I’m conducting a 5-day fast. People say it’s good for me. I’m also looking to enhance my spiritual connection with life. I’ll be consuming exclusively water with sea salt, black coffee, black tea, sparkling mineral water, and delectable music. I’ll take some supplements as well when I feel the impulse, such as Natural Calm (Magnesium), or vitamin D. Among the long list of ailments I’m open to resolving are: folliculitis, hemorrhoids, bruxism, and periodical general disdain for life. My girlfriend wants me to stop burping. I’m pretty sure for forever.
24 hours- my body tries to trick my mind into eating as I watch the sun setting over the distant horizon. I apparently “can’t possibly sleep without gorging on cookies, spiced cashews, and oatmeal…”
36 hours- Ummm. Defecation… smells oddly similar to paint thinner. Good thing that’s out of me. I feel cleansed now.
45 hours- I am wondering what to do with so much free time. Accustomed to eating at 6 PM every day, the blank space in my schedule has me feeling as if the day is never going to end. Is this what they mean when they suggest that fasting can promote longevity? Maybe it has nothing to do with autophagy and other cellular processes, but rather one feels as if he has had a long life because of all the time in misery wishing he or she could place a morsel of delicious, beckoning food in their mouth.
I find myself looking up from what I’m working on (the South Texas episode of Meat Eater), and almost getting out of my chair to find something to eat. The signals from my stomach, the habit of using food as a distraction, and the social cues elicited from the food-centric show converge to momentarily obscure the fact that I’m currently on a fast. I literally forget for a passing instant. Returning to reality, I hear a voice asking “is this really the right time for this? Maybe two days is good enough…”
I hear this voice often in life. The quitter in me. And I used to adhere to it’s all-knowing, wise words more often than not. As a weaker child with no self-control, I found myself constantly eating to the point of discomfort.
I’ve resolved to see this through. Document the experience. Examine what there is to learn through this tool they call a fast. I say that I value the experiences in life that shift my mind and allow me to see life through another perspective. I believe this fast might have that effect and I cling to that hope and dream as my lifeline to guide me onward through the onslaught of self-doubt and ideations of ending the experiment.
Last week I decided to start my first 5-day fast. I had drank the night prior at a good old fashioned South Texas BBQ, so I convinced myself that I should eat before bed and settled for a 20-something hour fast. I’m ok with that because it had been a while since my last 24-hour fast and I wanted to prepare better.
I am not ok with that choice now, though. I know what it felt like to eat the handful of key lime pie flavored cashews. Delicious, but not fulfilling. I want to be fulfilled. I want to believe in myself. If I can’t last 5 days without eating, I just won’t have faith in myself.
So do it for the longevity. Do it for the story material. Do it for the self-confidence.
It’s been too long since I’ve forced myself to do something difficult and stick to it until it’s finished. I need to do this for myself. For more internal peace.
46 hours- There’s a mild, sharp pain in my stomach. I wonder if this is the end… then it abruptly disappears!
47 hours- I accidentally consumed 14g of erythritol in a Virgil’s Zero Cola I had in my fridge… I almost quit and restarted next week but I think it’s not a substantial amount of calories and I’ll keep going with this journey.
48 hours- I’m exhausted… as I drive to my work site, I feel as if I could close my eyes and drift into the warm, welcoming abyss of sleep. Walking up the stairs to my hotel room is a more difficult task with each step, but I feel a sense of peace. I’m tired, but it feels more serene than the usual, irritating, tiredness I’m more accustomed to feeling.
65 hours- Hungry, but not hungry enough to convince my resolute soul to break it’s word and consume some food.
72 hours- Three whole days! I drank a cup of natural calm (magnesium supplement) in an attempt to enhance my sleep quality and then lied down to sleep. Right as I initiate dozing off, I feel my body lurge and a noise jumps out of my mouth. I have hiccups. And they are the deep down in the bottom of my diaphram type of hiccups. The type that seems to rattle your entire physiological system. And I suddenly feel like my heart is beating really sluggishly. Large gaps in time seem to pass between the atria and the ventricles pumping my crimson life fluid: “Buh boom……. buh boom…. buh boom.”
And I have a difficult time feeling for my pulse through my ribs.
I was recently diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation after seeing a cardiologist for some heart fluttering I had been noticing in the late mornings for the past few months. So with this in mind, ostensibly out of fear for my life, I decided three entire days thinking of, but not participating in the enjoyment of devouring food was long enough for my prematurely aging body.
72.5 hours- Wow! It’s amazing how much pressure my bowels are capable of producing!
83 hours- The main outcome of this fast I have noticed has been improved oral hygiene. I had been experiencing what seemed to be mild gagliotta thrush. Each morning, I’d use my fantastic copper tongue scraper to squeegie away a night’s build up of thinly coated yellow-brown slime. The issue wasn’t sever enough for me to worry about it, but one time my girlfriend had commented that my tongue looked oddly brown after drinking coffee. So that’s gone now!
I feel slightly disappointed that I didn’t push myself through the late night anxiety/heart attack, but I more so feel assured that I listened to my body and didn’t take undue risk with this old broken heart.
So moral of the story: don’t fall in love, listen to your body, and if you think some lifestyle experiment will be an interesting time, try it out!