Fasting: Days 4-8

Fasting Preparations Wrap Up

Days 4 & 5 were that last days of my five-day preparation for the actual fasting. I fudged a little on the raw food diet when I went to lunch with some friends and ate some vegetarian dishes with only cooked vegetables in them, and also when I ate some sprouted wheat and zucchini in spaghetti sauce which had been heated in a microwave. I figured these were OK exceptions since they had no dairy or meat in them. For my last meal, I ate some Chinese-style vegetables which were extremely satisfying and delicious. I've included the recipe below. My weight loss leveled out on these last two days.

The Actual Fasting

Friday was the first day of fasting and it went pretty normally. I didn't have any food or drink until I had been at it for 24 hours. I fast like this at least once per month and I didn't experience any discomfort. The only sad thing was that there was a big party at work on Friday afternoon with lots of delicious food and I had to go home without having any. L

Saturday was an interesting day. I began drinking plenty and I felt good enough to take part in a couple of projects. The first project was to help a neighbor move out of his apartment. That was pretty light work that lasted about an hour. Of course, my neighbor brought donuts for everyone to enjoy. That was sad, but I let my son eat mine. He ended up feeling sick later because he ate three! My next project was much more taxing. I spent five hours with my son refinishing a friend's garage door outside on a hot day. It was a very strenuous tasks, but I still felt up to it in spite of not having eaten for over 36 hours. On Saturday night, I started to feel my first discomfort in the form of heartburn and a little dizziness. This is similar to what I felt last time.

Today, Sunday, I felt pretty tired. It's not a sleepy, worn out, kind of tired, but rather like the energy pathways to my muscles are constricted. I've been maintaining my morning exercise routine as an experiment and I have not noticed any weakness, just this odd sensation of wanting to lie down all the time. Anyway, I went to church with my family and felt good enough to attend all the meeting and enjoy them. I started drinking an herbal drink for use during fasting and that seems to help a little with how I feel. (Recipe below) I've been at this now for about 71 hours. I definitely want to continue another day and see how hard this is to take at work. I'm a little worried about how this will affect my performance, but I haven't felt any degradation in my thinking abilities. (Hopefully evidenced by this blog entry. :) )

Other Obervations

I started tasting ketones in my mouth on Saturday morning and this flavor has been increasing through today. It is not very pleasant by it is tolerable. As I expected, I have had no hunger pains at all. All I have had is the light sensation of an empty stomach that comes and goes, and I don't feel it very often. I attribute this to the five days of preparing by switching to raw foods. I've felt a little minor light-headedness on the third day of fasting. My weight has also been plummeting. I have been losing about 2-3 lbs per day during the fasting.

RECIPES

Chinese-style vegetables, lightly cooked.
1 onion
2-4 cloves of garlic
2 small zucchini
1 Bell Pepper
1 Large head of Broccoli
1 C sprouted wheat
Olive Oil
Vegetable Bullion

Sauce
½ C Soy Sauce
½ C Rice Vinnegar
Thumb-sized chunk of Ginger
2 T brown sugar

Make the sauce by mincing the ginger and stirring all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl. This will go on top of the vegetables later.

Dice the onion into large chunks. Mince the garlic. Set these aside in a small bowl. Cut the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Dissolve the vegetable bullion in ½ Cup of hot water. Heat 3 T of olive oil in a wok on high heat. When the oil starts to smoke, add the onions and garlic and stir for 30 seconds, then add the rest of the vegetables and stir for 1 minute. Then add the vegetable bullion and cook for another 30 seconds or so. The onions will be clear, but everything else will be lightly cooked. Servers 2-4 depending on if you eat anything else with it.

Herbal Drink Recipe
8 cups of water
4 teaspoons each of cumin and coriander powder
8 cardamom pods
4 teaspoons of crushed fennel seeds
2 pinches of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder (or 3 slices fresh ginger)

Mix all ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from heat and keep covered for another 15-20 minutes. Strain through a sieve and drink it warm throughout the day.

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