15 posts tagged “fast”
It will be a relief. To be honest, I hated this program. Fasting is hard, and the point is to be someplace you're totally relaxed and where you can focus on yourself and on your experience. Instead, I was annoyed by everything (and not just out of fasting bitchiness -- that went away at day 4): the program grounds, which are inconveniently spread out (not to mention there's construction! Didn't I leave the dusty Olympic construction site that is Beijing to get some peace and quiet here?!), and the bungalow, which can be described as uninspiring at best. The mediocre beach and generally un-picturesque surroundings. This especially is a big drawback for me, given my new penchant for taking photos.
In all fairness, I've never found a fasting program I've really been happy with, which is why I try a different one each time. Turns out this schedule is jam-packed with lectures, which for a first-time faster is probably a great thing, but I've learned all I want to know about nutrition, food combining, and how awful alcohol and meat are for me. Yes, I agree that they will probably kill me -- and to a certain extent, I'm ok with that. I will never live on a tropical island on a raw diet of fruit and nuts, give Reiki and talk to my inner child. I came here to get away from schedules and do My Own Thing. Classes, aside from yoga, were not part of my plan.
What usually pushes me over the edge is the people who run these programs, because their perspective is generally so far removed from mine that relating on any level is nearly impossible. Still, I gave the first class a try, just to see. I'd heard great things about this woman and was curious why she has such a following... but she disappointed me by lecturing on information right in the materials she'd asked us to read. Fine, no epiphany here -- but I couldn't help thinking, why assign reading if you're just going to talk through it all in class?
The next day, feeling ridiculously crappy, I let her know I wouldn't be coming to class. She surprised me by _insisting_ I come, saying very forcefully how important the classes are. Hang on, I wanted to say, I'm not asking permission, just letting you know out of politeness! What is this, high school? Well, I didn't have any trouble cutting class then and I certainly don't now. *grins*
Anyways, you get the jist. It was still worth coming – I feel happier, healthier and altogether better for having fasted 7 days. If nothing else, the program made me happy to go back to my real life... and considering I was feeling a wee bit fed up with it before, that's no small thing.
Life in any major city is sensory overload. Bright lights, honking cars, rumbling buses, banging construction, and the all-too-frequent whiff of something rotting or sewage-like. If you're a city person, this is part of what you love.
The tropics have their own kind of sensory overload. This morning I woke up to the most amazing cacophony of birds: aside from the standard cheep-cheep tweet-tweet variety, which were deafening on their own, there is a shocking variety of tone, song, and melody. My favorite are the woop-woops, whose deep and resonating, er, woop, is totally distinctive from all the other higher pitched tralalas of the songbirds. I was surprised to find the sex bird here too. I have no idea what the bird actually looks like, but when one lived outside Mom's apartment in Hong Kong she was desperate to get rid of it because it kept waking her up early in the morning. The call rises in pitch, intensity and frequency, and is remarkably similar to what you would hear if your neighbors got it on at 6a.m. every morning. If you ever hear it, you'll know what I mean.
Then there are the colors, which after the grayness of Beijing winter make me almost wince, they're so bright. The different blues of the sea and sky, the lush greenness of plant life that bursts from every possible surface. And the smells! Sweet honeysuckle whose perfume, I'm convinced, could actually make you drunk. The air is so heavy with warmth and wetness and sea and smells it is a joy to just breathe.
Every once in a while I imagine what it would be like to live in a place like this, and then remember that you can only love it this much if you don't come very often. Or so I tell myself.
That's what this is all about. I tried not to pack anything unnecessary, and the majority of my (small) suitcase was books and bikinis. Other essentials included shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush and floss. Noticeably absent were anything containing chemicals or that I use to try and look good: make-up, perfume, jewelry, hair dryer and other various accoutrements.
It's not easy to go au naturel for 9 days. I feel bad for women who *must* wear make-up to leave the house, especially if they put it on just to go sweat it off at the gym, or to get coffee in the morning. I don't think they're really trying to impress their barista (well, some might be) but guess they're so used to wearing it that they think they look bad without it. I'm not different from them -- I do look better with with makeup, so yes it is hard to feel like you look ok without it -- but fight the urge to try and look good all the time. It's important to be at least comfortable with yourself as you are, which for me is slightly pale and under-age looking. ;>
Fasting helps you reconnect with your body... in ways you don't even want to hear about. For me it's less about self-image and body than an exercise in reconnecting with your mind. My life revolves around food, as does most everyone else's (to varying degrees). Eating is one of our most basic, fundamental and enjoyable habits. When and what I eat dictates my schedule, my social life and how I feel. Remove eating and the complete structure and framework for the day is gone -- and for me, the elimination of that structure liberates my mind. Without getting too metahysical on this, it basically means I am free to do, think and feel without the barriers of regular life. Not eating does the same for the body -- without all that food to digest three times a day (or in my case, every two to three hours) it is free to focus on all sorts of neglected things that it just doesn't usually have time to deal with. It's hard to believe, but coming out of this you feel like a whole new person.
So, let the fast begin.
In a few hours I'll be en route to what will certainly be the most unusual way I've ever celebrated Christmas: alone, on a beach, far far away from friends and family. Wait, it gets wierder -- I'm not going to eat. My season of indulgence will be spent fasting, hiking, doing yoga and reading in a little hut on the beach. To most people it sounds like the worst way to spend the holidays, but to me it is the best possible way to end an intense, exciting and challenging year -- resting and relaxing in preparation for the next one.
I take it all back. The fast made a huge difference. This week has been an adventure of tastes, smells and energy. It's like tasting everything for the first time! I feel more in tune with my body and am no longer at the mercy of sugar and caffeine addictions. Surprisingly enough, I have plenty of energy without caffeine, and more consistent energy now that I'm not subjecting myself to ]the highs and crashes that coffee causes. On the flip side, I can taste chemicals in food very distinctly, so some store-bought vegetables I used it eat now taste icky. Even more surprising is that I taste so many chemicals and so much sugar in wine, which makes me less inclined to drink it. Guess I'll just have to switch to scotch for a while!
This is the first solid food I've eaten in three days, and it was divine!
Today was a significant improvement over yesterday, but the verdict on fasting at home is still the same. I'm glad I did it... but think my expectations were too high because I'd had such a profound experience before. In retrospect, though, the fast did force me to totally relax this weekend, which was essentially the objective. Now I'm really looking forward to returning to "normal" life! Several lessons learned: fasting at home is less ideal than going to a spa dedicated to cleansing. That said, if you're going to do it at home, I think a 7-10 day fast is necessary to get beyond the terrible part and to feel real results.
Still, I come away with a renewed appreciation for food, and my lifesyle. Should I ask for more than that?
It's still no picnic (oh how I wish it was), but today was significantly better. I anticipated the cold and the headache, so armed myself with flannel pajamas and a blanket, and drank ginger tea like my life depended on it. Well my head did, anyways. The morning was ok, as I've now determined is the pattern, but afternoons are still rough. The key, as Megan says, is napping. I konked out for two hours again today after hitting a serious wall at about 3pm. The hunger pangs have subsided for the most part, and I went to see The Illusionist tonight (popcorn popcorn popcorn) without feeling like I was going to die. I admit to running past the concession stand, though, so as not to dwell on what I was missing.
I'm trying to reserve judgement until I see the final results, but at the moment I'm fairly disappointed with this fasting experience. While am enjoying some of the benefits of fasting such as heightened senses and a general feeling of lightness, they're so subtle as to be almost hard to discern. The combination of environment and circumstances means that I'm just left feeling sadly deprived of, rather than liberated from, food and routine. I can see why many people come off this fast and binge, whereas after my previous fasts I genuinely wanted to eat clean and raw for as long as possible. It could be the day two blues, but at the moment I just want pizza.
Which I know means that the detox is working, but that doesn't make me feel much better. The day got off to such a good start that I thought maybe my pre-cleanse had saved me from detox agony, but not so fast. By mid-afternoon there was a stabbing pain in my right eye that pulsed down through my neck and shoulders. <ouch>
I was HUNGRY.
Cold.
And damn cranky.
The good news is that napping, steaming, stretching and showering made things significantly better.
Overall, this is a very different experience than my previous fasts. I'd forgotten how tiring not eating is, and since I'm not on a tropical island this time, I'm very cold. Before, being removed from real life (no cell phone, no computer, no commitments -- no nothing) allowed for a mental experience as well as a physical one. Now, because there is no hope of mental rest in my usual environment (errands! obligations! real life!), this fast is purely physical. That doesn't diminish the physical benefits of fasting, but a big part of why I wanted to do this was the mental rest and recuperation.
Okay, so I didn't wake up at 7a.m. It's a long weekend! And I actually managed to sleep in until 8, which is no small miracle for me, so I wasn't going to fight it. I had my first psyllium shake after getting up and making some fresh watermelon juice to go with it (thanks Tara!). I followed the directions on the psyllium container, which calls for 2 teaspoons in 8oz of water. That's definitely significantly less than what we used in Thailand, because it didn't thicken up they way it did then, which kind of makes you gag.Rather than up the amount, I think I'll give this a try for this fast and see how we do.
I also had my first lemonde concoction, which tastes surprisingly good. Actually the recipe is very similar to the hot toddy I drink when I've got a cold, only I use honey instead of syrup, and this is (sadly) sans whiskey.
So far I'm feeling pretty good, though my muscles are a little sore. It could be from my workout yesterday, but it wasn't particularly rigorous so I'm surprised how much I can feel each muscle group. I'm going to make sure and do some exercise today, and will try and steam at the gym too to help detoxify.
