Dec 13 2007
Water Fasting, Day 2
Weight loss on day two - 3 pounds
Total lost so far - 6 pounds
Yesterday was another normal day, except for not eating anything. The caffeine headache was gone by afternoon, and I enjoyed a walk downtown to pick up a few gifts from Sunflower books. (My dog loves this fast, because Dr. Allan Cott, in his book Fasting as a Way of Life, insists on one hour of walking every day during the fast. That means my trusting companion gets an extra walk in the middle of the day - a treat he seems to greatly appreciate.
Not eating is turning out to be easier than I expected it to be. I have gone on juice fasts before, and I even bought a rather expensive juicer - but it really takes a lot of time to run all those carrots through the machine and then clean up the mess, so I haven’t used the juicer in years. Frankly, doing a ‘real’ fast, drinking only water, is a lot easier.
And I’m not having any symptoms that I wouldn’t expect if I were drinking juice instead of water. For that matter, I feel pretty much the way you’d expect on any diet that lowers the calories - so lowering them to zero actually seems easier than worrying about menu plans and points, etc.
Of course, my experiment is an effort to find out if one of Dr. Cott’s claims is true. He stated that a water fast will help anyone addicted to any drug to reduce their dependency on the substance, and that people feel much less inclined to eat junk food and sweets after the fast. Since sugar is addictive, and the holidays are coming up, I want to find out if it’s easier to avoid all the Christmas cookies and fudge, and pies and cakes and whipped cream….
But I can’t know until my five day fast is over. I do know that yesterday afternoon, after the headache was gone, I found myself being drawn to pictures of food. I didn’t feel hungry exactly, but I was very aware of food that was mentioned in books or shown on TV.
I watched one rerun of Numb3rs, for instance, and Judd Hirsch, who plays the father on the program, roasted a duck. That picture of the roast duck came back to me more than once, but it didn’t cause me to run out and buy a duckling at the local store - I was just more aware of food than I normally would be.
Interestingly, I also read a mystery novel set in France, and the author mentioned a lemon soufflé. The description of the dessert was quite well written, but it didn’t interest me in the least. So far, I have been drawn only to images of broiled steak and that roast duck, and fruit. Sugary food doesn’t appeal to me at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that the slight aversion to sugar that I feel now, on the morning of the third day of the fast, will continue. We just have to wait and see.
One thing I did notice yesterday was a heightened awareness of cold, and I needed to turn up the furnace. I normally keep the house a bit on the cool side, but that wasn’t comfortable yesterday. This is probably due to the drop in blood pressure that’s normal when fasting.
I also felt slightly weaker than normal when I woke up this morning, but that feeling went away as soon as I took the dog for his morning walk and drank several bottles of spring water. The feeling wasn’t uncomfortable, but I probably wouldn’t want to drive while feeling that way. Again, this is something that many people experience on any ‘normal’ diet, and on a juice fast. Since it went away so quickly, it certainly didn’t cause me to question my commitment to carry out this experiment.
So, I’ll leave you now until tomorrow morning - if you have any personal experiences with fasting, I would love to read your comments below.
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