Fasting, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
In comments here, ben recommended fasting to aid in quitting smoking. I’ve now been fasting for a week and a half (with the exception of Friday, when I tried the other smoking). You could say I stopped this weekend and restarted on Monday. My diet has consisted entirely of all the water I can drink, 12 ounces of carrot juice for lunch, and about five spoonfuls of plain brown rice for dinner (except for Friday). I did some research on it and figured that was the best fast for me. Some notes:
First day, you hardly notice. The second day, you get a bit cranky. And the third day, it’s as though you’re mind becomes clearer. That, according to some hippie-tree-hugging theory that I don’t necessarily believe, is because the toxins are being cleansed from my body. I have lost about 11.5 pounds (though this is not the reason for the fast, it’s not uncommon). I plan on breaking the fast tomorrow during a meal that is coincidentally called breakfast.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Right on! Yeah yeah, blah blah toxins blah blah. I think that part is bunk. It’s a trivial but compelling (for some reason) answer to a hard problem. The best explanation I’ve ever found for these sorts of things is in the book “The Key to the Sciences of Man” by D.G. Garan.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Oh yeah, how’s the fasting helping with the smoking? That’s a pretty serious fast. When I do it, it usually consists of skipping breakfast and lunch and just eating a modest dinner.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Regarding the smoking, a few lapses here and there (mostly due to poker games) but otherwise not bad.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Did you read up before starting the fast? I hope so. Have you ever done any kind of starvation diet before?
There’s an ancient biological trigger that is tripped by fasting (or starvation) whereby the body will force more nutrition from food than it did before the starvation. It’s something to do with our history of frequent starvation when we were primitive creatures. Once tripped, this trigger is permanently on.
When you start eating again, you will have to eat less and seriously avoid high-fat foods or you will gain weight, and at a faster rate than before! It’s why so many crash-dieters end up fatter than before they started. The go back to old eating patterns, not knowing that they are extracting much more nutrition from foods.
If you change your diet and eating habits as a result of this, then you’re golden. But if not, you’ll find you gain back the weight and then some. Take care.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Well, I hope that doesn’t happen. Never heard of that. It was in none of the research I did. But then, I’m not exactly starving myself.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
nor are you fasting for the purpose of losing weight. From what I recalled, you didn’t seem to need to lose weight either.
Its the cigarette thing. I used to smoke when I was in high school but quit real fast when I girl who’s pants I wanted to get into indicated her disgust at smoking to me. Ended that silly habit real fast.
Try chewing gum.
July 19th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
So Countertop, are you saying sex really is the key to getting a guy to do something? Gotta remember to use that more often. Kidding…
July 19th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
yep
July 19th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Last year, for “fun,” I did the Master Cleanse Fast (pdf)—otherwise known as the Lemonade Diet—for 10 days. My diet consisted solely of 8 glasses of this concoction a day:
Two tbsp. lemon or lime juice (1/2 lemon)
2 tbsps of pure grade B maple syrup
1/10 tsp. cayenne pepper
10 oz of purified water
The truth is, I didn’t need a “cleanse”—I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs, and I don’t eat meat—how much of a cleanse could I possibly need? Yeah, I got a headache on the 3rd day. And I was crabby.
Like you noted, after a few days, it’s easy. The 4th day it was easy as hell.
On the 5th day I was apprehensive about going to a food market—I thought that going into a gigantic store filled with food was going to mess with me. It didn’t. I walked in and just looked around. No big deal. Then I got towards the deli/prepared foods section and thought the smells were going to get me. Well smelling the food was sort of like tasting it. It was pleasing, but didn’t make me crave the actual food. I was amazed.
I do think that it would probably have more noticeable effect on someone who drinks or smokes. One thing I did notice is that the dry, cracked skin I always have on the bottom of my feet, miraculously healed and went almost back to normal between day 5 and 7.
A lot of people report that small persistent ailments clear up during a fast—my friend said his asthma didn’t bother him once while he was fasting. I read that this is because your body doesn’t have to devote all that energy to digesting food, and is able to focus on other stuff that it never gets a chance to clear up. Kind of makes sense I guess, and I don’t know what else could explain it.
By day 10 I felt fine. I never thought about food, I wasn’t hungry, and I felt 100% normal. It got to the point where I didn’t even realize that I was fasting at all. But I didn’t feel different, I didn’t feel “cleaner” or “euphoric” or “energized” or any hippy shit like that.
I don’t think I reaped any significant benefits, but I also didn’t have any problems and didn’t suffer any downsides to the fast.
July 19th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
I think you should go eat some meat. Just my 2c. :p
July 19th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
I think you need to eat some pussy cat.
Just my 2c :p
July 19th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
“I read that this is because your body doesn’t have to devote all that energy to digesting food, and is able to focus on other stuff that it never gets a chance to clear up. Kind of makes sense I guess, and I don’t know what else could explain it.”
Another explanation would be food allergies. When I went on the Atkins diet my persistent congestion went away. It was weird hearing my voice without being stuffed up.
July 20th, 2006 at 12:49 am
I think you need to eat some pussy cat.
Excellent idea, I’ll get right on it, so to speak.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:19 am
[…] I haven’t been myself for a couple of weeks. You may have noticed. I went from irrationally harsh (I think the point stands, but I was a dick about it) to all linky, no thinky on the blog. And the reason why is quitting smoking. I tried. I tried again. I stopped blogging about it because I didn’t want to feel pressured to blog about it. Quitting became too much and I was often faced with a dilemma. I could either: […]