Results From My Day of Fasting
/ Casey DurangoAs noted in this post from yesterday, I decided to do a fasting day. Well, fasting as I see it. Not a full on Gandhi, not a political protest fast. Just not eating food for a day. I did have coffee with heavy cream, Coke Zero (I know, I know. I should give up that stuff, too) and wine. I wanted to lose not only the couple or three pounds I had put on from a lovely, relaxing time at the beach when I simply ate more food than I needed, I wanted to lose the mental feeling of heaviness. I've gotten so used to going around with the wonderful sensation of taking up less space on this earth, having shed 85 pounds on the ketogenic diet, I wanted to get in front of going back to a place that had dogged me for decades - actually feeling weighed down. And not just because added mass caused a greater effect of gravity's force on me. I didn't want to return to that perception of being being pulled down inside my own head. I've gotten greedy for the sense of weightlessness I've enjoyed. To turn a phrase on its head. I wanted that Unbelievable Being of Lightness. (Apologies to Milan Kundera)
My Day of Fasting (except for the bug)
So I didn't eat yesterday, other than a swipe of deviled egg filling and a bug that flew in my mouth while I worked in the yard. I noticed that around 10:30AM I felt like eating but it absolutely was from habit. Not from hunger. That's when I went to work in the garden.
At about 1:35PM my I heard rumblies in my tumblie. In the old days I would have patted myself on the back for having gone without food long enough to allow my stomach to growl - I had gone for years at one point without having felt that sensation - but remembered that Dr. Eric Westman, one of the world experts on the ketogenic diet, advises that such sounds aren't hunger but rather a result of circadian rhythms. "It's been a while since you ate. You're off schedule. Here's your friendly reminder". I decided to time it and see how long this 'hunger signal' lasted. It was 18 minutes. Lordy. All those times I ate at the first sign of the elusive tummy growl, proud of my self-discipline (not) when all I had to do was wait a quarter of an hour and it would have passed. Oh well. That was then. This is now.
I went about my afternoon and before I knew it, 4PM was here. And in my past experience of fasting, which I've done a few times, once I get to late afternoon I'm golden. I got an invite to have wine on my dear friend, MG's, patio and that was my day. (Go ahead and say it: no one has it better than I. I'm aware).
I awoke this morning down 3.3 pounds. All good. But that wasn't really the point of this exercise. I wanted to feel lighter. Not just be lighter. And that was achieved. I slept really well - maybe a coincidence but I've been waking every 90 minutes or so for a while - and I simply feel today more like my NEW old self. The self to whom I've become accustomed over the last couple of years. The self I want to keep.
And for me, wanting to keep myself is a greater achievement than any number on the scale.
Now, shall i eat today or not? I don't know. In the end, the point is that food is no longer the boss of me. I've made food my bitch.
So there.
