How I came to do a total fast, and why the heck would anyone do that?

So I find myself on day 3 of a total fast.

Like, only water.

I never thought I would do something like this, but here I am and it feels right and ok.

How the heck did it come to this?

It felt like a cascade effect.

In my mind it began when I started de-cluttering the house.  I met someone on-line who specializes coaching getting clear and organized and I thought it would be cool to get some support to tackle those hard to tackle spots, like my basement. It was cool.  I was cleaning up, clearing out and loving how things looked and felt.

In the basement one morning, it occurred to me that clutter also happens in other ways- files on my computer for one.   In my adventure to become an on-line entrepreneur I had acquired lots of courses, webinars to watch, audios to listen to, way too many email lists subscribed to, not to mention my own pile of ideas I wanted to try.

And then, my body started to get into the action.  Sneaking in, the skin on my eyelids developed a spot of eczema.   I thought, ok, maybe my forays into pizza (my daughter worked at a super hippy pizza restaurant) wasn’t as innocuous as I had hoped.  

So I made a half attempt at less flour and sugar. The eczema began to spread.  I was on the road for the next three weekends and didn’t want to be hampered by needing to restrict my diet.  So I let convenience and fun take the lead. Read sandwiches in airports, a local brewery in Dallas (great Belgium style beer) and chocolate croissants. Add too many 5 hours-of-sleep nights, and I returned home with my eyelids all aflame.

“Alright, alright, you’ve got my attention and I’m listening now!”

Given my long history of candida, that’s the first thing I looked up, and yep, it fit the description.   I got serious. Researching candida diets (for the nth time cuz maybe there was something new since the last time).  I decided on starting with just raw and cooked vegetables, passing on the starchy ones.

The diet seemed to be making a difference, until I got into a jar of homemade tomato sauce with peppers (yum!) to liven up my bland diet.  Ouch!  My eyelid skin began to burn within a few hours.  “Jeez”, I wondered, “what could I eat?”

Well, I’m sure a lot of nutritionists would be happy to tell me their recommendations, but it just so happened to  have a rather serendipitous conversation about fasting on water with a seat-mate on the last airplane I traveled on the week prior.  So I looked into it.

Turns out that water fasting has been used for deep healing of the body since ancient times. Here is a quote by a famous ancient physician. 

“Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work.  The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.  Our food should be our medicine.  Our medicine should be our food.  But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.”– Hippocrates

Apparently, the switching of fuel sources is what makes the fast so unique. The body uses primarily glucose for energy that is converted from the food we eat. Excess sugar will be stored in the liver, called glycogen which is used to fuel the body between meals. These glycogen stores get used up after 12 hours of fasting.  

The body then switches to using fatty acids for fuel instead of glucose, called ketosis or ketone production. Ketosis takes a couple of days to kick in, but the body needs fuel in the meantime.  So on day two, the body will pulls from fat stores and also muscle mass. 

Now pulling from muscle mass is not good a good strategy. Just think how important it was for our ancestors to stay strong and able to hunt or scavenge, even if they hadn’t eaten for a few days.  

When ketone production is fully functioning as on day 3, the body strongly preserves muscle mass. Hooray! 

But this is where it gets really interesting. Even with ketone production, the body needs a small -amount of glucose taken from protein.  But in order to conserve muscle mass, it will seek out other proteins in the body first that don’t belong of the body; viruses, certain bacteria, degenerated tissues. Maybe even tumors?  

So this was my hope, then.  That my body would go into a deep healing and rejuvenation period, allowing the inflammation of eczema on my lids to have a chance to heal. 

And, so far so good.  Plus what a trip on a sensory, emotional and spiritual level!  I never thought I would want to go without food.  I LOVE growing food, cooking and eating.  But I must say, that everything in my system said “YES” to this.  I felt completely in alignment with this fast.

What has it been like? The first day felt kind of exciting and interesting.  Every time I felt hunger, rather than heading to the kitchen, I’d lie down and sense what it felt like.  I was surprised that when I focused on it, the hunger actually only lasted some 10 or 20 seconds at a time.  Not as scary as I had anticipated.

Luckily, I was somewhat prepared for day 2.  My husband had done a 7 day fast years ago and told me that’s the dark day of detox.  Even though I had been eating only veggies for a week previous, I guess I still had detoxing to do.  And I sure was pretty incapacitated. I felt nauseous when I drank water and completely exhausted.  The only activities that felt tolerable were taking a bath, meditating on healing, listening to podcasts, napping, and, oh, sipping hot water. Hot water took care of the nausea. 

I kept telling myself that I would make it through the day.  Of course I did. Time passes.  I slept a lot and woke up on day three feeling oh-so-much-better!  I even went to the farm and harvested greens for a restaurant delivery, did some writing (like this post), and felt generally relieved.  

My eyes skin feels more smooth. I’m headed in the right direction. 

I’m not sure how long I will maintain the fast.  I’ll listen to my body, watch the progression of my eyelids and follow my intuition.  

And I’ll keep you posted.

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If you want to know more about the de-cluttering coach I worked with her name is Elena Nebreda, living in Seattle, transplanted from Spain.  You can find her here. 

P.S. When I harvest at the farm, I love to pick and taste things; a radish or mizuna blossom, or lettuces.  Here are some of the enticements I had to resist.