Ok, I’ve been putting off this for too long. It’s way, way too long since my last proper fast. Not to mention recently my diet and lifestyle have taken a hit. Once a year I come back home to Finland to meet my friends and family. And you know friends. Most of them are not compatible with healthy lifestyle.
So I’ve decided to do a 7-day water fast, starting right now.
To give you an idea of what it feels like to go through this I’m going to share my experiences here.
If you have any questions about fasting or detoxing please post them as comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.
So this is going to be a simple 7-day water fast. No supplements, colon cleanse powders, enemas or anything. Just pure, simple water.
As a word of warning, if you have little or no experience on fasting, please don’t try this at home. Water fast is way too rough for beginners. In Clear for Life I share many different fasts and detox diets that are suitable for beginners, along with how to prepare for a fast. Anyway simple 3-day apple fast, any other mono-food fast or even a raw food cleanse (where you eat nothing but raw fruits and vegetables) are all good for beginners.
As a preparation I ate predominantly raw diet the whole last week. Again catching up with friends messed that up a bit. Anyway, screw that, I’m going to do this now.
Coffee is one of my last bad habits and I drink way too much of it (2 to 3 cups a day). Unfortunately I continued that the whole week. So to soften the blow I’m going to drink a bit of coffee during the first 2 to 3 days of this fast. Not much, about 1/2 a cup a day. I know caffeine withdrawal gives me a blinding headache and that’s why I want to soften it a bit. It’s not ideal but life rarely is.
Kinda like the joke my friend’s boss made of his own wife. "I know she’s not the best possible, but she’s the best of the possible."
Nasty. I know, but we’ll go with the same principle here.
I’ve noticed that especially beginners tend to be very idealistic about detoxing and fasting. They are often afraid that if they slip a bit or don’t stick with it 100% that it’s going to be of no use.
Luckily that’s not true.
Detoxing is not like an on/off switch. It’s more like a dial. Your body detoxes 24/7. It has to because your own cellular metabolism produces toxic waste the body has to eliminate.
The only thing that changes is detox speed. The more stress you put on the body (be it digestive, mental, physical or any other form of stress) the less it has time and resources for detoxing. And if your diet is not that healthy toxins often accumulate faster than the body can throw them out.
So the point of a detox is to maximize the detox speed by reducing the intake or toxins and stressing the body as little as possible.
So my taking a bit of coffee (or any other slip) is just going to reduce the detox speed a bit. But that’s not a big deal because I’m still eliminating far more toxins than I’m putting in.
That pretty much does it for the intro. I’ll post more once the fast really kicks in.
Any questions you have, just post them as comments and I’ll answer them.