My Fast Diet

Excerpt: "This is the third day of my fast-diet, and I feel more energetic now than I did when I was eating a lot."

My original purpose in doing this fast-diet was as a physical cleansing and for spiritual balance. I was just going to do this for one or two days, and only keep going if I was fairly comfortable with it. When I realized that I was feeling healthier in body, mind, and spirit, I decided to keep going. Realizing that I was losing weight was a nice benefit as well. Yes, it is a struggle at times, but it's well worth it. Even though I didn't start out doing this for the weight loss, I'm going to post my weight for each day because I know that weight loss is a big motivating factor for a lot of people.

I started at about 1:30am Monday night / Tuesday morning of Oct 14th, just before bed. All day Tuesday and Wednesday, the only things I ate were fresh fruits: bananas, grapes, oranges, peaches, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, and blueberries, most of which were from fresh fruit mixes we got from the local grocery store deli area. For dinner, I had a bowl of corn and stewed tomatoes (both from a can) with a little salt on them. Yes, corn and tomatoes are fruits. I ate about 900 to 1000 calories of fruit per day. For me, this is a pretty extreme fast, because I'm a fairly athletic person, so I usually consume about 2500 to 3000 calories per day while maintaining a steady weight.

For the first few days, the only things I drank during this fast were water and fresh-brewed green tea mixed with some other teas and a touch of honey. There are almost no calories in this drink. I took an All Day Energy vitamin each morning. This vitamin contains caffeine equivalent to a cup of coffee, time released. Every day, I'm having some caffeine, exercising, meditating, reading, and working (my work mostly consists of programming and writing for my website).

Day 1 - Oct 14 - 189 lbs
900 to 1000 calories - fruit
Caffeine: All Day Energy vitamin, green tea
1 hour of exercise
4 hours of meditation
The first day was pretty easy. This is a contrast from the other two times I've done this diet this year. The first time I did it, the first day was extremely difficult, especially late in the evening, when I was craving grease and salt. The second time, the first day was easier, but still very difficult. Each of those times, I did the diet for two days. This time, it's been much easier overall, and I've lasted longer.

I think there are two main reasons this time has been a lot easier than the other two times: 1) I have the experience of the other two times. They helped strengthen me, and prepare me for what I'll be dealing with. 2) I've had a very spiritual attitude about this one, and I've been meditating a lot.

I spent the entire first morning meditating on spiritual light, healing, creation, and love. I meditated for longer at once than I ever had before, for about three hours. I think this helped my comfort level a lot during this fast. I've been reading a great book on spirituality and meditation, as well as my programming books, and a great sci-fi book. I've meditated for a few minutes here and there all throughout this fast. Each day, I've been meditating and reading a lot, as well as exercising more, sleeping more, and working more. I haven't been playing video games, which I used to do for a couple of hours a day, so I have more time and energy for other things.

Day 2 - Oct 15 - 185 lbs
900 to 1000 calories - fruit
Caffeine: All Day Energy vitamin, green tea
45 mins exercise
2 hours of meditation
Yep, I lost four pounds on the first day of the diet. Of course this is normal. We all carry a lot of food around with us. As soon as you go onto a very limited diet, you're going to lose a few pounds when that extra food clears out. In the evening, it got fairly difficult for the last few hours.

Day 3 - Oct 16 - 183 lbs
900 to 1000 calories - homemade vegetable beef soup, peanut butter on sunchips with a glass of milk
Caffeine: green tea
1 hour of exercise
2 hours of meditation
This is the third day of my fast, and I feel more energetic now than I did when I was eating a lot. It was difficult last night, but I awoke today full of energy and ready to work. Yesterday, I had decided that I would cook some fresh vegetable beef soup today, and eat a little of it for dinner. Since I awoke so full of energy today, I decided to completely fast until dinner. The last thing I ate was some corn and tomatoes last night at dinner time, so this will be nearly a full day of complete fast by the time I eat dinner. Two full days of nothing but fruit followed by 24 hours of complete fast feels like a pretty good cleanse. I also did not take an energy vitamin today, but I am drinking my green tea.

Today, I worked on LifeChat for a few hours, then danced, then started preparing my fresh vegetable beef soup. It's cooking in the crock pot now. I haven't even had an urge to eat today. I have more energy with less input, which goes well with my Flow theory. We are energy channels. Balancing input and output produces greater health. Since I have a little extra fat on me, it's very good for me to cut back on the input. Also, my body is getting a chance to clean out any excess toxins and build-up, and my digestive system gets to rest today. All of these things combined are making me quite comfortable with not eating anything today, even energetic, after two days of partial fast.

Day 4 – Oct 17 - 181 lbs
900 to 1000 calories - fruit, fully dressed cheeseburger, fries, one soda
Caffeine: green tea, soda, coffee
15 mins of exercise, 1 hour of light exercise
4 hours of meditation
One of the first things I noticed on Day 4 was greatly increased Novelty-Seeking. I felt like getting out and doing something different. When I went to read, I picked up some different books to read than usual. I did some different exercises than usual. When Becca got home, we went shopping, then went to a Bowling Alley. We hadn't been to one in years. I ate about 250 calories worth of fruit during the day, having already decided that I would have a burger and fries later. When we got to the bowling alley, we each got a fully dressed cheeseburger (keep in mind that a grilled, deli-style cheeseburger is much healthier and lower in calories and fat than the average fast-food cheeseburger), fries, and a soda. I almost got another soda when we were done eating and on our way to the lanes, but I decided that I'd had enough calories (especially sugar), so I got a coffee instead. After we finished eating, we continued chatting until 10 pm, when Cosmic Bowl started. It was fun: loud music, mostly dark bowling alley with black lights and glow-in-the dark patterns, plus colored flashing lights between the lanes that pulsed with the music. Then we went to a midnight movie. When we got home, I was still wired from all of the caffeine and novelty. I stayed up working and meditating until about 5am. From the time we got home to the time I went to sleep, I was intensely craving a snack of milk and peanut butter, but I stuck to my decision that I'd already had enough calories for the day.

Day 5 - Oct 18 – 181 lbs
1000 to 1100 calories – fruit, pizza toppings with no crust, salad
Caffeine: All Day Energy vitamin, green tea
½ hour of exercise
1 hour of meditation
I've remained the same weight as I was the day before most likely due to regaining some of the food weight (as opposed to calorie weight), since I ate some bulky food last night. Today is Saturday, and it was about having fun. I found that I was easily able to focus on the fun and barely even thought of food. Of course it probably helped knowing that I would allow myself a small meal of “regular food” in the evening like I did last night. I meditated for an hour in the morning, then worked for a few hours, then exercised. In the early evening, we went out to eat at Gattiland, where I ate the toppings from several slices of pizza and a salad with a small amount of dressing. Then we went to the movies. It was a fun day, and it was pretty easy to stick to my calorie goals. I had a lot of energy all day today.

Day 6 – Oct 19 – 181 lbs
1400 to 1500 calories – fruit, tortilla chips with homemade light chili cheese dip, one soda, ice cream
Caffeine: green tea, one soda
40 minutes of exercise
15 minutes of meditation
It's Sunday. I thought I'd be done with this by now, but I'm not. I'm actually thinking of continuing for a while, due to the fact that the positive results seem much greater than the discomfort. The addition of “normal foods” from Friday on has definitely made it easier, though the extreme calorie restriction is still quite hard. I've weighed 181 for three days now. I'm most likely still losing a tiny amount of body weight each day, but gaining food weight as I'm eating heavier foods again. I was tired and a bit cranky for most of the first half of the day. I allowed myself some extra calories, including a few spoonfuls of ice cream, though I still kept the total calories low and kept the main food focus on nutrition. After I finally got some exercise and a few minutes of meditation in, I felt a lot happier and more energetic, and ended up getting quite a bit of work done in the evening.

A couple of things I've noticed this week: I've been healing faster, and I relax more easily in general. I'm thinking that the lack of calories is causing my body to become more efficient, and not waste energy on tense areas, which means that stress is not accumulating or lingering. Of course the meditation is helping with this as well.

Day 7 – Monday Oct 20 – 181 lbs
1600 to 1700 calories – half a Red Bull, half a Border Bowl (Taco Bell), 15 Sunchips, 2 glasses of milk, half of a protein bar, spoonful of peanut butter, very small bowl of homemade vege beef soup
Caffeine: half of a Red Bull
30 minutes of exercise
40 minutes of meditation
I sipped on a Red Bull and nibbled on a protein bar during the first half of the day, while listening to Trance music and working. I ended up alternating between working and exercising all day, and enjoyed every bit of it. Not only that, but I got into some aspects of my work that I had been avoiding. In the evening, I got the idea to look up “brain games” in Google, in order to find some good mental exercise games. I found some very good ones, and had a lot of fun playing them all night. Again, this goes back to the novelty-seeking. I wanted to do something different, and stimulating.

Day 8 – Tuesday Oct 21 – 181 lbs
1000 to 1100 calories – fruit, protein shake blend, half of a protein bar, small bowl of chili, 15 chips
Caffeine: small glass of green tea
45 minutes of exercise
45 minutes of meditation
Something wonderful happened. At one point, I opened a soda and sipped it, then realized that it wasn't even very pleasant, and certainly didn't feel worth all the sugar-calories, so I set it aside and didn't touch it for the rest of the day. I was thinking that I would eat a similar though slightly smaller amount of calories as I did yesterday, but in the evening, I didn't feel hungry. All evening, I felt perfectly satisfied and fine. While I was working, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, “I'll eat a little something and watch a show when I'm done here.” After I was done working, I felt like playing some mental-puzzle games online, so I did that for a while. Then I decided to meditate for a while. It was a very good meditation session. When I was done, I realized that I didn't feel hungry, and that I felt deeply relaxed, so I happily went to sleep.

Day 9 – Wednesday Oct 22 – 180 lbs

More to come at a later date.