I Have Not Eaten For The Past Six Days...

...and now I feel better than I've felt during the past few months. I am not kidding and this is not the first time I am fasting. The first time was earlier this year - fourteen days in July, which lefth me so revitalized I've been searching for a good oportunity to start fasting again. And what a better opportunity than to take it as a New Year resolution?

Let me tell you from the start that I am no nutritionist, no doctor, no expert on health and you should not be taking my words as an advice. I am only describing my experience, and I will take no responsibility for anyone trying to imitate me! Do not fast without any medical supervision!

To Eat or Not to Eat?

I don't even remember when I first heard about anyone not eating for a significant amount of time, apart from Moses or Jesus, of course. In kindergarten, they fed me with stories about how kids who don't eat get smaller and smaller, until they disappear completely. I had a serious problem with eating the kindergarten food. I did not understand, how would it help my body, if I put something so disgusting inside of it. I avoided eating on many occasions, but I was always one of the largest kids in my class, so there was apparently no eating disorder.

Later on, the adults did not try to convince me of anything as ridiculous as that (or did they) but the "common sense" said that you would die within a couple of days were you to stop eating. During my high school, I did not like the lunch we were being offered, so I always just ate some snack. My classmates looked at me as if I were some kind of alien, with my yoghurt, piece of fruit or some candy bar, while they were digging into their full plates.

You Are What You Eat

In my early twenties, my relationship to food started to get really bad. I loved junk food, I was not moving much and I worked long into evenigs, so I drank a lot of sodas and energy drinks. I was not getting fat (maybe just a little bit) but I noticed that my metabolism was slowing down. When I was not working too much, I would easily sleep for ten hours. I would doze off during the day. I had problem to pay attention. Moreover, I was getting severely depressed.

My life has always been very dynamic so at that point of my life I just thought that it's what most people have to deal with. I thought that everyone gets a little bit depressed, that everyone has a problem with their food. I thought that people who eat healthy must have extreme self-control and I didn't have any energy to spend for that. I thought they just must be even more stressed because they think about food so much. My priorities lied elsewhere and I already had plenty of stress sources.

Man Shall Not Live On Bread Alone

Some time passed and I started to hear more and more stories about breatharians. Because I wanted to find out more information about something like that being physically possible, I also found a lot of information about fasting. Some people view fasting as some sort of a gateway to breatharianism, but I sought that information out of pure curiosity. Despite my unpleasant experiences with certain cooking, or maybe because of them, there are plenty of foods that I love eating and I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life without them.

In June 2017, my metabolism started to be so sluggish that I would basically fall asleep after every bigger meal I ate. So I had a thought: "I will just stop eating tomorrow and see what happens." When I would start feeling hungry, I would just start eating again. Until then, I would just drink water. After few days, I started to feel better and better. All the time I would normally spend eating, I spent searching for more information about the benefits of not eating.

I was anxiously awaiting the negative causes, but most of them never came. After a couple of days, I started to notice my skin getting better, my need for sleep reduced, my mood improving, my focus sharpening... And I couldn't help but ask myself, why does everybody eat so much?! I started noticing more and more the misinformation about "healthy diet" and more connections between food and health problems.

I wish I could say that then I lived happily ever after, but during the second week, I visited my relatives, and they were eating so much deliciously looking and smelling meals that I couldn't handle it anymore. I did not start bingeing with them, of course. After coming home, I steamed some veggies and very slowly started the refeeding process, which is supposed to take at least as long as the fasting itself. It didn't take long and apart from veggies, I started to crave eggs, and soon after that bacon. But I ate all of that in very moderate amounts and I did not feel the urge to sleep after a meal anymore. And let me tell you that eggs with some bacon and diced tomatoes had never tasted so delicious!

You Can't Make an Omelette Without Breaking Eggs

Two months ago, I moved to another country. Eating became a very social event and I found myself not only eating bigger amounts compared to when I ate alone, but also ingredients that I would not otherwise use. The timing was not the healthiest either. My body was handling it, but I felt the benefits I had gained by two weeks of water fasting to slowly disappear. All of it resulted in the decision to have the last meal on the New Year's Eve.

I would expect my second water fast to be easier than the first one. Probably because of the strain that the amount and quality of food put my body, and perhaps because of my body being more sensitive due to previously fasting, I've experienced a terrible food withdrawal. On the second morning, all of my muscles were hurting as if I had run a marathon the previous day. I supplemented a lot of minerals, especially Magnesium, and somehow I pulled through.

I almost gave up. I almost decided to just take four, five days as a success and start again some time later. But on the sixth day, I woke up as a completely new person. Right now, I do not feel any hunger, any food cravings. My skin is clearing up again. I may be imagining this, but I think my vision is getting better as well. I feel new motivation, I am gaining fresh perspective on my life and I am ready to let go of some old, useles, inefficient aspects of my life.

I still don't know how much longer I'm going to keep fasting, but I will definitely post an update here on Steemit, so look forward to it!