Day 1 Water fast

[Sharon R]

Hi I'm new around here and I just wanted to say hi and maybe get a little support and encouragement. I am on day 1 of what I hope to be a short 3 day water fast. I hope I can make it to day 3 but right now dealing with a bad headache. I know this won't last but right now it sucks!
This is my first water fast and I know it will be good for me I just hope I make it through until Monday.
If I make it through until Monday then Tuesday and Wednesday morning I will do a GS fast and start back on food sometime Wednesday afternoon

I am not sure what my first meal should be. I know it needs to be light but what? I am not totally raw yet. I am vegan and hoping this fast helps me eliminate sugar and gluten from my diet.
Any thoughts would be very helpful.
Thanks so much!

[Lilly2010]

I'm fasting for four days starting tommorrow. It's good to start off on juices and slowly move on to solid food!

[Soose]

Hi, Sharon, I am not an old timer here but want to encourage you! :) I just came off a water fast (Monday to Friday) and am transitioning to a juice fast. One of the things about the water fast for me was it was a little lonely. (Most everyone is on other fasting threads but it was hard to read about the juices and GS's. So I thought I'd talk to you. :)

Aleesha posted some links to sites about fasting in the big "come one come all" thread or whatever it's called. It helped me to read those.

If it helps, I came off the water fast too quickly, big mistake. One thing someone said in the last day or so was that a water fast might need to be coupled with something to keep the colon cleansed out of the detox results. I didn't do that and got pretty sick when I started back. Should have started very slowly, diluted the juice, etc..

The benefit of the water fast I was looking for and I think succeeded was to rehydrate and break the patterns -- we'd been gradually drinking less and less and grabbing fruit or something instead of drinking water between meals. I'm happy to say my water consumption is back to when I was much healthier! :)

Hope your fast helps you! Hang in there! :)

[Soose]

p.s. Truly I am not extremely experienced at fasting so listen to someone else! :)

[Sharon R]

Thanks for the encouragement and the info. Last night got a little rough, I had a headache and brain fog, I just couldn't concentrate on anything so after a nice warm soak in the tub I went to bed! Day 2 is starting out OK still have a bit of a headache but I am going to try to get a few things done around the house. We will se where it goes. If I can make it through today I think tomorrow will be a breeze.

[Soose]

Sharon, if gluten intolerance is a problem, I have a book I found recently that you might want to look at:

_Was It Something You Ate_ "Food Intolerance: What Causes It and How to Avoid It"
... by Emsley and Fell (Oxford Press)

While it's full of chemical info and slow going for me, it is written for the layperson and it does answer lots of questions about food allergies and intolerances (and the diff). It explained lots of things I wish I'd known years and years ago.

One thing I learned was how the body can only detox some substances at a certain rate (and that depends on health and metabolism). So we can eat something or just one meal with the right combination of ingredients, and end up with a toxic overdose of that chemical. This book is full of good stuff, including stuff about gluten intolerance.

Emsley wrote a big book called _Nature's Building Blocks_ "And A to Z Guide to the Elements" which has a chapter on each element -- homeschooling, that's how I ran against the other book.

When you get time you might want to look into it.

Anyway, sorry about the headache -- this too shall pass! Good luck with the water today! Hang in there and be very nice to yourself. :) It's lovely to be around a group of people who are focusing on a healthy body! Every now and then I just have to stop other things and clear the calendar and say, we're going to focus on HEALTH.

[Sharon R]

Thanks for the recommendation. Not sure if it is a gluten intolerance as of yet, it's just a hunch I am going on. We will see where it takes me. I am also going to start doing a liver cleanse later this week to aid in detoxing my body. Headache is still here going to finish straightening up my desk, take a shower and maybe lie down. Hopefully I'll feel better later, I was hoping to go out to Whole Foods and get some items to juice and to put into a GS. We will see how I feel.

[Sharon R]

I had a pretty good day was headache free for awhile and even ran to Whole foods for some juicing, GS stuff and I made it without stopping at ANY of the samples. Which by the way NEVER happens. But now I am hungry the and the headache is back. I did make some detox tea But it isn't helping. I really want food but don't want to break the fast yet. It doesn't seem to matter what I do what web site I go to there stuff about food, it's really bad. Please give me the strength to finish this. I need all the help I can get!

[Soose]

Sharon, I have been on an extended water fast before where I was able to be around the food without problems. I sat while people ate, I had fun talking about their food and recipes and menus.

This time around it was different! I couldn't stay over on the juice fast thread; it was too hard! Every mention of anything bothered me. The one thing I did right this time is clear all the food out of the kitchen before we started. That really helped.

I conclude that it's two things different: environment and mindset.

Going to the store while water fasting would have been way too hard. Whew. I did read something like, "don't allow yourself to fantasize about how you're going to break the fast. (What foods you're going to eat.) You surely will."

Maybe try to find good things to do to help yourself and focus on that instead. And read about water fasting and the benefits?

Hang in there! :)

[Sharon R]

I finished my tea and it did help. I also stopped reading food post! Think I will head into bed in a little while. I have been trying to figure out how to break the fast maybe I won't focus on that any more maybe that will help.
Just 1 more day and Ill be done. I think I can do it.
Thanks for all your encouragement and advice. This being my 1st fast I am not sure I could do a longer one maybe next time I'll try a juice fast.

[Soose]

I'm thinking something to absorb and move out the toxins we start releasing on a fast, or a herb to alleviate the side effects... must study more on fasting.

[Sharon R]

Ok Here it is day 3 the LAST day. So far I am not hungry but a little weak and shaky. If I continue like this I think I'll be OK, if I get any weaker I might make some fresh juice. Either way I definitely feel good about what I have accomplished.
I will say this was a very spur of the moment fast and I will do more research about what I could do next time to make it easier and possible more efficient.

[Soose]

I was just thinking about you Sharon, glad to hear you're still with it! :)

[Sharon R]

Thanks so much for thinking of me it really made my day! I am sitting here sipping some green tea, we will see if this helps my weakness. I am going to try and make it until 6pm and see how I fee, if am still OK I will continue otherwise it's juice time. I'll keep you posted.

[Sharon R]

It's 8 PM and I am still fasting! I should be good until I go to bed and in the morning a lite but flavorful Green Smoothie! This really has been a good experience I might try it again. I can certainly see myself doing a juice fast but under the right circumstances I would do the water fast again. I don't think I could do more than 3 days but never say never. We will see were this journey takes me 1 day I hope it takes me to be mostly if not 100% RAW!

[Soose]

Congrats, Sharon! You have made your goal! :)
I did not say earlier but Aleesha had just posted... not sure what she called it... a guideline for her fast... it's on the bigger thread... if you decide to fast for that day, then during the day decide to stop fasting, you don't do that until the next morning. That helps get past the afternoon food cravings, etc., the moments of weakness. You did great with the tea! :)
See you in green smoothie land.

[Sharon R]

I actually read on one of the fasting sites I looked at that you should drink Green Tea on a fast and the one I had was a detox green tea so I figured how bad can it be. I think it helped with having a little flavor but it also calmed my nerves a little and relaxed me. At this point I'm just waiting for bedtime before I get hungry again.
See you in Green Smoothie Land. And thanks again for all your encouragement it really helped knowing someone was out there listening to me. I really appreciate it.