect more results.

Refeeding Process - Day #4 - What am I eating so far?

Today is for me the 4^th day of my refeeding process after my 22/23 Days of Water Fasting. So far is going well, I have had basically only watermelon the first couple of days and then I bought a delicious papaya, but the rest of the 3 days was just watermelon, carefully increasing the amount. I did not have any side effects for the food, actually yesterday I even had a BM, which I would define unpleasant but I guess is part of the whole process, reawakening my digestive system. This morning unfortunately my ketosis was gone, it gradually disappeared since I started refeeding, I'm assuming because of the sugar in the fruits, since I'm eating only that. But today I had a completely different meal plan; since I felt a bit down and weak yesterday – and the absence of ketosis worried me – I wanted to get some proteins, so this morning I prepared a smoothie with a scoop of vegan protein powder, an handful of strawberry, a cup of spinach and half slide of pineapple to give some sweetness. The proteins tasted really bad, I think one scoop was too much, but I felt ok after so I didn't actually regret having it.

My breakfast was with roughly 400gr of watermelon, this little one was tastier than the one I had on Friday, it was juicy and sweet; I had at around 9:30am this morning, trying not to drink too much water before or after my meal. It felt a lot of watermelon. I can tell that I cannot eat too much; my stomach gets full really quickly.

Lunch time was more on vegetables, I did not have much with me so I went downstairs to buy something; initially I thought it would be nice to try one of those place where they serve organic raw food, but all of the dishes were either with nuts, beans or fats, so I opted for the self-service isle at the grocery store. I got a tray of mixed greens (mostly spinach) with some cucumbers and cherry tomatoes; for the sweetness I added watermelon and cantaloupe. I tried to maintain the ingredients all with a high water content, nothing dry or with high fat. It was a very nice salad, but it took me sometime to eat it all, I had like half – then waited half hour – and finished the rest of it.

In these past 2/3 days while refeeding I can definitely tell how my body becomes extremely weak once the digestion starts, it's really unbelievable for me, all my strengths are gone in few minutes; yesterday I had to lie down for a little while, every time I was having a meal – this to confirm that really digestion gets a lot of energy from the body that could be used to do something else! I also notice a change in my thoughts clarity when I'm eating or when I'm digesting my meals, something that really I don't like so far.

My weight so far didn't change, I finished my Water Fast at 54.1Kg (119lb) and this morning I was stable again at 54.0Kg (118lb) – so pretty much as before, I'm expecting a weight increase for sure in the next few days, mostly due to the food that will be deposited in my whole digestive system but some retain of water as well. I have planned on maintaining a raw food diet for now, until my weight is good and stable at least. I do have a lot of small portions of chicken breast in the freezer that I really don't want to throw away, but it doesn't really expire frozen – I might think to have it once or twice a week, just to consume it, I really have no rush though.

Ending my Fast - Coconut Water disappointment!

It's officially started somehow my refeeding process after 23 days with water only, so today I had a can of coconut water. I have to say I was expecting a more engaging experience from it but in the contrary: I was disappointed. I really don't like coconut, even less the water; it was like feeling forced to drink down some sort of disgusting medicine, I'm here thinking that I should have the second can but I would rather fast for another week instead!

My original plan was to drink coconut water for the first two days then during the weekend to go on real food, 2 and 4 ounces of watermelon, but…hey plans can change, especially when the experience is the first ever. So tomorrow I will have my three meals with 2 ounces of watermelon; I'll stop by to a grocery store on my way home this afternoon, I hope I can find some organic one, not easy in this time of the year in Toronto though. I will prepare 3 portions of 2 ounces each, I'm supposed to start the first meal at 10:00am and from there every 2 hours another meal, counting by the end of my meal I guess, since it might take some time for me to carefully chew and eat my fruit, that's all I will have for the day.

This morning my ketosis was still very high, I believe more than 80mg/dL, the Ketostix was extremely dark, that's a sign that I'm still burning fat, and I can believe it since I still have lots of fat to lose anyway.  I know I might go longer on this fast but I really feel it's time for me to end it, I'm getting bored of drinking only water and some days my energy levels are not great, so I don't feel doing much, mostly I feel slow in whatever I do, especially when I walk. I want to be able to go back to the gym, I lost lots of weight so quickly and my body shape is terrible at the moment, so a good exercise routine now is really needed.

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%