Breaking A Fast?

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Permalink Reply by Cam on December 20, 2008 at 6:32pm

How long was your fast?

Was it a water only fast?

You've fasted before? What did you break it with then?

When interning at a fasting retreat we would would break the fasters with watermelon. Some with watered down orange juice. Melons have been generally thought to be preferred because it takes very little energy to digest them. Other high water foods could be used as alternatives.
(2:1 ratio). They had water only fasted on average for 21 days.

I have fasted for 3 days and broke with a banana smoothie and was just fine.

The longer the fast the more careful you need to be with the reintroducing of food.

A general rule that we were taught was that you transition back to your normal diet for half as long as you fasted. So if you fast for 21 days then your would slowly transition back for about 10-11 days. By that time you should be able to eat your normal volume of food.

Once you start eating you will most likely find that you start wanting more food. If you haven't started eating yet it doesn't surprise me that you aren't hungry yet. Our bodies are very intelligent. When it knows there is no food then it adapts. When you show it there is food for it to use it will start adapting back to utilizing it.

Hope that helps.

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Permalink Reply by Mera Magic Meraa on December 20, 2008 at 6:43pm

Yeah, I read that but I read lots of conflicting info too, so I was trying to get some kind of personal grasp on what I think is best... I like the point about high water content food... I will try that next time. This time I had one orange, then I had a cabbage, tomato, avocado salad... a very small salad compared to what I'd usually eat, after that I had a roma tomato. A little later I had one apple, then a nori wrap with avocado. Unfortunately I was craving more sugar and after having an apple I started eating hunza raisens and mulberries and I get very easily addicted and eat too many.

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Permalink Reply by Larion on December 20, 2008 at 11:14pm

best way to break a fast is with green vegetable juice. period. you dont want to do it with something sweet like orange or extremely sweer like watermelon. ( I have done a 15 day water fast)

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Permalink Reply by VOID on December 24, 2008 at 1:37pm

I did a 24 day waterfast and this is how I was instructed to break my fast.

* Break the fast at 3pm (It prevents over-eating on the first day).
* Eat a small amount of water melon. Very small. Very small. Eat very very slowly and chew very carefully.
* If you're hungry one hour later, have another slice of watermelon, fractionally bigger than the last but still very small portion. Chew slowly and carefully.
*1 hour later, if youre still hungry, have another slice of watermelon. a bit bigger again this time but still small.
*1 hour later if youre still hungry, have another slice of watermelon. A bit bigger again.
*1 hour later, if youre still hungry, have another slice of watermelon, bigger this time.

No eating after 7pm.

The following day, have watermelon for breakfast. Larger than you had at the last evening meal.

Have watermelon for lunch.

Have watermelon for dinner. I was eating whole watermelons by this point.

The third day, do the same as the 2nd day. Start to do some light exercise before meals on this 3rd day. If you want you can have mangoes or papaya for lunch or dinner. You could have some peeled cucumber slices and tomato slices too in the evening if you like.

The 4th day, watermelon for breakfast, bananas or mangoes for lunch, in a smoothie form. Oranges for dinner followed by a salad with no fat. No hard veggies like carrots, cabbage etc.

The 5th day same as 4th day but can include harder veggies if you like them.

No fat for 1-2 weeks depending on the length of your fast. Get EFA's and amino acids by eating lots of leafy greens.

Take care

Adam x

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Permalink Reply by Larion on December 24, 2008 at 1:44pm

24 days thatttts amazinnnng... Did you have a lot of body fat? I stopped because i was blacking out, fainted, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Mera Magic Meraa on January 2, 2009 at 5:38am

Are you hypoglycemic Larion?

That's great Adam, thanks for that... I'll try to modify that to my situation... I did so well with all my fasts until last week when I spent the night at my grandma's... I didn't make it 24 hrs. I was trying to do 36 hrs. Today I am fasting again, I hope to make the 36 hr. mark soon... I'm so inspired by long-term fasters, but I'm definately still work on perfecting 1-2 day fasts. Beyond that I've never talked to any exclusively breastfeeding fasters, so if you know anyone please let them know I'd like to talk to them. As a breastfeeding counselor I know that during disasters etc. women can breastfeed successfully for days w/o food, but being spoiled and inefficient by nurture I find 36 hrs. to be a challenge, but I'm working on it. 24 hrs. works great for me though, I just gotta work on the 'coming down' part.

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Permalink Reply by VOID on January 2, 2009 at 5:44am

Women can fast whilst breastfeeding, its true, but its not really a good idea unless necessary. you would do best to try a smoothie fast or a mono-freen and greens fast or something. Its always better to live in such a way that fasting becomes unnecessary imo.

In response to your hypoglycemia question of Larion, and of particular importance for you as a breastfeeding mother, is that when fasting, your blood pressure drops significantly, which can lead to fainting, black-outs or unconsciousness. I know a friend who went on a fast last year for 31 days. there was an older woman there fasting who passed out on the toilet sat down and cracked her head open. This is why I always recommend professional supervision. That and the fact that if you reintroduce foods at the wrong pace/stage and introduce heavy to digest foods too soon you can cause irreversible damage to your organs within 24 hours.

Take care

Adam x

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Permalink Reply by Larion on January 3, 2009 at 12:46am

I think up to 3 days woud be safe for you. But why dont you just stick to green juices. They go straight into the bloodstream. do 4 ounces of celery,cucumber, zuchinni, parsley, carot juice. in 4oz of water, every 2 hours. A constant stream of nutrients. without the torcher of water.

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Permalink Reply by VOID on January 2, 2009 at 5:51am

Hey Larion,

Thanks, yea it was a great experience/achievement. No, my body fat was probably around 7% max. when I started fasting. I weighed 116lbs (im 6ft tall). I went down to 96lbs by day 24. The doctor reckoned I could have probably lasted (in terms of body fat) another couple of weeks. I stopped on my 24th day as I started to feel dizzy and felt like I was going to blackout/faint.

I always recommend supervision for these reasons, blacking out can be seriously dangerous.

Take care

Adam x

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Permalink Reply by Cam on January 2, 2009 at 2:20pm

Wow Adam, 116lbs when you started? If you don't mind me asking, what is your weight now?

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Permalink Reply by VOID on January 2, 2009 at 5:49pm

Yea, I was real thin. Another woman on the fast, on my first day took a nude 'before' picture of me. She said I was the thinnest she's ever seen. I showed people my before picture when I got home and they were horrified. lol. They thought it was the after picture, they couldnt believe the after pictures. It did amuse me.

To be honest, my weight is still around 116-118lbs (fluctuates but within a small, consistent range) I really enjoy cardio exercise and things like yoga, but I just really struggle to enjoy or motivate myself to do strength training. Im making it my goal to get a bigger body this year. Ive never been that interested previously but Ive been thinking the last few months that it would be a good idea for my bones, and also because I think being strong/muscular is a symptom of health. People are more likely to consider me a 'healthy' role model for raw veganism if Im not skinny, which is what they expect. Im going to borrow my friends camera this weekend and photoshop my head onto someones body that I want as a motivation. lol.

On the plus side, despite being so thin, whilst I was at college last year, a lecturer hooked a few of us up to some really expensive bioimpedance equipment. Cost a couple of grand. They measured cellular integrity, body fat% body bone% body water % body muscle %, muscle quality, intracellular/extracellular fluid balance. My body fat was about 7.5%, and my total muscle % was relatively low compared to an average male, but unlike all the other people who were analysed, my muscle quality was excellent, my cellular integrity, intra/extracellular fluid balance were all excellent and my body water% was excellent.

The lecturer used me as an example of how im doing something dangerously unhealthy because my muscle % was lower than the average male for my height, and that compared to other men in the class. She completely ignored the high quality of the muscle and all the other postitive markers. Complete opposite of other class members. I disagreed because their muscle % was higher than mine, but their muscle quality was poor. I said I would rather have decent quality muscle and less of it, than lots of poor quality muscle. They also found 7.5% body fat disturbing. I think my goal fat% according to the monitor was about 22-25%. I'm more than happy with 7.5% body fat. Being thin reminds me that I need to do strength training, my weak link is visible to me daily. Others feel satisfied because they're covering their poor quality muscle with layers of fat, and so they mask the symptoms. That doesnt appeal to me.

Take care

Adam x

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Permalink Reply by Larion on January 3, 2009 at 12:42am

Hi Adam,

thats great. I went from 155 to 120 in 15 days. I am 5.11
I started to black out for fractions of a second then maybe 1-2 seconds by the end. It was scary. I would like to do it again. But I wnat to do it somewhere in nature, where it is warm. Peaceful.

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