Fasting
I have begun a ten day fast and this time around I am going to blog it here. I've fasted several times before, and I think I've mentioned how very little real information there is out there about fasting. Anecdotal information isn’t as good as medical studies for a variety of reasons but collectively it’s a pretty good resource. So this blogging project is sort of a contribution to that. I’m probably only going to leave these entries public for a little while, to try it out with my friends, before polishing it up and reposting somewhere more appropriate. After all I don’t really want the whole internet coming over here and this journal isn’t indexed by search engines anyway.
I haven't talked about this in public much before because when people hear I've stopped eating the response is too often something along the lines of "OMG, you [have an eating disorder/are going to ruin your health]". Which is ridiculous. First of all, people have been fasting for thousands of years. Secondly, it's probably *less* of a health risk to go through periods of hunger than it is to have as much as you want to eat all of the time for years on end, because (evolutionarily speaking) those are the conditions under which our species evolved. As for the eating disorder part, I would postulate that all of Western civilization has an eating disorder and I'm no crazier than anyone else who has to live in it.
More on that, I'm sure, as the fast progresses. Since I won't be cooking/eating/cleaning up after cooking or sleeping off any "food comas", I'm going to have a lot of extra time. Even just today, distracted and cranky as I am (the first three days are always pretty horrid) I have a lot of extra time to do stuff. There is a lot on this that I've had peculating in my head since my last effort but never quite got around to writing down.
I'm going to be doing a water fast, which means eating absolutely nothing. (Well actually, I let myself drink herbal tea, but I figure that's close enough to nothing.) The reason I do this is because I believe it's the most effective and because I want my digestive system to completely shut down. In order for that to happen, you have to not be eating. I (and my whole family) is prone to GI problems and giving the system a rest every now and then is probably necessary. I've chosen to do it for ten days because (a)the fun part only really starts at day 4; (b) I've enough experience by now to fast safely for that long; and (c)I'm not quite up to doing 21 days - it would mean fasting on Valentine's day and anyhow it's been a while since I fasted so I should start with a shorter period.
Expect to see posts every day for the next two weeks. I will be updating here with my progress and various writings.
I haven't talked about this in public much before because when people hear I've stopped eating the response is too often something along the lines of "OMG, you [have an eating disorder/are going to ruin your health]". Which is ridiculous. First of all, people have been fasting for thousands of years. Secondly, it's probably *less* of a health risk to go through periods of hunger than it is to have as much as you want to eat all of the time for years on end, because (evolutionarily speaking) those are the conditions under which our species evolved. As for the eating disorder part, I would postulate that all of Western civilization has an eating disorder and I'm no crazier than anyone else who has to live in it.
More on that, I'm sure, as the fast progresses. Since I won't be cooking/eating/cleaning up after cooking or sleeping off any "food comas", I'm going to have a lot of extra time. Even just today, distracted and cranky as I am (the first three days are always pretty horrid) I have a lot of extra time to do stuff. There is a lot on this that I've had peculating in my head since my last effort but never quite got around to writing down.
I'm going to be doing a water fast, which means eating absolutely nothing. (Well actually, I let myself drink herbal tea, but I figure that's close enough to nothing.) The reason I do this is because I believe it's the most effective and because I want my digestive system to completely shut down. In order for that to happen, you have to not be eating. I (and my whole family) is prone to GI problems and giving the system a rest every now and then is probably necessary. I've chosen to do it for ten days because (a)the fun part only really starts at day 4; (b) I've enough experience by now to fast safely for that long; and (c)I'm not quite up to doing 21 days - it would mean fasting on Valentine's day and anyhow it's been a while since I fasted so I should start with a shorter period.
Expect to see posts every day for the next two weeks. I will be updating here with my progress and various writings.