My 5 day fast.
Update: Had to break the fast early, details below.
Health benefits of fasting
Most people who first hear of my fast plans react in the same way, that is to question my sanity. However for those not aware I have been living with chronic pain for about 14 years now. I have chronic pain in my neck from an old wrestling injury, pain in my shoulder from an old weight lifting injury, a strange bicep tendon pain that has never been diagnosed by even the best arm specialists and a newly developed soreness in my achilles from basketball. On top of that I have developed intolerance to some of my favorite foods and have not slept a full eight hours in many years. I have also in the past 14 years tried every possible cure: two surgeries on my shoulder, cortisone injections, supplements, physical therapy, massage, chiropractics, pills, herbal treatments, etc. After many thousands of dollars, countless hours and agony it would appear that there is one thing left to do - let my body heal itself. Fasting is an old practice that functions primarily on two basic principles. First, by shutting down the entire digestive tract we allow the body to utilize it's energies on more useful things (like healing) and secondly by experiencing a prolonged fast we force the body to consume fat reserves thereby releasing stored toxins. Toxins have been a very popular concept recently judging by the amount of products on the market that promise to deliver an ever growing dosage of anti-oxidants. Indeed with America's relative unhealthy eating habits the amount of toxins we may be consuming from our processed foods can be quite high and our bodies may be running on contaminated sources of energy. Some of the diseases claimed to be cured by fasting include everything ranging from asthma, diabetes, psoriases, eczema, to hypertension, gout, rheumatic arthritis.
Preparation
In order to transition to a 10 day fast I have spent two weeks consuming a vegan diet. It was hard to give up beef, chicken, fish, milk, yogurt, brownies, ice cream and other junk. However jumping from a rich diet of animal proteins and dairy to a fast is such a rude awakening that the chance of surviving the fast drops to virtually zero. Furthermore by running two weeks on just fruits, veggies and rice/quinoa I can significantly mitigate whatever cravings may develop during the fast. I have already experienced several days that were rather difficult and made me want to quit, with strong gnawing stomach pains and a desire for something wholesome and filling. I have a certain amount of fear that if my pain was already bordering on the unbearable during the vegan phase that the pain during the fast will be on a magnitude larger. Still, I ate so many vitamins and minerals from dark leafy green vegetables that I practically glow in the dark. Good stuff.
My Intention
While the benefits of fasting mentioned above are rather generic, I have certain hopes that if I can achieve will make this whole process worth the effort. I will list them from least to most ideal.
- Eat healthier after the fast. Fasting supposedly removes unhealthy cravings as the body purges out toxins that provoke addictions regardless if you are craving brownies, nicotine or alcohol.
- Have more energy to go the gym. By removing waste from the system and promoting better blood circulation the body experiences less fatigue and downtime.
- Eliminate stomach gnawing hunger pains. Supposedly fasting promotes true hunger and removes the stomach pains that are not natural and happen because of our poor diets. True hunger is theoretically felt in the mouth and throat like thirst, so the experts say.
- Clear up skin. If fasting can cure things like psoriasis, I hope it clear up other anomalies, would be great to have a flawless face.
- Cure my inflammation. I have no hopes for this what so ever. Not only because 14 year pain going away after 10 days is unlikely, but because nothing ever worked and this seems like a huge stretch. Beats eating ibuprofen like candy though.
The Fast
Day 1
It is now about 9pm and it has been a tough day. I am glad this fast began on a Friday and most of the day I was able to focus on tasks at work, but there were two especially challenging moments. Around 12 oclock my stomach automatically demanded food, partly because for the past many years I ate at that time and partly because the previous two weeks have been less than fulfilling. On top of that without breakfast and my body was getting a bit cranky. Thankfully most of the office was empty and the food distractions were minimal, Monday will be much tougher for example. The next time was around 4pm when a dreadful thought entered my brain and refused to leave, the realization that I cannot go home and stuff my face. Not eating is actually not as bad as the fear of not being able to eat! From a purely physical standpoint, no amount of water was able to satiate the pain in my stomach and the pain was at times quite sharp and gnawing. As of this writing my ears seem to be hotter than usual and I am feeling colder than normal, but otherwise everything appears to be in order. I am currently coming up with creative recipes of how to mix distilled and filtered water to make a better tasting water. Perhaps I can shave some ice for dessert - that would be fun. I am fearing tomorrow, I really am.
Day 2
It is about 10pm and it has been a mixed day, following a pretty rough night. Sleeping was difficult given the stomach pains which is turning into a mix of anxiety, pain and general discomfort. I am not really sure what to make of the pain really, it is roughly the same kind of pain I feel when I crave food, but I suppose I have never felt it for such a prolonged time before. This is officially the longest I have gone without food in my entire life, a pretty interesting statement to make!
Anyway, I went to the store this morning to buy more water and it was certainly strange to walk around a supermarket, experience the smells and observe people's carts full of potentially delicious meals. Mine looked a bit pathetic, several distilled water jugs and some Sparkling Poland Springs water with lemon essence.
While many people on a fast experience boredom I have no such issue, my main problem is the gnawing stomach sensation which is preventing me from focusing on anything for a prolonged time. Incidentally the pain gets especially bad around 12 and 6 o'clock, traditional times of eating for me. I really hope I can get more sleep than last night not so much for the energy, but with the desire to get rid of this damn pain. I am also reasonably sure that this stomach pain in somewhat unique to my situation, I was scouring the web for similar information and virtually nobody who fasted mentioned stomach pain. Therefore I will assume that this is my body's withdrawal symptom and its way of telling me to eat something. I have no intention of giving in, but if this pain continues then it will be insanely challenging to do all 10 days. Yet if I quit too soon then I will always have persistent stomach pains and will never experience genuine hunger, and will just have to accommodate my stomach every time it demands food.. Similarly if the pain continues for much longer then perhaps this is more than just withdrawal and perhaps I have issues that need to be examined.
Overall the day was not too bad, although for the past hour I have been feeling a bit lethargic. Stomach pain and random heat spells, which is odd because most people feel cold as the body slows down and conserves energy. Hopefully tomorrow once the body switches to ketone consumption the stomach will finally shut the hell up and let me be. Hopefully.
Day 3
Morning: I slept! Other than a few hours between 4-6am I slept well and without much pain. In fact, the issues I had sleeping were the same issues I had for half my life, my neck and shoulder and not my stomach! What a relief. Now that I am up it seems to be rumbling a bit more, but the pain is significantly subdued compared to the previous two days - you have no idea what a relief that is. I am actually a bit hesitant to drink my morning water because I do not want to aggravate anything. I have also possibly understood the source of the pain. Of course the primary reason was indeed withdrawal, but not just to food, but to anything. It occurred to me recently that over the past few years my portions were huge - really huge. Other than my brother who has a black hole for a stomach I eat more than anyone I know. Over the past two days my stomach has actually been physically contracting and becoming smaller. This is painful. Very painful. However it is a fantastic thing to do. Not for calorie restrictions reasons per se, since I am slim now anyway, but because burdening the body with constant digestion is not something we as humans should be striving to do. My energy levels are stable and I am going to the gym right now, light cardio workout to stimulate blood flow. So far so good.
Evening: Well today was a very good day, at least for the most part. I went to the gym, helped parents clean the yard and even took a walk with them to the town lake (a 3 mile walk). I had plenty of energy, was quite hydrated and felt good and the 70 degree weather did not hurt in one bit. I tried to nap, but could not fall asleep due to my neck pain - a rather typical occurrence. I then did something which I never did before in my life and even though I was quite torn about doing it given the conflicting research it ended up being the right decision.
You see, I had a desire since yesterday to go to the bathroom (#2), but felt somewhat restricted. So I figured and with my parents adamantly insisting I went ahead with manual intervention. I must say this is an exciting week for firsts, because this was the first time I allowed a traditional one-way exit to be used for ulterior motives. I bought myself a handy dandy kit from CVS and went to town on my colon. Let me say, this was not a particularly pleasant experience and felt alien to me from start to finish. Instructions on the web suggest that a proper enema should be held for about 10-15 minutes as the water flushes through and dislodges stubborn deposits. What a load of crap :) Within 2 minutes I felt like the bottom portion of my torso was about to fall out my-you-know-what. Oh well, seemed to have done the job and relieved the pressure.
In the evening I visited some friends nearby who had a kitchen full of delicious foods and fresh fruits - that was hard. I then went to hang out with some other friends and they just ordered takeout Korean food, the smell of the food was absolutely heavenly. I stayed in the living room as they ate in the kitchen, but it was quite a test of will. As the night progressed my stomach got more and more aggravated, this was a bit depressing to me as I thought in the morning that the stupid organ left me alone, nope, no such luck. As of this writing however it has been exactly 72 hours since my last meal - three full days. I should be in ketosis by now and the cleaning phase of the fast shall begin immediately! Quite excited to see what will happen in the coming days and sincerely hope that the stomach discomfort goes away tomorrow. Off to get some sleep, need energy for work and the ability to withstand my lovely co-workers eating next to me in the team room.
Day 4
Not a good today, definitely worse than the previous. Basically I was overwhelmed and still am with nausea and no matter what I do it refuses to subside. To make matter worse my neck pain is now flared up at its maximum as if I played basketball all day long. On a more curious note my right calve muscle hurts when I walk. So the scientific side of me wants to say that this is toxic release because that is precisely what happens on the 4th day with ketosis fully under way, but the emotional whiny girly side of me thinks this is a serious problem and symptomatic of a more serious problem. I figured after yesterday's more or less successful day that my stomach woes were behind me, but apparently the fun has just begun. I am not interested in violating myself again with another plastic bottle, nor am I interested in introducing laxatives as they will upset the cleansing mechanism. My only options are to drink a ton or go to sleep, yet I can't sleep because of my neck pain. FML.
Work was not productive at all as I found it very difficult to concentrate while my stomach performed various gymnastic feats, at least most of my co-workers were supportive and impressed with my endeavor. I also can't stress the importance of a proper preparation proper to the fast. I am sure 100% that if I spent one or two months on a vegan diet instead of two weeks that I would not be experiencing these awful symptoms. For anyone considering this adventure heed my advice, especially if this is a first fast, prepare very well or suffer the consequences. My issue was that I was actually getting rather uncomfortable with the vegan diet itself and just wanted to get on with the cleaning process. Yeah, bloody brilliant idea. No turning back now, time to suffer through it.
Day 5
Well I got some good news and some very bad news for you. Which one first? Good news?
Good news: My achilles is cured! Yup, 8 months of pain gone. That right calve muscle pain was my body healing my heel. Interestingly enough some time ago I was doing research on trigger points and trigger point therapy thinking that most of my muscular pain is a result of trigger points and the achilles trigger point is located in the calve! Anyway I can now walk without any pain, but more critically when I press on the heel itself it no longer hurts whereas before it was extremely tender and sensitive. The fast is working!
Very bad news: The nausea was really bad, bad enough such that I skipped work today. Worse yet I could no longer stomach my distilled water and this was starting to worry me. Because I was no longer drinking and probably dehydrating, on top of that I had the sensation to vomit from virtually any impulse. I have a very sensitive gag reflex as it is, but today it got to a point where I checked my tonsils and immediately threw up. There was not much throwing up, but more dry retching and releasing of stomach bile. That made me temporarily feel better, but I was getting concerned. I slept for two hours and then spoke to my dad who said that he was not able to stomach distilled water either, this registered with me as the idea of drinking that water made me want to puke. So I prepared myself a saline wash with 1 teaspoon of sea salt and downed it down followed by another cup of simply filtered water. It seemed to go down well, except 15 minutes later all of it came right back up. I was on my knees in front of the sink spitting up my stomach juices feeling pretty damn sorry for myself. So here is the scoop folks. If my nausea does not go 100% go away by tomorrow morning I am ending the fast. I feel a bit like a quitter, but for me it is always safety first. Whether I did not prepare myself well enough or whether a fast this long was too much of a shock is not relevant. I am upset that I am already experiencing healing, but this healing wont do me much good if I create some system imbalance. Even though so far most of the days were pretty miserable I can see via my achilles that this natural healing works, so I will certainly attempt the fast in a few months again - but for now I am very close to breaking it. Oh well.
Day 6
Oh well, it was not fun while it lasted, but it had to be cut short. To make a long and painful story short, at around midnight I woke up with an extremely uneasy feeling in my stomach. I went downstairs to maybe drink some water and found myself once again, for the third time, keeled over near my sink spilling whatever was left of my guts. This time however the bile that was coming out of me was a dark brown color and I knew immediately that I was in trouble. See, vomiting is pretty rare as it is among fasting patients where only 15% of the people experience such symptoms, but it is more unusual to have non-stop vomiting. What is even MORE unusual is to experience brown bile discharge which essentially meant that my liver was giving up. Yeah, not a pleasant sight! While I am not entirely sure of the reason behind the liver problems, I suspect that given this was my first fast and my gratuitous consumption of NSAIDs, Percosets and allergy medications probably left quite a bit of nasty discharge and now my liver was laughing at me as it was purging all that crap. On top of that given my delightful heel recovery and throbbing pain everywhere else I assumed that my muscles were in full toxin discharge and it was a bit too much a bit too fast.
Anyway, a small part of me felt that if the fast is working I should continue, but a much bigger part of me was yelling at the smaller part and asking whether it was mentally challenged. After all, what good does it do me to fix my shoulder and have my liver shut down? That is not very bright now is it? Too bad fasting does not make one smarter, because even the thought of continuing a fast while watching brown liquid spill out of my gullet should qualify me to the insane asylum. Thankfully for everyone the thought was fleeting and I broke the fast shortly after. Somehow I was rather prescient and asked my parents to bring me a bag of oranges just a few hours before this sad incident and I feasted. Oh my, let me tell you, a navel orange never tasted so sweet! It was like a juicy candy with a peel! I chewed it ever so slowly and let the juices drain down, truly amazing! Washed it down with some peppermint tea and went to bed. Because my digestive system was empty (not counting the brown goop that belongs in a car repair shop) everything was absorbed within 30 minutes. From a scientific standpoint I slowed down my detoxing and slowed down the liver discharge thereby relieving the discomfort instantly. Woke up a few hours later and performed the orange/tea combination and slept until morning.
Breaking the fast is extremely important, so I took it slow all of today including taking yet another sick day off. I still felt a bit dizzy, weak and nauseous but it was nothing compared to the previous day. I went to the local market which for some reason smelled like a trash heap and bought some watermelon, tomatoes and carrots. I ate every 2 hours today, went to the bathroom finally and other than annoying heartburn am feeling much better. I do not consider myself a quitter because I broke the fast for health reasons and not because of a lack of will. Although the benefits of this particular fast are not quite apparent other than the heel, I will update this particular post for the next few days and then at weekly intervals. It is crucial to understand whether the changes experiences during this fast are permanent and what other behavioral modifications occur in the comings days, weeks, months. I firmly believe that my lack of preparation has caused me this discomfort and although the thought of another fast is literally sending chills down my spine it would be wise to repeat this endeavor within a few months. This time the preparation will be for months and it will include both a colon and a liver cleanse, so that my body can start with a clean slate.
Thanks for reading and supporting me!
...update coming...
Good news: My achilles is cured! Yup, 8 months of pain gone. That right calve muscle pain was my body healing my heel. Interestingly enough some time ago I was doing research on trigger points and trigger point therapy thinking that most of my muscular pain is a result of trigger points and the achilles trigger point is located in the calve! Anyway I can now walk without any pain, but more critically when I press on the heel itself it no longer hurts whereas before it was extremely tender and sensitive. The fast is working!
Very bad news: The nausea was really bad, bad enough such that I skipped work today. Worse yet I could no longer stomach my distilled water and this was starting to worry me. Because I was no longer drinking and probably dehydrating, on top of that I had the sensation to vomit from virtually any impulse. I have a very sensitive gag reflex as it is, but today it got to a point where I checked my tonsils and immediately threw up. There was not much throwing up, but more dry retching and releasing of stomach bile. That made me temporarily feel better, but I was getting concerned. I slept for two hours and then spoke to my dad who said that he was not able to stomach distilled water either, this registered with me as the idea of drinking that water made me want to puke. So I prepared myself a saline wash with 1 teaspoon of sea salt and downed it down followed by another cup of simply filtered water. It seemed to go down well, except 15 minutes later all of it came right back up. I was on my knees in front of the sink spitting up my stomach juices feeling pretty damn sorry for myself. So here is the scoop folks. If my nausea does not go 100% go away by tomorrow morning I am ending the fast. I feel a bit like a quitter, but for me it is always safety first. Whether I did not prepare myself well enough or whether a fast this long was too much of a shock is not relevant. I am upset that I am already experiencing healing, but this healing wont do me much good if I create some system imbalance. Even though so far most of the days were pretty miserable I can see via my achilles that this natural healing works, so I will certainly attempt the fast in a few months again - but for now I am very close to breaking it. Oh well.
Day 6
Oh well, it was not fun while it lasted, but it had to be cut short. To make a long and painful story short, at around midnight I woke up with an extremely uneasy feeling in my stomach. I went downstairs to maybe drink some water and found myself once again, for the third time, keeled over near my sink spilling whatever was left of my guts. This time however the bile that was coming out of me was a dark brown color and I knew immediately that I was in trouble. See, vomiting is pretty rare as it is among fasting patients where only 15% of the people experience such symptoms, but it is more unusual to have non-stop vomiting. What is even MORE unusual is to experience brown bile discharge which essentially meant that my liver was giving up. Yeah, not a pleasant sight! While I am not entirely sure of the reason behind the liver problems, I suspect that given this was my first fast and my gratuitous consumption of NSAIDs, Percosets and allergy medications probably left quite a bit of nasty discharge and now my liver was laughing at me as it was purging all that crap. On top of that given my delightful heel recovery and throbbing pain everywhere else I assumed that my muscles were in full toxin discharge and it was a bit too much a bit too fast.
Anyway, a small part of me felt that if the fast is working I should continue, but a much bigger part of me was yelling at the smaller part and asking whether it was mentally challenged. After all, what good does it do me to fix my shoulder and have my liver shut down? That is not very bright now is it? Too bad fasting does not make one smarter, because even the thought of continuing a fast while watching brown liquid spill out of my gullet should qualify me to the insane asylum. Thankfully for everyone the thought was fleeting and I broke the fast shortly after. Somehow I was rather prescient and asked my parents to bring me a bag of oranges just a few hours before this sad incident and I feasted. Oh my, let me tell you, a navel orange never tasted so sweet! It was like a juicy candy with a peel! I chewed it ever so slowly and let the juices drain down, truly amazing! Washed it down with some peppermint tea and went to bed. Because my digestive system was empty (not counting the brown goop that belongs in a car repair shop) everything was absorbed within 30 minutes. From a scientific standpoint I slowed down my detoxing and slowed down the liver discharge thereby relieving the discomfort instantly. Woke up a few hours later and performed the orange/tea combination and slept until morning.
Breaking the fast is extremely important, so I took it slow all of today including taking yet another sick day off. I still felt a bit dizzy, weak and nauseous but it was nothing compared to the previous day. I went to the local market which for some reason smelled like a trash heap and bought some watermelon, tomatoes and carrots. I ate every 2 hours today, went to the bathroom finally and other than annoying heartburn am feeling much better. I do not consider myself a quitter because I broke the fast for health reasons and not because of a lack of will. Although the benefits of this particular fast are not quite apparent other than the heel, I will update this particular post for the next few days and then at weekly intervals. It is crucial to understand whether the changes experiences during this fast are permanent and what other behavioral modifications occur in the comings days, weeks, months. I firmly believe that my lack of preparation has caused me this discomfort and although the thought of another fast is literally sending chills down my spine it would be wise to repeat this endeavor within a few months. This time the preparation will be for months and it will include both a colon and a liver cleanse, so that my body can start with a clean slate.
Thanks for reading and supporting me!
Post fast reflections
...update coming...
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