Day 8: Breaking The Fast, Part 2

I've now had 4 fruit mini-meals today and feel pretty good. My stomach definitely gets full a lot more quickly than it used to! I can feel my intestines rumbling around a bit, so I guess they are back from vacation now, too.

1:15 pm watermelon (a cup to a cup and a half)
3:30 pm half an orange and a bit of watermelon and one grape tomato
5:30 pm half an orange and two grape tomatoes
7:30 pm watermelon (a cup to a cup and a half) and a grape tomato

I think I'll eat a few grapes around 9:30 and call it quits for the day. I'd intended to go for a walk, but it was so hot I put it off. When it got to be a little cooler, storms and rain rolled in. We set a record high temperature yesterday of 95 and tied the record of 93 the previous day. Tomorrow is supposed to be around average instead of late-July trying to sneak into June's house.

Tomorrow, I'm going with my aunt (the one who drove back from Hopkinsville with me) to the farrier. It's a bit of a haul, so I'll need to pack my chow for the trip. I'm debating whether to have a few Ranch CornNuts or not. The only time I eat them is on the trip to the farrier every 6-7 weeks (or the one-off when I went to the Vincennes Rendezvous with my step-sister and her kids a couple weeks ago).

Exercise-wise, a walk tomorrow is mandatory. Maybe some yoga, too.

Day 8: Breaking The Fast

At 1:12 pm the first bit of watermelon entered my mouth. After not having eaten anything other than water for over seven days, it tasted terrific. Intense, delicious flavor. Fasting helps to "reset" your appetite and taste buds. I ate about a cup of it very slowly and drank some water with it. Every bite tasted wonderful. My stomach is a little uncomfortable which is to be expected since it's not had anything to do for a while. Hey, wake up down there! Vacation is over!

I had to go to two stores. Walmart didn't have any regular watermelons, just those tiny ones for $4 or not-so-big packages of cubed mixed melon for almost $9 (what?!?!). I went to Buehlers Buy Low and got a nice, medium-sized, round one for $5. At Walmart, I picked up two cucumbers at $.50 each, two pounds of organic red grapes for $3.48, one pint of blueberries for $3.98 (still expensive, but better than a tiny package for the same price), three navel oranges for $2.04, a bunch of romaine for $1.48, one pint of grape tomatoes for $1.97, one pound of strawberries for $1.88, and a package of three bell peppers (green, yellow, orange) for $2.64. Get this: they were selling single yellow, orange, and red peppers for $2.49 each. EACH?!?!?! For crying out loud. Green ones were $.94 each.

Too bad they didn't have organic strawberries and bell peppers. Of the foods I purchased today, they are among the 12 Most Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables. Some follow-up comments posted at that site to the list essentially say that pesticides aren't harmful and that you shouldn't bother because there are tons of other toxic things we encounter everyday. Oh? Ever read the label on a pesticide container?

Since the bakery is next to the produce, I was happy to notice that the donuts and all of their relatives didn't interest me in the least. The best smell of all was the peaches.

Along the lines of eating well, here's a list of 12 Food Additives to Avoid.

Every two hours I'm supposed to eat about a cup of watery fruit, so at the next feeding I think I'll eat half an orange. Right now, about an hour after starting to eat the watermelon, I'm only very slightly hungry.

Day 5: PM

In an earlier post, I incorrectly implied that that when the body starts to burn fatty acids when stored glycogen is depleted, the brain still needs glucose as 100% of its fuel. The brain is able to adapt to partially fuel itself with ketones which are produced by the liver from the body's fat stores.

Hunger pangs are back again in full force. I'm seriously considering breaking the fast tomorrow. I just don't want to deal with them any more. I'll have to see how I feel about it in the morning.

Breaking a long fast involves eating small quantities of juicy fruit, like watermelon or citrus, every couple of hours during the first day. On the second day, it's more fruit: medium-sized every three hours. On day three, lettuce is added to the mix. On the fourth day, it's back to three meals a day with more vegetables added. Since I'm not doing a long fast (>2 weeks), I will probably be able to introduce various high-water-content foods earlier than were I doing a long fast. To get back to eating a wide variety of foods, my digestive enzymes will need to get back into full production. Since my fast wasn't very long, I'm guessing it shouldn't take more than 4 or 5 days, if that long.

After the fast, my plan is to eat a lot of plant-based, natural foods: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and seeds/nuts, the latter in small amounts. This shouldn't be too much of a problem because I don't normally eat much meat, poultry, or fish. I was eating skim milk on my cereal in the mornings and an occasional light yogurt, but those are easily expendable. I've not decided if I'm going to add Diet Coke back in or not. Not drinking it means less money spent on it and fewer aluminum cans needing to be recycled. I think the Doritos aren't going anywhere. :-) I'll just need to relegate them to once a week (or less if I can stand it).

The Eat To Live book has some really appetizing, primarily vegetarian recipes in it. It also has example 7-day meal plans that are vegetarian and a 7-day set for non-vegetarian. The plan in the book focuses on eating very nutrient-dense, plant-based, natural foods, e.g. lots of leafy green vegetables, other vegetables, fresh fruits, etc. It definitely doesn't advocate Diet Coke or Doritos, but if I'm going to have a vice or two, they have to be better choices than cheese fries or ice cream.