Weight: 149 Energy: 7/10 (7=average) Attitude: 8/10 (7=average)
Feeling great this morning!
For the first five days of this fast, I kept asking myself, “Am I hungry?” The answer may appear obvious if you have not eaten for multiple days on end, but on closer inspection, the answer was not so clear. Psychologically I was hungry, because I had “missed” so many meals. Biologically I was “hungry” because I was out of sugar. But intellectually I knew that I had plenty of caloric reserves in the form of body fat. So I guess a complete answer to the question would be something like, “I feel hungry but do not need to eat.” And today – for the past couple days – I am not even hungry. Seriously. It is like there is a big battery in my core that is powering me. Batteries need to be recharged, yes, but not continuously! Without knowing it beforehand, this is one of the things I wanted to learn from my fasting experience. All the time, all the time, I was so habituated to charging my battery, topping it off. I wasn’t awake to the immense reserve that I had stored inside myself. The normal way of eating is akin to rushing to plug in your phone every time it drops below a 98% charge. It just isn’t necessary! What’s more, it’s actually not healthy for your battery to stay fully charged all the time, and it will lose capacity if it does not experience a certain amount of discharge. I can’t prove that the science of batteries translates perfectly to the biology of our bodies, but it does seem to make sense. Clearly we have the ability to store vast amounts of energy (fat), but yet we very seldom access this energy. Does that strike anyone as a reasonable operational strategy?
Here is another analogy: Fueling your body with sugar is like burning tinder. It is easy to light, but it doesn’t burn very long, or very hot. Fueling with fat is like burning a big log: harder to get going, but gives you a long, mellow burn.
Oh, my jaw is feeling better, too. I bought potassium pills (so I don’t have to drink potassium water), and they are helping. The dose in each individual pill is so small – I don’t remember mg but it says only 2% RDA – so I take five in the morning and more throughout the day as I feel the need. It is something new to get used to feeling my body’s needs for a particular mineral!
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16:30 – Low energy now. Maybe 5/10. I keep drinking and drinking and am still thirsty. Have made sure to take salt and potassium. All of my other electrolytes I’m
taking at the recommended levels I outlined at the start. In any case, I’m feeling MUCH better than either of my previous fasts.
By this point on my first fast (without electrolytes), I was cold (wearing a winter jacket in the spring) and walking at a slow shuffle. Nicole and I called it my old-man walk.
I'll be headed back up to Louisville shortly. Not what I would like to do with myself, but someone has $1000 worth of electrical wire for sale at $600. I’ve still got four houses to wire, so I’m sure I’ll use it. I’ll make the trip for that kind of money.
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7:15 – Wire purchase fell through, but at least it was called off before I made the drive. Instead, I took the rambunctious Rocky on his first-ever bike-walk. That is, I was on a bike, he on his leash. If you have never tried teach a dog (especially a puppy!) to trot alongside a bike, I have to liken it to riding a unicycle. Very difficult and even dangerous at first. I started by tying his leash to a handle (I can get away with this because he is still small enough he can’t pull me over if he yanks) and walking the bike, so he could get used to it. He did run in front a few times and, once, got his paw run over. It didn’t hurt him, but it sure gave him a surprise and he was careful to keep clear of the tires for the rest of the walk. Eventually I got on the bike and he did a very good job staying alongside. Sometimes he likes to pull. Jasper never would pull, not forward, anyway! I don’t like a dog who pulls when we’re walking, but if Rocky enjoys pulling, I will make a little dog chariot for him. Nicole will still need to walk him normally for her exercise, of course, but if he’s still got gas in him after, it would be fun to let him take me for a ride. Jeff and I would have a lot of fun building the chariot, too.
Here is something important I wanted to say about electrolytes: I have been drinking and drinking today, and still been thirsty. I read that bicarbonate can help alleviate these symptoms. I mixed 1/4tsp of baking soda in water and am now doing fine. Don’t ask me how it works! But if anyone else is fasting and has the problem of being thirsty no matter how much water you consume, try baking soda.