After waking up, I decided to treat myself to a nice relaxing bath. So I dry body brushed and then hopped into a hot epsom salt and essential rose oil bath. While in the bath I did a bit of meditation and set some daily intentions, which seemed to have more sincerity than before. I was in the bath about 30 minutes.
When I got out of the bath, I went upstairs and caught up with some emails and of course drank more water. Then I taught for an hour and a half. After teaching I caught up with a lot of computer related work. Surprisingly, the hunger pangs pretty much subsided this afternoon. I thought for sure they would be worse, but my body seems to be reaching a state of equilibrium.
After working for many hours, I felt a bit drowsy and took an hour and 20 minute nap. When I woke up, I worked a bit on my blog and responded to a few emails. Then I watched the video from my last Messiaen performance before heading down to my studio to practice for an hour.
My last student of the day arrived at 7pm. When I finished teaching, I put away laundry, worked on some listening packets for my theory class tomorrow and finished writing this blog post.
This is an exciting day, as I have officially made it through the halfway point of this fasting journey and I am amazed that I have not eaten in the past 96 hours! I thought I would be feeling much worse at this point, but I still feel like I have great mental clarity and a decent amount of energy to get through each day. Of course we'll see what the next 3 days bring.
As for food cravings, I haven't really had any. However if the thought of food pops into my head for a split second, it's usually a carb/bread type food. I think I just miss the act of eating and the routine of making my teas and meals. It will be interesting to see how my routine changes after this fast, although I am enjoying the extra time (not spent picking up, making or eating food), as today was a super productive day! And I've noticed that my spring water tastes sweeter and sweeter each day. Perhaps this fast has gone so smoothly for me because I'm drinking such a high quality water (and maybe because I was eating a vegan diet going into it). If you're interested in finding a spring in your area, just click here for a link that takes you to the page where I found our current water source.
In terms of side effects today I had some short subtle bursts of hunger pangs, but they did not last very long. It was not until around 8:30pm that I started feeling more hungry again. I did not start to feel cold until the late afternoon (I think the bath really helped). On the whole I felt pretty good all day. In fact, I feel a bit lighter (not in terms of weight) just in terms of my thoughts. I believe I will not have another bowel movement for the rest of the fast, as I'm not putting any food into my body. I find that I have to urinate pretty frequently - that's what happens when you're chugging water all day. Since yesterday, I lost another 1.5 lbs and 00.1% body fat.
I'm also amazed that I have not had a headache yet, only a little pressure (intermittently) in my head the first couple of days. That's especially interesting to me because one of the first things people say to me when they find out I am doing a fast is that if they did not eat for half a day they would have a headache. Well, I've gone four days and still no headache. I'm hoping to stay headache free the rest of the fast, too!
I had expected today to be much harder than day three of the fast, but it was much easier (most likely due to the fact that the hunger pangs have substantially subsided). What has kept me going these last four days are a few thoughts I will share with you. One is that I remind myself there are people who have gone twice or more the time I have gone on a water only fast (and they had no problems). Perhaps the thought that has helped the most is realizing that I have the rest of my life to eat - it makes seven days seems like nothing in the big scheme of things.
Now I'm off to bed and loving the fact that this fast has helped me achieve an earlier bedtime of 11pm! I think this makes Andy happy, too.
"I often observe in the fasting participants that by four days of fasting, concentration seems to improve, creative thinking expands, depression lifts, insomnia stops, anxieties fade, the mind becomes more tranquil and a natural joy begins to appear. It is my hypothesis that when the physical toxins are cleared from the brain cells, mind-brain function automatically and significantly improves and spiritual capacities expands."
~ Gabriel Cousins, M.D.
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