Life in the fasting lane

Halllooooo from a very sunny-but-cold Mississauga! I'm sitting in my living room again - nice to be back from Phoenix. Of course, seeing the sunshine helps with the transition!

Well, it's 9:00 am Saturday morning, making it the 39th hour of fasting for me. Yes, that's right. As of Thursday evening, 6:00 pm, I have consumed nothing but the following:
- water with lemon
- herbal tea
- more water with lemon
- hot water with lemon
- CALM (Magnesium powder) with hot water

I'm celebrating now by taking my first sip of coffee - no milk but with the blessed Stevia! It feels like heaven to put something into my mouth that has flavour! Food will come later when I meet an old friend for brunch.

So why did I do this? Mostly to determine if I really had the wherewithall to actually do it...and I do! Yeah for me!! Oh, and because The Evil One doubted that I could actually do it. He didn't say it, but I saw the "I'll believe it when I see it" look in his eyes that, quite frankly, ticked me off. Talk about "motivation"...

Now before some of you roll your eyeballs permanently into your head at the thought of my crazy tactics, think about this...

- lots of naturopaths recommend a weekly (or at least monthly) "cleanse". You can do it with natural products that run through you like a steam ship or you can do it by fasting. If, nay, WHEN I do this again, I will add some fibre to the water and really clean out my system. It's safe and natural.

- a reminder, again, that symptoms of starvation don't kick in until at least 48 hours with no food. So the good news is that my body is feeding off itself and believe me, there is still plenty of nourishment left for it to enjoy!

- Fasting is a safe way to move you past a plateau, whether you're shaking up your body or shaking up your mind.


In my experience, there are a couple types of plateaus one can reach:

1) the physical plateau - this is where you are doing everything per usual and not losing weight. For me, a change in diet kick starts the body into more weight loss. Examples I've done to shake up my physical plateaus are: moving to an 8-hour eating window; eliminating a food group; eating 2 protein shakes & 1 meal per day. If you have alot of weight to lose, you need expert help with figuring out how to shake things up in a healthy, safe way. For this help, I will always be grateful to The Evil One who constantly inspires and frightens me with his creative approaches to food plans! And, to make him even more annoying, he won't recommend things to me he hasn't tried himself...no excuses then...dang!

2) the psychological plateau - this is where you're stuck mentally. With me on my weight loss journey, my psychological plateau rears it's ugly head when I go into this "maintenance mode" head space. I test myself by eating different "off limit" foods to see how much I can eat without gaining. This is not good for someone, like me, who still has quite a bit of weight to lose. Psychological plateaus can happen for people in many ways, whether you're having trouble getting your head around losing weight or exercising, or you're stuck in a job you hate or you're just stuck in life. They aren't fun and, quite frankly, I think they are harder to overcome than the physical plateaus.

Admittedly, a fast may not be for everyone. What I do know is that it is something for me. Remember how I said that my definition of "normal eating" had really been shaken up? Well, fasting is likely to become part of my eating regime. I'd like to think of it as a tool in my weight management tool chest, like protein shakes and exercise.

So, what was it like? Hmmm....not so bad, really.

I thought I was gonna be able to have lots of stories for an inspirational and hilarious blog, but alas! It was kind of boring actually. I experienced lots of things like...being dopey, unfocused, really low energy. It's actually hard for me to type this blog because my hands are a bit shakey and I've had to correct more spelling mistakes than usual, but other than that, it's all good. Well, there was incident at the Long Branch GO station where I almost French-kissed a guy who was eating a Hall's cough drop, but I resisted so the only drama that occurred was the drama in my head.

I'm quite proud of the fact that I did it. Proving to myself that I really can do whatever it takes to get to my goal, was necessary to overcome my psychological plateau. Remembering that I am in control of what goes into my mouth (or stays out of my mouth!) is very empowering. I needed something like this fast to push me off that plateau.

So tell me, poppits, what tools do you have in your tool kit to help you get over your psychological plateaus? Trust me, they are within you. Call me if you want help finding them.

Enjoy your weekend!
(a)yt xox
ps--if this blog makes no sense, then blame it on the fact that my body has moved nourishing itself from my fat cells to my brain cells.