Brother Simpleton

Weight: 142 lb. * Body Fat 19.2% * Ran: 3.7 km * Cycled: 3 km

Practically no hunger today, but I feel rather weak. Ran 3.7 km this morning with my son, and got pretty tired. Then went through a few exercises from my strength training routine. Was rather slow going, but not too terrible, until at some point I got dizzy. I find it hard to concentrate, to speak loudly and to move fast. It is, again, worse than day #2 from my 3-day fast (as far as I can remember).

My tongue is white-coated, but not too bad. No other visible symptoms, as far as I can see. Except that I can’t type properly — every word gets misspelled or with letters in wrong order — I wonder if my coordination got worse.

About statistics: I am three pounds lighter than yesterday, but of course it can’t be all fat. Probably water. To measure my fat percentage I use special calipers (which I described here). They are graduated in 2 mm increments, and I currently fluctuate between 14 and 16 mm (of the skin pinched in a certain location), which, according to their chart, corresponds to 17.5% and 19.2%. So even though I went from 17.5% to 19.2% in a day doesn’t mean that I suddenly got a lot of extra fat. It’s just within the measurement error. (If you are really interested in my body fat percentage dynamics, you can see a live chart here.)

Weight: 145 lb. * Body Fat: 17.5% (barely) * Ran: 6 km * Cycled: 39 km

So, here it is, the first day. When you start a journey for a first time, it often looks so big, so daunting. And the way you handle it, of course, is just to move forward, step after step.

I had similar thoughts this morning, when I ran a 6 km loop, my record for this season (and for many, many years). When I started, I couldn’t believe I would be able to make it. So I just kept going, and eventually get used to the pace, and finished with relative ease.

Since the morning, things went a little bit downhill though. Today was worse than my typical one-day fast. I felt some hunger couple of times — not much, but more than I expected — but worse than that was a constant feeling of low energy. I am not sure how to accurately describe in words. Dispirited and light-headed, maybe?

Well, let’s just keep going. Let’s see what tomorrow brings us. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do any cycling tomorrow — have to drive to work — but probably I can run in the morning, if I have enough time.

So, this is it. I drank a last cup of freshly squeezed juice, and I am done with eating for more than a week.

I’ve spent the last two days according to the plan. Yesterday I ate only fresh fruits and vegetables (and managed to overeat, to my surprise); today I only drank juices.I like the juice fast days the most: really delicious.

The goal of this preparation is to make sure that the colon is more or less empty when one enters the fast. In certain circles, it is considered obligatory to take laxatives before the fast, and to administer enema during the fast. I flatly refuse to the former, an will do the latter only if really necessary. Luckily for me, a day or two of juice fasting seems to take care of the colon in a pleasant and natural way.

Well, I am really looking forward to tomorrow. Better to have more patience, though. I know from experience and from the literature that the good things only start after three-four days.