Fasting: Day 10

by Celes |
Health

This is Day 10 of my 21-day fast in Feb 2011 and probably the most in-depth fasting series you will ever find online. If you’re new to fasting, get the full background here: Fasting Experiment. Access all my articles on fasting: The Fasting Series.

Here are my stats for Day 10:

Today’s Weight: 130.1lbs / 59kg
Diff vs. Yesterday: -0.7lbs / -0.3kg
Total Difference: -14.3lbs / -6.5kg
Water consumption: 1.4 liters
Body Temp: 35.5 C / 95.5 F

Almost at the halfway mark!

Light-Headedness

I’ve been talking about the light-headedness I’ve been experiencing but I realized I haven’t exactly described how bad it is. When sitting up from the bed (after lying for at least 10-15 minutes or so), it feels like I’m having a hangover. There’d be a slight blackout, a heaviness feeling of my head and a mild headache. Like my head was jammed up. This would last for about 5-12 seconds as it subsides. The same thing happens when I stand up from sitting after a while. Trying to stand up very slowly helps a little but doesn’t stop the light-headedness from coming.

This problem occurs in the most trivial of situations too. For example, when I kneel down at the supermarket to get something, I’ll feel woozy when standing up. When I tilt my head upwards to see something above me, I’ll feel mentally heavy too. Basically when there is a change of elevation in some way of my body/head.

The blackout isn’t as big of an issue as the heaviness and headache. Even if it just lasts a few seconds, it’s not exactly a pleasant sensation. It’d seem that the light-headedness only happens if I’m physically inactive before the triggering movement. For example, If I’m having a conversation with someone before the action, the light-headedness doesn’t kick in.

I’d say this is one of the hardest parts of the fast for me. Everything else is actually very manageable. Even the feeling of nausea has lessened — today I didn’t feel nauseous for a good part of the day.

Detox – Tongue

The white coating on the center part of my tongue has thickened. At the same time, the sides seem to be clearing up. I read that in a fast, the white coating would keep thickening until the highest point of the detox, after which it would clear up, beginning with the sides and the tip of the tongue.

Detox – Stomach

I felt some aches and pains in my stomach which went away quite quickly. Pains and aches in different parts of the body are common as part of detox signs (the body processing past unrepaired damage), so it could have been a detox sign.

Physical energy

Today I went out to meet a friend. I was brisk walking to the bus stop and was breathing very heavily after 5 minutes. When I reached the venue I had to climb up a flight of 30 steps and was extremely exhausted when I reached the top, even though I was already doing so slowly. I had to stop and recover my energy. The same thing happened when I climbed 30 steps down to the ground level.

Walking at a leisurely pace on the ground level is okay though. After hanging out with my friend, I walked around the mall for about an hour with no issues. I tried looking for a spiral cutter and shredder (a more sophisticated type than the usual ones) for my future meal preparation but the mall didn’t carry them. :( Tomorrow I’ll check out another large mall in Singapore.

By the way, I notice that I need less sleep and rest now. Just now I sat through 3/4 of a movie without needing to pause and rest (I am at Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix now), and before that I got some work done too. And I still have the energy to write Day 10’s update. All’s good! :D

Sleep

I haven’t covered this but thought I’d mention that my sleep has been nice and sound. Some fasters reported having difficulty sleeping or waking up repeatedly throughout their sleep. Other than what I mentioned in Day 9’s log, I haven’t faced either problem (or at least nothing out of the blue).

Weight Loss

I’m at 130.1lbs / 59kg today, which is a loss of -0.7lbs / -0.3kg vs. yesterday. That’s the same rate of loss as yesterday. I’m expecting about a loss of 0.4-0.6lbs / 0.2-0.3kg a day for the next half of the fast since my daily energy expenditure is about 1600~1700 calories, which adds up to 0.5lb / 0.22kg loss a day (3500 calories make up a pound).

If you are fasting and not seeing any changes on the scale, there’s no need to panic or freak out — since you’re not taking in any calories, your body has to be burning them from your reserves. The fats are being burned, just that this may not register on the scale immediately (probably due to water retention). Now that I’ve been fasting for 10 days, I know that my weight loss can range from 0.7-0.9lbs / 0.3-0.4kg on a fasting day. The daily losses have become more stable now.

My friend’s friend commented that I lost a lot of weight today. She didn’t know that I was fasting though, so I just acknowledged the comment and smiled at her. ;) Again, the key is on keeping the weight off post-fast, not in getting carried away by weight you’re losing now.

Decluttering

I did a wardrobe decluttering today. I removed all the clothes that didn’t fit me anymore as well as clothes that I no longer resonated with. Some were dated several years back; others were clothes that I wore once or twice and never wore them again. I also took the chance to clear out my less popular accessories. It was therapeutic, clearing out the clothes and accessories. Sort of like shedding off a past self that I had grown out of a long while ago. Since I haven’t bought many new clothes in the past 2 years, I look forward to getting new clothes that fit my body later this year.

Ease of the Fasting Process

For those of you who are interested to try fasting, you may think that you need a lot of determination to get you through. It’s not true though. I don’t feel that fasting is supposed to be hard or painful. In fact, if you find it very difficult to get through the process, you’re probably doing something wrong.

The past 10 days have actually been pretty easy for me. There was Day 5 that was relatively rough (because of the transition to ketosis), but other than that everything has been manageable. It’s more of building the proper framework on the day before your fast (via setting a proper action plan) such that you ease into the fasting process and get on with the program. In fact, my decision to start my fast on Feb 4 came at the spur of the moment on Feb 3, and everything rolled from there. Every day I’m just going with the flow and seeing what the new day of fasting brings for me. Aside from the fasting signs, it isn’t all that different from a normal day.

What you do need though is time out for yourself and for the fast. If you have the benefit of an online / home-based business, that’s great as you get to control your schedule. For those of you who are working in a day job, I mentioned in the forums to consider juice fasting. Since you’re getting a daily caloric intake via juice, I imagine it would work slower than water fasting, but it is a possible option for those who can’t take time off for a long fast.

Post-Fast Eating Guidelines

On Day 6, I pondered over what to do post-fast, food-wise. I finally came to an answer a few days ago. Since conventional signs of hunger (stomach growling, thoughts of hunger), standard meal times, and other people eating are not true indicators to eat, the real question boils down to why exactly we need to eat — the fundamental function of food. The answer is — to provide us with energy so we can survive and live, as well as to grow and repair our body.

Hence, my daily objective in eating is to ensure that I meet my daily nutritional and energy needs, such that I can function at my best. This means not eating just because others are eating, but eating when I feel it’s time for me to eat. This means not eating just to clear my plate, but stopping when I’m done with the meal. This also means not leaving food options to what’s around me, but choosing what I want to eat based on what’s healthy and nutritional.

I don’t plan to count calories every day (not to the tee anyway) because I did it for a year before and it was very troublesome. Rather, I’ll just do a rough mental estimation each day. Having created my calorie list and my ideal meal plan during the 21-day healthy eating challenge, I have a good gauge of what and how much to eat to meet my daily requirements, so it should be good on that front.

I also plan to do a weigh in about once a week for the first few weeks. If I’m about the same weight, that means I’m on the right track. The goal is to eat just enough to meet my daily nutritional and energy needs (a little more or less each day is fine, as long as it evens out at the end). Doing this for a few weeks will help me get a hang of how I’m doing, after which I can just weigh in every once in a while.

By the way, I plan to do a post-fast update (probably not daily) so you’ll know how things go after the fast. This fast isn’t the end but a platform to start a healthy lifestyle, so I want to share as much of that aspect as possible too.

Stay tuned for Day 11

Tomorrow is Day 11 and Valentine’s Day, so Happy Valentine’s Day! :D I’ll be meeting up with a friend (I’m not having any food of course) to celebrate. Hope you have a wonderful celebration!

Update: Days 11-13 update is up!