Fasting: Days 11-13

This is the update for Days 11-13 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 Days 11-13:

Overall Review

There hasn’t been anything significant to report in the past few days. Generally I’ve been alternating between the different feelings I reported previously — from feeling normal and energetic to nauseous and light-headed and back. In the past 3 days I’ve been going out, with Day 11 being the longest (I was walking for about 4.5 hrs and sitting/talking for another 4 hrs), so it hasn’t been an issue going about daily activities.

About yesterday evening I started to feel generally annoyed and peeved. I think the mental heaviness (what I described in Day 9’s post) and combined with nausea and not being able to do anything except either sleep (which I’ve been doing a lot of) or idle made me feel annoyed. I’ve still been getting stuff done but not as much as I’d like to. Mostly just administrative stuff, which is low-value work that I do for the sake of having to get them done.

Today I woke up feeling even angrier and generally pissed off at everything. After a couple of hours I tried to sleep it off, and by afternoon I felt slightly better. I can only guess it’s mental and emotional detox at work.

The fast is helpful in helping me sort through my issues with food (and I believe there are still more things to work through) but right now I can’t wait for it to be over soon. I’m generally peeved at the whole nausea and feeling of light-headedness. Blogging about it also takes quite a bit of work. This annoyance could be due to the compounded frustration of experiencing this for the past week or it could be the emotional detox from the fast, or even both; I’m not sure which.

It’s already the end of 13 days, so tomorrow will be Day 14. By then there’ll be one week left. I look forward to eating an apple when it’s over (after 3 days of juicing of course; read my original fasting article and the section on “Breaking the Fast”).

For the record I have no intentions of breaking the fast before 21 days (unless true hunger returns before then). I’m just openly airing what I’ve been experiencing so far as part of my fasting log.

Dreams

My dreams continue to be vivid with an occasional bad dream here and there. Again, nothing that I can remember. I do notice that the frequency of the bad dreams has reduced though.

Detox – Tongue

The coating on my tongue has been as white and thick. I can’t wait to see it disappears, which is a sign that the detox is coming to an end. There has also been a bitter taste in my mouth due to the purging of toxins. I haven’t done any tongue scrapping because I want to let my body do its work and limit any external action on my end.

Creativity Levels & Mental Clarity

I read a faster’s account of how his creativity levels improved dramatically while he was fasting. In my case, I’m not experiencing any boost in creativity levels. My only guess is that I was already well connected to the creative side of me before the fast, so this wasn’t an area to improve on. I’ve never had any problems getting new ideas to work on my blog or workshops or coaching; most of the time I have a lot more ideas than I can execute at one time. My key opportunity areas in the recent period have been the physical aspect of myself (my weight, eating behavior, skin condition) and my relationship with food, and these are healing by themselves. So I’m very grateful for that.

I think everyone takes away different things from their fast, and the benefits one gets are likely the areas that he/she needs to get addressed the most at that point in time. So say if you’ve been feeling blocked in your intuition, probably your fast will open up your creative side. If you’ve been lacking focus, your fast may help you regain focus. And so on.

Likewise in terms of mental clarity, I haven’t experienced any marked changes. It could be because this isn’t an immediate area to work on, or there has been a positive change, just that I’m not able to appreciate it cause of the whole feeling of nausea.

Weight Loss

Weight loss continues to be steady, as you can see from the table overview at the start of the post. One weird thing is how my weight increased from 128.6lbs (58.3kg) on Day 12 to 129lbs (58.5kg) on Day 13. My only guess is that I drank a bottle of mineral water on Day 11, which I later realized has trace amounts of sodium. I can’t imagine how the little bit of sodium would lead to water retention 1.5 days later, but it’s a possibility. Either way, since I’m not taking in any calories, the energy has to be burning from my fat reserves, so I’m not worried about the temporary gain.

I noticed that one of my rings now fits nicely on my thumb (and loosely on my other fingers), when previously it was an exact fit on my index finger. One thing I’m enjoying about the weight loss is that clothes look a lot better on me now, and I have a much bigger variety of clothes to choose from. High heels are also more comfortable to walk in because I’m not carrying around all the extra body weight, so I’m very happy about that. Previously I would shy away from high heels because it gets painful after a while but now it’s a lot better.

In the past I would sometimes buy clothes that look really nice but are a little smaller, with plans to wear them when I slim down. So now that I’ve lost my excess weight, I’m really excited to start wearing them. Same for accessories (headbands, shoes, etc.) which I normally wouldn’t wear but would love to one day. Having decluttered my wardrobe, I look forward to getting new clothes that fit my new self.

I got approached by an agency scout on Monday while I was shopping at the mall. At first I thought it was someone trying to sell me something, so I kept saying “No thank you”; but then I realized it was a scout when she pressed on. She was saying that I looked photogenic and she wanted to invite me to their company. I thought that was very flattering and it’s been a while since I was approached by scouts (the last time that happened was during my university years; granted that I rarely went out after I started working — I was usually either at the office working or at home working). It’s also possible that she is part of those scam syndicates who try to get girls to joining some “agency”, after which they would ask them to pay a few grand in upfront fee for a “portfolio” and hence profit from the photography. Anyway I told her it’s okay and thanked her.

My next update will be in 2-3 days, depending on whether there are significant things to update on. Thanks again everyone for your constant support! :)

Update: Day 14 is up!

This is update for Days 11-13 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.