Fasting

[Plenum]

Please share your experience around fasting!

What process/protocol do you follow?
How does fasting work?
What are the steps involved (e.g., how decisions are made to engage in fasting, what activities engaged in during fasting, etc.)?
What is your fasting experience like?

good morning rie!

it just so happens that I finished a 5 day fast about a week or so ago.

the impulse to fast this last time (as well as the previous back in Dec last year) was a spontaneous one, and not done for any perceivable conscious reasons. It just felt like what I needed to do; like the sort of urge you have for a hamburger or a milkshake; its the body (or self) signalling that something will be beneficial or *fun* lol to do.

so I started a fast.

it was a pure fast. Just water based only. No juices or nutrients of any sort. Although I still took a multivitamin the first couple of days out of habit.

there seems to be a recommendation that one should fast during warmer periods of the year; so as to minimise the energy loss through keeping the body warm. And the same reasoning recommends that one maybe should not be strenuously working during the fasting period.

as for effects, I suffered the common ones:

*day 3: mild light headedness, lasted for about two or three hours. That seems to be the ketosis (switching to protein or body reserves burning)

*day 5: lower back ache most of the day, not excessive, but when I looked it up online it said it is toxins in lower intestine being released or something like that.

I did make it into day 6, but I felt that was long enough. Concentration and ability to focus remained strong throughout (I was working during the five days), and sleep was unimpaired. Good dreams actually.

a little loss in strength in legs (quad muscles), but I'm a vigorous walker, so I notice whenever I'm not at full power there.

as for perceived 'spiritual awareness', I cannot really speak to that After I came out of the last fast last year I felt that I had a stronger connection or link to my buddhic body. I got a subtle sense of that this time around too, but not nearly as strong or intense.

I still don't fully comprehend the *why* of why I did it; but I implicitly trust the subconscious and welcome any change in direction it offers for new experience. So I just *did it* I guess.

I enjoyed both recent experiences; I have a sense that I could probably do a 7 or 10 day fast next time; now that I have experienced the process fully a couple of times. And somehow the 'fear' that I will 'die' from not eating for a few days has entirely dissipated. I mean, truly, how much of our eating patterns are governed by routine and when we get a 'lunch break' in which we 'have' to eat?

all up, its given me a greater confidence in my body to be self sufficent; at least for short periods of times.

as for flushing out of negative or destructive thought forms as mentioned by Ra - don't know much about that.

peace out.

plenum