My Fabulous Three Day Fast

… ended at 1:08pm PST.

My imagination differs only slightly from the reality…

I drank water for breakfast. Then half a cup of V8 (which is just so, SO gross). Then I took out the frying pan to make eggs. Just wait till Matt gets up, I thought to myself, hoping he could help me with my “will power”. I try to keep myself busy, but by 10:30am, I decided Matt needed to wake up. I threw open the door, slammed my elbows into the palm of my hand, and with a wild yell, I charged from the hallway to the bedroom and sprang into the bed like a lioness on a gazelle. He did not like that so much. But, he got up. =)

After sucking down a cup of coffee, we enjoy the gorgeous No-Ho weather with an hour-long bike ride. Everything smells like calories. Chew-able calories. We get home and I break down. Activia Yogurt, because, well, I need to poop. Still hungry. Start cooking veggie patty. Taking too long! Cold canned green beans. Ah… slowly… feeling… normal.

With the fast officially over, I have a hearty dinner of beans, cheese, a tortilla, a veggie patty, oranges and blueberries. At 630 calories, it was more than I had consumed in the two prior days, but I had no guilt about any of it. I was too busy eating.

When I got up this morning I had fully planned to eat breakfast, but when I stepped on the scale, I was down 2.7 pounds which has given me the motivation to try to go another day. It’s not really “fasting” at this point, because there was only one day that I didn’t actually eat anything, and on no days did I not consume any calories, but it’s nice to have a stomach that isn’t carrying around a second trimester food baby.

My Fabulous Two-Day Fast

Well sort of….

Saturday started out great. I was down 3.8 pounds from the day before and not feeling too bad. I drank a giant thing of water, made the boys breakfast, and kept busy all morning until it was time to meet up with Matt’s old work-mate, Joyce, and her sister, for brunch at EAT. I read about this place on Yelp and it had pretty positive reviews. I thought it would be a better place to go than Denny’s or Ihop. According to Matt, I was right. His veggie burger tasted special, in a good way, and everyone else cleaned their plates. I wouldn’t know for certain, because I stuck with coffee (2 cups, 5 creams, 3 sugars) and tomato juice — which was surprisingly good and salty. I had no cravings to eat the kids’ powdered sugar dusted pancakes or the exotic and delicious looking bowl of fruit. I felt pretty good. This fast would be easy.

WRONG.

We get home. I feel hungry. Or rather, I feel the desire to chew some food. Instead I do laundry and go to Costco. Costco samples are in full effect and I manage to avoid them all thanks to the Jose’s flavored coffee samples (all delicious, especially the Nutty Doodle!) Matt buys a case of V8 as he wants to start the “no-food fast” with me tomorrow. Of course by now, I don’t know if I am going to make it.

I drink water. I drink as much vegetable juice as I can tolerate. (Note: vegetable juice is not as good as tomato juice… IMHO.) The hunger subsides… for a while. I make dinner which only Mylo ate. The chicken looks so good. I wrap it all up and put it away then spend the rest of the night looking at celebrity babies.

I am hungry!

Boy’s go to bed, I drink more water, I “exercise” with Matt (heheh) and still…. HUNGRY!! Where is that will power? I don’t know… it took off to have dinner I guess. Finally I decide that I am going to eat. But what? I’m entering dangerous territory. There is left over ground beef. But it would be gross to eat alone. I’d need a tortilla, beans, cheese, tomatoes…. I decide on a veggie patty since it takes 25 minutes to broil from grossness into goodness. My mouth is watering, for reals. My heart is racing, I can see it pulsing beneath my chest. Finally!! It’s done. Mustard! I eat, eat, eat…. and then stop. Oh I am full…. and there is about a 1/4th patty left. Interesting…. normally these don’t make me full. Or maybe they did and I just never paid attention because there was all kinds of other crap in my digestive tract.

I am not sure if I will make it a third day, but when I weighed myself, I was down another .6 pounds so I will give it a go. Like I said yesterday, worst case scenario is that I eat. Best case scenario is that maybe I won’t.

My Fabulous One Day Fast

It all started with blood work.

I had labs ordered back in November 2010 and was required to fast 12 hours prior to having the work done. Obviously, you’re supposed to stop eating at 8, sleep, and then get your ass to the hospital before breakfast. I don’t know why this was so hard for me to do, but it was. A month passed. No labs. I got a reminder letter. No labs. We sailed into the new year. No labs. Then I crashed, leading to major depression and poking Matt in the hand with an eye-glass screw-driver. Friday morning I was determined to make myself smile as much as possible to force the depression out.  And then I got on the scale. Up another pound. UUUUGGGHHHHH!!! (I guess that is what I get for eating the box of Cheez-Its while trying to get Mario through the star-level instead of, you know, going outside and enjoying the 78 degree weather.) So, I decided to not eat breakfast. I got dressed and drove down to Sunset to get my blood drawn.

8 vials later….

I get home, take a handful of vitamins and decide… well, I’m not that hungry. I’ll have some coffee. I clean, we go to the park., the boys have lunch. I think… well, I’m not that hungry. I’ll have some water. We hand over the keys to the Yaris (whoo!), I tell a funny story, do some more cleaning, then watch Thomas with Jaxon as Mylo naps. I’m still not that hungry. I make dinner for the boys and have some apple juice.

Sayonara to artificial orange food.

Three hours later, the hunger sets in. I am hungry. I am very hungry. And this is when I make the conscious decision to fast. Now, I am not doing a full-on no-calories fast. I took my vitamins with juice and had two iced coffees. This is just a no food fast to get all the Cheez-its and cranberry orange scones out. I turn off the kitchen lights, tuck the boys into bed, and lock myself away in the room. The hunger goes away as I start planning for my vacation. And then around 9pm, I pooped. So strange. Who poops at night? I always go in the morning, every morning, like clockwork. I’m fascinated and feeling really in control. Now it’s not about not being hungry or being too lazy to cook anything. It’s my will power. I found it somewhere while looking for the power cord to my laptop. Yay! I go to sleep feeling better than I have all week.

This morning I woke up and weighed myself. 159! Down 3.8 pounds! Whooo! Now I know that I did not burn 13,300 calories yesterday. There are day-to-day fluctuations, plus I no longer have the old misery weighing me down, but I’m motivated to try a second day. Maybe I’ll succeed… maybe I’ll give into the breakfast at EAT. Worst case scenario: I did enough to burn off the box of Cheez-its. Best case scenario: I have another night poop!!