• 

I’m in the middle of a fast. Instead of spending lunchtime wondering what I wouldn’t have for lunch, I thought I’d write this. I guess I’m hoping the fast will compensate for the overeating I did last week. Worrying about this whole COVID-19 outbreak didn’t encourage healthy eating! 🤪

I’ll start with the disclaimer that I’m not qualified to promote fasting to anyone & you shouldn’t do it without learning more about it. If you’re sick, skinny, pregnant, nursing, or in any one of a host of other circumstances do not do it. And always, always, only do it in consultation with your doctor. I spoke to my doctor about it before I gave it a try. Besides, I’m not very good at it. I usually give up way too soon. The great thing about fasting is that you can re-frame the failure. When you give up early & eat, you can still say you managed to successfully completed a fast. Albeit one that was shorter than originally intended!

This one, however, has already passed the 40 hour mark. So I though I’d brag about it!

No, that’s not true. But I did think you might be interested to hear that I’ve had two of the best nights’ sleep that I’ve enjoyed in a long time since I started it. My stomach feels pretty good too. Though it’s occasionally behaving as if I was on one of those high-fiber cleanses! I started this fast while suffering from some kind of cold or flu bug (I hope!) & that doesn’t appear to be bothering me as much today as it did yesterday. I’m not quite fasting perfectly either. It was supposed to be just water, with occasional pinches of Himalayan pink salt for the electrolytes. For better or worse, I’m still having my coffee, with cream. I am trying to limit that to 2 or 3 cups in the morning. Okay, it’s 4 & they are mugs, not cups! I’m trying out tea too. To see if I can get away from the cream.

The Himalayan salt has some trace potassium & other stuff that’s good for us but maybe not enough of an electrolyte load for fasting. I should probably be taking a potassium supplement too. But this really wasn’t planned, I was just overcome with the desire to fast on Sunday & I went with it. Could that be because I’d been eating garbage all day!?! 😁

So long as I continue to feel well, I’ve got another 32 hours to go. And just in case my resolve weakens, I’m hoping that putting this out there will help keep me on track. If I screw it up, I’ll share.

The pic at the top is a screen capture of my Life fasting app. Along with the live fasting cycle above, you get other neat stuff & some useful information. You can engage with other fasters (is that even a word?) & you can sign up for one on one coaching with them. This isn’t the only app for fasting but I like this one because it has those little badges. It’s like how the kids get stars & stickers at preschool. Okay, I’m still a kid, so what, you’re not the boss of me! The cool thing about the icons is that they tell you what your body is doing when you reach that point. You get some idea of when you are in ketosis & burning fat. You know when autophagy cuts in. This makes fasting just a little more meaningful. And that helps with hanging in there.

Actually, I think there’s another icon that appears when I pass the muscle flexing arm, for the 54 hour point. And another one at the 72 hour mark. I wonder if I can last long enough to have them all show up? 😁

I’m almost enjoying this fast. But I’m looking forward to getting back to eating too.

Just not yet!

Hope everyone is doing okay with all the challenges these days. Stay safe out there.