Before I tell you about my fast I’ll tell about my day at the beach today. So I’ve been disciplined lately about going to the beach to walk barefoot in the sand to strengthen my feet.
I was tired from the previous week of fasting, but it was sunny and I am doing 30 days of this at least despite haven’t slept well for the last 3 days. After I got a few food items from the market I rode out to the beach and complained the whole way about the damn wind blowing in my face.
I guess I start losing it when I get tired… complaining, etc.
Then I get out there try to lie down for a bit and decide to take out my mushrooms I bought so they can get some vitamin D too (you know they absorb D like we do? Paul Stamets told me so).
And they stank like these kinds sometimes do when they are wrapped tight in plastic. Hate that smell! So I continued complaining to myself, lied down in the sand for a moment until a big gust of wind blew a bunch of sand in my face.
Then I got up, and I dropped my stinky mushrooms in the sand, picked them up and continued down to one end of the beach. After I got to one end I turned around to go get my bike to head back home.
Then WTF…
As I was walking back all of a sudden something big hits me from behind and my arm.
It was fucking hawk!
It wanted my mushrooms!
I couldn’t believe it. This is a big bird. It’s like twice the size of a crow maybe more.
That’s what I get for complaining!
After he hit me he kept circling above and watching me. I thought he was going to come back. He must of smelled those mushrooms.
I looked it up and maybe it’s called a black kite or honey buzzard and looks kinda like this.
And you know what? I should have just given them to him because they smelled so bad that I threw them out later!
So that’s nature it’s natural state is starvation.
Ours too, but…
It’s supermarkets and comfort foods nowadays. Yet, when you start going back 100 years, 200 years ago, etc. your ancestors were starving at times just like that bird was.
In reality we are all scavengers, just times changed for many of us.
Wow, I got bum rushed by a big ass hawk.
5 days no food.
Previously the longest I ever fasted was about 4 days a couple of months ago. But Sunday I finished 5 days without a bite of anything to eat. I did all right, I just drank tea and lied down when I felt tired.
The last time I did the 4 days I was going for 5 days, but started feeling sick and quit and then made a soup, but was fine.
I will probably post a video about my 5 days in the future, but I did alright then Sunday night I ate things seemed okay but didn’t sleep well again.
Then last night I don’t know… But I got really sick like thinking I was dying sick. I threw up my dinner which was pineapple, grano padano cheese, spinach and fried eggs.
All things I ate the night before without a problem.
So I don’t know why.
That cheese though I think didn’t taste right to me. It was a different kind than I bought last time.
Saturday night the last night of my fast I slept like 4 hours (that time partially my fault for listening to a podcast late at night), then like 5 hours on Sunday and then like 4 last night after like 2 hours of nausea and then finally throwing up.
I don’t know if it was bad food that I ate and a combination of fasting changing my gut or making it more sensitive or the dairy?
Yet earlier in the day I made a curry dish with raw milk, cauliflower, cashews, mushrooms. etc and I was okay.
Plus aged cheese contains almost no lactose so maybe it was bad cheese or you know the pineapple the second time wasn’t so fresh tasting it kind of had that smell like the mushrooms did a little – like it was aging
I don’t know what’s going on though it seems like the food I am buying recently is going bad fast. Maybe I will stop going to the cheap store.
Even this morning my stomach was a little sensitive. On my second cup of tea I started to feel a little nausea so I just went back to water. Since I’ve had a few meals now and seem to be okay.
5 days.
I did it. Hoping for a good night of sleep tonight.
Going to bed hungry is tough. However, days 2 and 3 of this fast were fine for me and I slept well. It was that last night listening to that podcast that disrupted my sleep.
That’s what you get for staying up later on the computer or even listing to a podcast in the bath. You stimulate your brain when your body wants to sleep. My fault.
Perhaps this is part of the reset button of the fast. Let’s see how I feel in a few days.
Despite being difficult there are a lot of benefits to fasting. And more so to prolonged fasts like 5 days or more:
- Decreased inflammation
- Increased autophagy (which decreases as you age)
- Increased stem cells
- Increased growth hormone
- Increased vascular growth factor
- Increased fibroblast growth factor
I have injuries to heal (the above reasons) that’s why I did it.
But people fast for different reasons. Lots of science out there.
- Weight loss
- Neurogenesis – reduce alzheimers risk and improve brain function
- You’ll live longer and healthier if you do it and it’s the same with other living forms: yeast and mice
Valter Longo has a 5 day fasting mimicking FMD diet that’s steeped in science. His stuff is pretty interesting. I might try that in the future or some sort of longer term calorie restriction.
Some of his studies were with cancer patients doing the FMD diet 5 days a month. That would be easier than no food of course.
I think it’s good to cycle in and out of fasting.
It’s like regeneration and renewal.
So I am experimenting. I have done 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 day fasts and alternate day fasts, but really I think if you want results, well it depends on what results you want you have to make it a part of your life.