July 30th – August 6th
My Second 7-day Dry-fasting Experience (day by day)
July 30th 2017
I just started a new seven day dry-fast. This is the second time I’m attempting a fast of this length. Yesterday was my birthday. It was a beautiful day in Buenos Aires. Despite winter time here in the southern hemisphere, the weather was warm with moments when I could see and feel the sun through the multiple thin layers of clouds. My main objective on my birthday was to enjoy the day as much as possible. I decided to not do my regular daily warrior diet on this day. After my jog to the “Lago de Regatas” in “Parque de 3 de Febrero”. I had about 700ml of yellow beat, celery, fennel, apple, orange juice I had saved from the night before. I add garlic, ginger and curcuma to pretty much all my juices. After having my juice, I went out for lunch, and later at night I also had dinner. Probably not the best way to go into a seven day dry-fast, but at least all I ate was of plant origin.
My journal entry on my first seven day dry-fast was written three weeks after completing the actual fast. This time I’m going keep daily a journal as I go. This will allow me to describe my experience as I am living it . Now it’s about 9:30PM. I had dinner super late last night. It has not even been 24 hours that I’ve been fasting. I just feel normal. I’m having a relaxed Sunday. It’s the only day during the week, I try to take it easy. I worked a bit on my business plan, wrote some e-mails without sending them. Done some reading. Walked to a bookstore on “Juramento”. The weather is cold today, I have little bit a runny nose, and fever, but I don’t feel sick at all. I’m experiencing a sort of a hangover effect, from the abundance of joy I had on my birthday yesterday. I was a great day, I was able to enjoy the city to its fullest. Today the birthday magic is gone, everything feels more normal.
July 31st 2017
My second seven day dry-fasting experience is going to be lot different than the previous one, since I woke up feeling pretty sick this morning.
I don’t know if it’s a mild cold, or some sort of a flu, but the bottom line is that I’ve been feeling pretty much like crap all day. I’m still going to keep on fasting for two reasons. One, I think it’s the best thing to do when I feel sick. Two, I want to experiment how having a cold affects fasting and how fasting affects the recovery time from a cold. I woke up a 7:30AM, and then went back to bed. Got up around 1:00PM read couple chapters of “Write.Publish.Repeat”, and went back to bed. Woke up again around 4:00PM and I already feel much better. The stuffy nose symptom is almost gone. I have a mild headache, and my entire body also feels achy. With all the fasting I’ve been doing lately, usually I don’t get headaches around the second day of fasting due to detox. I’m guessing the headache comes from the cold. I rarely get sick. I do my best to keep my immune system strong, but this is the third or the fourth time I remember getting sick just the day after my birthday. As if the birthday was the climax of my year, and the day after for some reason my immune system is more prone to fail. Now I’m 42 hours into the dry-fast. All I hope is that I’ll be able to be more productive tomorrow. Today I had the luxury to afford to stay in bed all day. I think it’s a good investment to rest as soon as I feel sick. Usually, if I keep going with my regular activities, it takes me about 5 to 6 days to recover completely from bad colds. When I used to live in San Diego, I will usually take me two days to recover from colds. Probably because of the excellent weather and the clean air coming from the Ocean.
August 1st 2017
Last night before going to bed, I was still experiencing strong symptoms due to the cold. I had little bit of a hard time falling asleep because of a runny nose. I woke up in the middle of the night because some drunk people had decided to sing some soccer chants at 2:00AM under my window. I was able to to fall asleep after 30 minutes or so. When I woke up in the morning, I was feeling way better with regards to to the cold. The fast started to feel more like my previous fasts. As if the fasting experience was taking over, me experiencing the symptoms due to the cold. I decided to stay in bed, so I could recover as fast as possible. Around 1:00PM I decided do get up and do a little bit of Yoga. After that, I started to feel almost normal. Still a bit weak, but normal. I decided then to go out for a walk. I walked up to “Lago de Regatas” in the “Parque 3 de Febrero”. It was a nice walk. It felt good to get some fresh air, and promote my lymph and blood circulation . At this point I am 54 hours into the dry-fast. Cold symptoms are 80% gone. I don’t feel great, but I can function normally again.
August 2nd 2017
Last night I went to bed around 11:00PM. I did not set my alarm; the result was that I woke up at 11:15AM. I felt well rested, no more cold symptoms. What I learned from this experience, is that fasting, and resting tend to accelerate the recovery process twice as fast, as far as my metabolism is concerned. After getting up, I looked by the window, seeing that it was a beautiful day outside. I decided to take advantage of it. After a very light yoga session, I put on my pants to head to the “Barrancas de Belgrano”. I was able to score a 30 minute shirtless sunbathing session. Since it’s the middle of the winter in Buenos Aires, and since last time I was doing the same thing, and a conservative city agent told me to put my shirt back on; I consider this a success. I think I am becoming a sort of an urban modern sun worshiper. Beside the fact that I always loved the sun, the SMS concept I learned it from Thierry Casasnovas motivates me even more. SMS stands for SUN-MASSAGE-SLEEP. Thierry thinks that those three factors help the nervous system to heal itself and regenerate. I personally love the SUN part of SMS. Since I’ve been sunbathing on a regular basis, I feel like it has been helping me a lot. It gives me energy, and boosts my morale. At the park, few minutes after I had just put my shirt back on, the puritan city agent showed up. It was definitely time to take off. I wanted to continue on my journey to take advantage of the spring like weather in the middle of the winter. I headed towards my new favorite spot in Belgrano, which is the “Parque 3 de Febrero” with the “Lago de Regatas” in the middle of the park. I truly find peace at this place. The qair quality can be exceptional depending on which direction the wind is blowing. There aren’t many people during weekdays. There is actually an island in the middle of the lake with exotic trees, and tropical looking birds on the trees. What else someone who had been fasting for four days can ask for. I was able to score an other 37 minutes of shirtless sunbathing at the shore of the lake. The sun reflecting on water amplifies it luminescence. Despite Buenos Aires being a big city, it is blessed with enormous parks like this one. Going to the park is a great way to escape from noise, traffic, and air pollution. I start to wonder why am I still living in a big city. If each time I am closer to nature, I feel better, I should maybe consider living constantly in such environment.
As far as the current dry-fasting experience goes. Besides being a bit slow with my physical movements, I feel fine today. I’m 90 hours in, and I can feel that my body is healing itself. I’m trying to to do a dry-fast as complete as it can be. So I haven’t showered the entire time nor have brushed my teeth. I’ve probably washed my hands 4 times total. I dry them fast after washing them. The idea behind this, is to not feed the body with any liquid through the skin. We’ll see if I can manage to not shower for a week. During my last 7 day dry-fast I did take showers, so this is also a new addition to my longer period fasting experience. This time around I decided to take it easy as opposed to the last time, when I was running around town getting things done. I am conscious that it is a sort of a luxury, but I think it’s a good investment. I want to get all the benefits I can from this longer fast. The previous seven day dry-fast helped me so much, that my faith in fasting has increased. As Thierry Casasnovas always says, why look for the solutions outside of our bodies. My own experience of fasting is convincing me even more that the solutions to our health related issues are definitely inside of us. I believe that the human body is a self regenerating beautiful machine. Leaving it alone for a while has been doing miracles for me.
August 3rd 2017
This is the fifth day of the dry-fast. I actually feel good. I still feel a bit weak and slow, but I have greater mental clarity today. I went to bed around 1AM, since the upstairs neighbors had decided to throw in a party. It was useless for me to go bed any earlier and not be able to fall asleep. I was able to wake up at 8:15AM without setting my alarm. I did a bit of light yoga, and have been working on my business plan since. Now I’m going to try to repeat yesterday’s experience of sun bathing all afternoon. I really think that the sun has amazing virtues for me. While I was living in San Diego, the sun was always around. It was definitely the happiest and more productive times in my life. The winters here in Buenos Aires are colder, but we are still blessed with the sun, amazing parks, and above OK air quality for a big city like this. There are parts of town the air quality is great, others not so much. There are still a lot of trucks running on diesel fuel, which is in my opinion very unfortunate.
I went to the “Parque de 3 de Febrero”, everything was perfect. This time I took my yoga mat with me. For about two hours I was able to sunbath, laying down on the shore, shirtless , bear foot, with my pants rolled up. I was even able to get my back be in direct contact of the sun for about half an hour . I have the feeling that having the sun hit directly my kidneys, make them function better. The same way, when I get the sun on my stomach, I have the feeling that it promotes the healing process of my digestive system. I don’t exactly know if it’s the effect of the sun, or just the heat. All I know is that sunbathing makes a dry-fasting day go by easier. It amazes me, how each time I have the opportunity to be in direct contact with the sun for about 20 minutes, I feel my mood and energy levels being boosted.
I am now 117 hours into the dry-fast. Today, for the most part, I felt great. Last time while dry-fasting for seven days, the fifth and the seventh days were quite challenging. This time around the fifth day was actually the best day so far. In one of Thierry Casasnovas’s videos, I remember him saying that on longer dry-fasts, the fifth and the ninth days, are when people experience the most healing crises. I now have about 63 hours left, since I want to break my fast at noon on Sunday. I will actually complete a seven and a half day dry-fasting experience. The reason behind this, is that I started the fast around midnight, so I don’t want to break my fast at night. Also getting one more night of sleep while fasting can be a plus. It gives the body one extra night to heal itself. In addition, when I wake up, it will be Sunday which is usually a calmer day in Belgrano. Less street traffic, less noise and activity from the street and neighbors.
I am amazed that I don’t feel hungry, nor thirsty. I just look forward to the moment when I’ll be able to break my fast and start to re-hydrate my body with delicious slow pressed juices.
August 4th 2017
I went to bed around 12:45AM last night, and woke up at 7:45AM this morning without using my alarm. Besides a bad taste, and a pasty sensation in my mouth, I feel great. I am always amazed of the amount of urine that gets out of my system during a dry-fast. I’m not putting anything in, but liquid is still coming out. The kidney filtration tend to be a bit different during a fasting period. There are particles in my urine, but they look more organic and almost slimy and transparent. Whereas during regular times, the residuals inside the urine tend to look like powdered sugar. Sometimes the particles are even sort of crystallized, reminding me snow flakes. I am exited to get closer to the end of the fast. I still have over 48 hours to go. During my last seven day dry-fast experience, the last hours were quite challenging. I am curious to see if my body got any stronger since last time.
August 5th 2017
Yesterday was an amazing day, I had an unusual level of high energy. I was able to be productive on all my projects, run errands, and still go to the lake to sunbath. I had so much energy that I went to Palermo for a huge walk. I only slept for about four hours. I experienced some healing crises, but they did not affect me negatively. It amazes me how much more energy one can have without eating. Digestion and assimilation of food seem to take a good portion of our overall energy capital.
At this moment I am 150 hours into the dry-fast. There’s only 30 hours left until Sunday noon. It’s really exciting. Today I’m going to get organic lemons for my first juice. I’m also going to buy other fruits and vegetable for the following juices I’m planning on making. I’m thinking of having only liquids until dinner. And then maybe have a mono meal of avocados. I am also thinking of buying some coconut oil. Thierry Casasnovas recommends breaking the fast with green juices, and then have soft fatty foods like avocados or bananas. The lemon thing, I heard it from other dry-fasting enthusiasts on YouTube. I don’t know if it’s ideal or nor. All I know, at the end my last seven-day dry fast, I was craving lemons, and when I saw everything that got out of my system few hours after the intake of the lemon juice, I thought, I may have done something right by breaking the fast with organic lemon juice. Thierry’s approach is a good one too. He recommends limiting the intake of sugar to break the the fast. According to him, this allows the body to prolong it’s detoxifying actions. It helps maintaining the mental clarity due to the fast a bit longer.
It’s 11PM; I’m 167 hours into the dry-fast. I haven’t been eating, drinking, nor showering for a week, and I feel great!! Today all day I felt euphoric, full of energy. I got my new guitar, went to the lake again. It was a spring like day in Buenos Aires. I went and bought some lemons, coconut oil, avocados, celery, fennel, apples and oranges. It’s going to be a juice fest tomorrow. But first the lemon juice at noon. After that, I’m going to wait to see what happens, and how I feel. Last time I had waken up super early and super upbeat to break the seven day fast, and as soon as I had the lemon juice, I started to feel very sleepy, and went back to bed. A major difference between the two seven day dry-fasting experiences, is that last time on the seventh day, I was having all these physical problems like seeing double, loosing my voice, my ears acting weird. This time around I am not experiencing any of the symptoms. Actually this dry-fasting experience was more like a crescendo of me feeling better day after day . I started really low physically and mentally, and I am finishing really strong. Each day, I was feeling better than the previous one. I am a fan of dry-fasting. It’s a true gift from nature. I believe that the solution is inside ourselves, that’s for sure!
August 6th 2017
I finally got to break my fast at noon today with a freshly slow pressed organic lemons juice made with 6 lemons. I tried to drink it as slow as possible, but it was almost impossible to drink slow after a fast like this. I wasn’t necessarily feeling thirsty, but it felt extremely good to be able to absorb some liquid again. After I finished the lemon juice, I ate about six table spoons of organic coconut oil. Swallowing the oil felt like I was re-hydrating my body. I needed to sit down and not do anything for about ten minutes. After the short rest, I started preparing my cold pressed green juice. I made a 500ml fennel, celery, parsley, apple, orange juice. As always, I added some garlic curcuma and ginger. The firsts sips tasted extremely good . I was able to sip it slower than the lemon juice. I did not eat or drink until 8:00PM at night. I sliced an mixed avocados with spiriluna and chia seeds. Then I made some hand-rolls with nori seaweed. My first idea was to have a mono meal with just avocados, but ended up being a bit more creative on my first meal after almost eight days of not eating anything. In my journal entries, I often compared this fast with the previous one I had three weeks ago. I have the feeling that I was stronger this time around. I was able to recover from a bad clod really fast, and the end of the fast was actually quite easy and very enjoyable.
On my way to the park this morning, while I was still fasting, I considered to go for nine days for the next longer fast. I realized many things during this experience. The mental clarity and productivity, was extremely increased during the last three days. I was feeling extremely good, highly inspired by everything I was doing. It felt as if I wasn’t wasting a second of my life. I really want to bring more of that mental state to the days when I’m not fasting. I already mentioned this, but again, I realized how much of a distraction food can be and get in the way of things we want to do, that actually matter the most in the long run. I’m still adjusting to the fact that now I have to make time to go get groceries, prepare food, do the dishes, digest and assimilate food. This is also one of the many reasons why I want to keep experimenting with fasting. It feels like it’s leading me to a better place in life. I’m not quite there yet, but I want for sure pursue the journey.
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I AM NOT A HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. I would like to make it very clear that I am only sharing my own experience on this website, and have no intention to give any specific advice on health. Please read the disclaimer section for more information.
