The Week After the First Fast

Hi,

It has been a week since I last fasted and I am preparing for another one to begin today at 5 p.m. I have been really excited about the results of that one 24-hour fast. My weight has been trending downward each day to a total lost for the week of 1.5 pounds. Not earth shattering, but, after what had been happening in the weeks leading up to it, I consider the fast a total freaking success. What a pleasure it was to wake up to a smaller number on all but one morning. I was not really expecting that!

The one major noticeable result is still the edema which did not begin to resume until about three days later. When it did come back it also remained much smaller, too. It has only been in the last two days that it appears to have begun to swell to almost (not quite) my pre-fast condition, again. I am hoping that starting at a slightly less swollen state will make my post-second-fast ankle size even smaller.

Looking at my food journal I see that I ended the first fast with a large bowl of curried chicken to which I added one nine-ounce package of angel hair Konjac shirataki noodles. I still remember the experience. I had a real feeling of true pleasure when I simply held the warm bowl of noodles in my hand and sniffed the scent of the curry and chicken. That was at about 5 p.m. At 8 p.m. I put half of a pound of hamburger in the convection oven, then ate it with spicy brown mustard. At about 8:30 I got hungry again and had 3 scrambled eggs. The next morning I had lost 1/4 of a pound!!

For the next three days I noticed I was satisfied with smaller meals and enjoyed the actual feeling of my tummy telling me, "I can't eat another bite" after having eaten much smaller amounts than usual. That was a nice change from the usual lusting for food. It was an actual eye-opener for me. I saw that my body can act in a normal way around food when the addiction is turned off. It seems that the fast turned the addiction off for a space of time.

During the week I wanted to stick to the snack/meal/snack program but was mentally a little lax since I had done the 24-hour fast and knew that the "Eat Stop Eat" program does not include extremely rigid diet rules during the rest of the time but strongly suggests being "sensible" -- and we all know what that means.

I have noticed that my snack size is now creeping to a little larger than a true snack size, but it is still smaller than a meal. To keep myself on track without getting fanatic I began to measure with the bowls I serve my snacks and meals in. The snack bowl is about a cup smaller than the meal bowl, and I use the two sizes to gauge how much food I am eating at a sitting because on about day four my "familiar" eating habits wanted to surge back, again.

Yesterday I even had an additional snack in the evening but made it purely raw vegetables. I cut up a bowl of raw broccoli, added a few grape tomatoes and put dressing and seasonings on it. Afterwards, I still felt hungry so I had an avocado after which I ate a teaspoon of coconut oil. The high oil content of the avocado and the CO seemed to quench the desire for more food.

My final observation yesterday was to realize that I am, after all, doing more of small meal/medium sized meal/small meal. So the meal is not as large as before, but the snacks are not as small. Over all I lost weight. I am happy with that so feel as though I am moving along successfully. I can see the goal ahead of me.

Be back soon,

Marcia