Understanding the Fast

From: http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/therap.htm

The physiology of fasting has been extensively studied, and three phases of fasting have been identified.

The first phase can be called the gastrointestinal phase, and lasts approximately for first six hours following the last meal. During this phase the body uses glucose, amino acids and fats, as they are absorbed from the intestinal tract.

Phase two lasts for more or less the next two days. During this time the body will use its glycogen (sugar) reserves that are stored in the muscle and liver cells. These glycogen reserves are mobilized to provide the central nervous system, including the brain, with its normal fuel, glucose. Within a few hours the body begins to convert adipose (fat) tissue into fatty acids.

Were it not for the body’s ability to switch fuels and enter phase three, where the body switches from glucose to fat metabolism, therapeutic fasting could not take place. The body’s protein reserves would be quickly depleted.

Fortunately, this is not a problem. In fact, within ten hours from the last meal approximately 50% of muscle fuel is coming from fat. Even the brain itself begins to shift over the fat metabolism. The consumption of protein reserves decreases from 75 grams per day at the beginning of a fast to just 20 grams a day by the end of the second week.

As you can see, excess activity including excess emotional stress could increase the body’s fuel needs, interfering with the optimum adaptation to the fasting state.

Body reserves differ from individual to individual. But a “typical” 155-pound male at normal weight has enough reserves to fast for between two to four months. If the fast were allowed to continue beyond the individual’s reserves, starvation would ensue and serious damage and eventually death would occur.

A productive weekend. A challenge.

The weekend was great. I learnt how two days without food is no problem.

The big realization has been that while growing up we pick up food-insecurities. There is the constant obsession with not getting enough food. Despite evidence to the contrary being ubiquitous-- the real problem is that we have too much food-- we persist in a collective fight against famine. We go to a movie and eat, go hiking and eat, go visiting people and eat, go to work and eat, go boating an eat, football game-- eat, conferences-- eat, go to the beach-- eat, picnic-- eat. Virtually all occasions seem to provide the aegis for eating.

Fasting has helped me look beyond this. I actually eschewed the egg-sandwich. Not as a sacrifice, but because when time came, there was no desire. The Sufi term "fana" comes to mind.

However, that evening I had to take customers out to dinner. To a steak house. While I am happy to report that, apart from nibbling on some bread, an Apple-Walnut Salad is all I ate, I have to say I have to figure a way out of this. I can't not eat when I am the host. But, I cannot let this impediment stymie my goals either. On the horns of a dilemma here!

First Two Day Fast

I have now completed a two day fast. Now I have the permission for a light refection. If I skip this snack, tomorrow morning I can have an egg sandwich before beginning another 2 day fast. Otherwise, it is two plums with yogurt now, and a glass of milk with toast tomorrow.

This is the last time I will have food as an incentive for fasting! I realize this stark contradiction, and how it is so counter productive. If I mean to move my consciousness away from physical pleasure, using phy. pl. as an inducement can't yield that desired absolution.

BTW, I had to pick up an 80 lbs instrument today-- to put in my car. I wasn't any weaker than my brethren.

The new freedom

It is as I had expected. Fasting has created greater steadyness and calm in all my affairs.

Breaking the tyranny of gluttony seems to lend a pervasive felicity unanticipated by the gourmand.

No time for lengthy reflections now, but I do have strong views, concieved in these last few days, on the violence that food does to the spiritual germ.

Second small success

The lunch time came and went. I didn't think of food, nor feel the pangs of hunger.

Breaking of the first prep fast

After a night of travail, albeit lesser than I'd feared, I awoke to a feeling of decided well-being. Suddenly, I didn't want to break my fast. However, it is important to stay honest and disciplined. So, I prepared a lentil soup with beets, spinach, and peas. Lightly salted, it was soothing and tasty.

Now I commence another fast. This time shorter. I feel I could go longer, but I want to stay on the path.

Enemy at the gates-- a small victory

Its always been like this. Whenever exams were nigh, and I would sit down in the library to study, a vast assortment of "friends", who'd looked through me all year, would stop by to chat. Seemingly, a divine test of my resolve.

Today, as the lunch hour passed, and my guard lowered, my dear coworkers, driven as if by some diabolical plan, stopped in to ask me if I wanted to go have lunch!!! Turns out, one of them owed me a lunch. So, a visit to Jimmy Daddonas (my favorite!) will cost me NOTHING!!!

I am ashamed to say I capitulated! Well, almost. I said yes, all the while lying to myself that this was for the greater good-- team spirit and collegiality, and all that. But then, the reserve of self control practiced in the college library came to my rescue. I managed to turn them down-- I said I had suffered some acidity last night (true!), and will have to avoid the said cuisine. See how this works-- there is temptation, but built in the plan is the bulwark against it. But I have to say, temptation has great allies.

So the fast goes on. But I wonder what other temptations await me ...

Day one of preparation: Lunch Time

Lunch time is on me, but fortunately not the usual craving for food. It is not twelve hours of denial yet, so officially not "fasting". No weakness, no pain. I am just not thinking of food. This is good!

By tomorrow 7 am, I'd be 24 hours into the discipline. Per plan, I'd then break the fast, and then commence another fast in twelve hours, this time for two days. By Monday, I'd practiced three days of fasting!

I am happy to be on this path to a 21 day fast.

Day one of preparation

Woke up at 1 am with stomach acidity. Had some cold grapes from the fridge. Definitely a palliative. So today is day one of prep-- a water fast is planned for today. No juice and, if I can help it, no grapes. The idea is to slowly (over 12 weeks) build the resilience. I have plan, and I will describe it in some next post.

Next time I do this, I will take a partner along on the journey. For now-- it is me, and the new frontier.

The Begining

I am a 36 year old healthy male. I have, heretofore, observed no fasts, nor had the proclivity for alternative lifestyles or remedies. Innocent of the "new age" fad, I come to fasting from a very accidental discovery of its benefits.

For reasons I may go into later, my wife is away for a few months. In her absence, purely per the force of circs, I have missed a few meals here and there. Always very fond of food, this in itself has been HUGELY unusual for me. I have also always been lazy. And fat. I know, we don't speak like that in our society. But this blog is about honesty. With a BMI of 29, and a decade preceding this month when I have done absolutely NOTHING coming close to running or jogging, I think I can use the adjectives I did a couple sentences back to depict myself.

However, in the absence of the Mrs, I have taken to jogging. Since it takes me 20 minutes to grind out a mile, you may not want to call it jogging. But this is the second huge change in my life.

The final big change-- the one that DEMANDED this blog-- has been the combined experience arising out of the missing wife, the missed meals, and the uncustomary exercise. Missed meals-- fasting-- has left me feeling GREAT!

There is this new, unfamiliar, inexplicable warmth that says "you're home".

So I have done what you'd do if you had, a-hmm, a revelation (can I call it that?). I have poked and probed the situation-- experimented with reverting to slothism, for example. Peered back into hedonism. Tried to recreate the comfort offered by gluttony. I have to confess that the splendrous feeling following (NOT during, when I often felt and acted unpleasant) the fasts has beckoned me back.

So I have been doing what you'd do too-- looking at internet posts for Fasting.

Now, I if have heretofore ill suffered the accusation of athleticism and commitment to health, it is not as if I haven't occasionally wondered what inspires the likes of the "26.2" bumper stickers. My brief but compelling experiences with fasting convince me that I want my bumper sticker to declare "Fasted for 21 days". Or something more catchy, but to that effect.

My experience with fasting convinces me that this is that fork in the road that I have to follow. So, from today on, I will prepare myself for a 21 day fast. I am a professional man, I have been to graduate school. So I will do this responsibly, and I will do this (somewhat) scientifically. But do it I will.

This is a blog. So I will also do this publicly.