Trying fasting

I had two big full plates of extremely delicious Thai vegetable curry for lunch yesterday, and I felt bloated and didn’t eat anything for the rest of the day. I certainly still felt stuffed when I went to bed yesterday, and when I got up this morning my stomach was still not emptied. I would like to give my stomach a rest, so I decided not to eat anything today. Naturally I began to wonder if fasting was healthy, so I searched online. This led me to a whole day’s reading about fasting (except from 1 to 5pm when I hung out with friends). What I was surprised and happy to find was that fasting seems a lot like practicing vegan. They both make you healthier and more spiritual. They are both radical changes to my life and require a leap of faith. Two articles into reading about fasting, I had already decided to take the challenge and practice fasting to explore myself.

Yesterday I ended my curry feast at around 1:30pm and hadn’t eaten anything besides warm water until 5:55pm today. It was my first fasting experience, and it was not painful at all. I didn’t suffer from unbearable hunger or any unusual symptoms, except that 1) My breath and body odor were a little bit unpleasant this evening, 2) I drank a LOT of water today. Today is probably my highest-water-consumption day of my life so far. I was not really thirsty, but I just WANTED to drink this much, partially because it made me feel more filled. I ate two apples on 5:55pm, because I read that fasting for one or two days does not get you to the extremely beneficial deep cleaning stage yet, but it breaks down your muscles. Although it looks like I water-fasted for 28 hours this time, I don’t think the 28 hours fully counts, because even this morning I still felt a little bit something in my stomach. So I thought eating apples at dinner time today could stop my muscle breakdown right in time and also satisfy my stomach when it routinely secreted digestive juice. After further reading, I now tend to believe that fasting for 24 hours does not really hurt muscles, but I’m not 100% sure. Need more research. But at least I’m now ok with fasting for one or two days without being too concerned about losing muscles.

Longer fasting is definitely disproportionally more effective than shorter fasting, so I’ve decided to do a 10-day water fasting during spring break from March 18 to March 28. There will be only 10 days between my graduation on June 12 and the start of my full-time job on June 22, and I’ll work in banking for two years, so I see this spring break the only chance I can do a longer fasting in the near future. The trick is that extended water fasting is better not conducted during periods of stress and heavy workload, so I won’t do it during school year or on the job. I’ve been vegetarian for more than one month and vegan for more than three weeks, so I’ve already started the right preparation for longer fasting. However, since water fasting is an intensive experience for newbies, I think I should do more preparation in the next three weeks by 1) eat mostly raw foods, 2) eat little greasy food, and 3) NEVER feel full. I’m pretty confident that I will easily obey these three fasting prep rules, because I feel a strong belief and commitment in fasting, just like how I believed in my commitment to vegetarian and vegan when I first started them.

Two things are still uncertain. First, since finals are approaching, I don’t know whether I should gradually adapt to fasting by doing one to three days of water/juice/fruit fasting every week in the next three weeks. Second, since today all I had were two apples, I’m actually still on a fruit fasting. So if I continue to eat only fruit tomorrow, I’ll continue the fasting I started yesterday, which will give me a more intense first fasting experience. With regard to these two uncertainties, I think I’ll just listen to my body when I need to make a decision.

Finally, I’ve been not using facial cleansers (except during shower times) since I made the decision of not using them 5 days ago. My skin didn’t change much. Maybe it became a little bit worse, but it could be the skin’s adaptation to the change or the symptom before menstrual cycle. Anyhow, today I’ve decided to go back to using facial cleansers once a day, because when your body actively releases toxins, you want to clean the pores to assist the removal of toxins; I believe in the stage of transitioning to a healthier diet, which is what I’ve been doing recently and will do for the next few weeks, the body releases toxins at a faster rate than usual.