Rebooting with a 10 day water fast – Day 1

Earlier this year I found myself constantly going to the doctor. I had two surgeries, an endoscopy, a colonoscopy and a skin allergy test. The result of all this medical attention was: I’m a healthy 42 year old woman with a wheat allergy and hemorrhoids. The surgery took care of the roids and a simple diet change should clear up the allergic symptoms. Yay me!

The simplicity of avoiding wheat has been a challenge though. First of all, I am not the worlds best cook and learning to eat a plant-based diet on top of it makes eating feel almost overwhelming. If I could eat Beyond Meat burgers and sausages everyday life would be swell but that’s not the healthiest option. Tasty yes, healthiest – no. That being said, many plant-based processed foods have wheat or soy in them. It’s almost as common an ingredient as sugar in soda. So preparing meals from scratch at home is really my best option. I find bowls (rice or quinoa, vegetables and chickpeas or beans) my go to meal. I love salads but salad dressings are another area I have to be especially cautious in, so I tend to just use oil and vinegar. Now of course, all of this is when I am being good. The problem is I am often not being good. In fact, when it comes to wheat, I get down right naughty.

This looks amazing, but spelt is wheat… boo!

My family, of 8 others in the house, includes a pescatarian and a bunch of omnivores. I frequently feel temped when they eat box brownies, Costco muffins, french toast, pancakes and sandwiches. I have bought the flax egg and now JUST EGG to make my own sandwiches and desserts but that’s just the meat substitute. They also eat pizza, burritos and enchiladas all with flour tortillas or crusts. I bring in the corn tortillas and cauliflower for gluten-free options, but as I said before, I am not the worlds best cook so I feel like all things really are an experiment. That is, things are an experiment when I am being good, but I am often naughty. I take all the toppings off the pizza. I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I eat flour tortillas with faux meat crumble and salsa. When I eat the flour based foods I itch. Not only do I itch, my scalp looks like Ally Sheedys’ in The Breakfast Club when she makes it snow on the picture. My skin breaks out in eczema and I get beyond bloated and gassy. I also wonder if I get a little depressed but I have been very on purpose with having a positive mental attitude so I have been quick to repurpose my thoughts when they get pessimistic. Needless to say, eating wheat creates lot of negative reactions in my body and while I do try to avoid going overboard, I still succumb to eating it at least once a week.

That is how we arrived at the reason for this post. I am fed up with the negative feelings. I dislike the way my skin looks and how bloated I am. There is basically no symptom that I feel like I can live with. I want to be alleviated from them all so I have decided to do a short fast. In fact, I have been doing intermittent fasting for the past few weeks, 16 to 20 hours not eating with an 8 to 4 hour eating window. If anyone is considering doing a fast of any length, I highly recommend starting with intermittent fasting just to get used to the habit of restricting your food and drinking water to offset the urge to eat. Many times, our body is dehydrated and we feed it because we don’t really know the cues. If you’ve been with me (thank you for hanging in there) you know I have done an extended fast before so I don’t have any issues with fasting. This time though, I have planned a shorter 10 day water fast.

Today was day 1. While I planned on being very strict with my fast, I will admit today was a challenge and I failed. I ate about 430 calories in candy. Little tiny pieces of candy that you find in a candy lei. For those not familiar with leis, imagine the snack size candies (not chocolates) people pass out during Halloween and you will have an idea of how tiny the pieces actually were. But 5 of them totalled 430 calories and a broken day 1. Instead of restarting tomorrow, I decided to just keep pushing forward and be on it tomorrow. I am convinced if I call today a wash because of 5 pieces of candy, I will be restarting all week. That won’t work either. Besides the candy fails, the day has been ok. I took short naps throughout the day and keep refilling my hydro flask. I think I only drank about 120oz of water though which is not enough. I remember my lips and mouth feeling dry at one point so I know tomorrow I need to work on hydration more. I had a headache for about 5 minutes also but it went away quickly enough on its own and I am sure it had more to do with me being dehydrated than anything else. The recommendation while fasting is to rest and allow the body to do what it needs to do. To help facilitate that, I did take a serving of Purium’s fiber supplement, in water, to make sure that my colon can do its thing. I remember on my 40 day fast, I didn’t really supplement and I also didn’t poo much which I always wondered about. This time, I plan to keep things moving as much as I can naturally. I also am still off of work for the summer so I don’t have to worry about not getting adequate rest this time around. Although I do have to taxi my kids around places and make sure they do their kuleanas around the house, I am just trying to not overdo things.

There are some recommendations to avoid doing water only fasts until after a juice fast so that the body doesn’t purge too much too quickly, but you know me… go big or go home. Actually, I just don’t feel like taking the time to do a juice fast and then a water fast. School will be restarting soon and I want to be past the cleansing and into the maintaining part. I mentioned that I did take a nap or two which is also a very important part of the detoxing cycle. So, on that note, because right now it is 12:55am I am going to go to bed and update you all tomorrow. I expect these posts might become a bit more graphic in detail as the cleansing happens, but if you can handle it, you will see how I manage fasting, the family and whatever else comes up. It’s only 10 days so I know we can do this! cheee huuuuu

#10daywaterfast #fasting #glutenfree #plantbased

📗 About D Goosby of JDs Organic Productions

🌺My Story... The Journey Continues🌺

D Goosby of JD's Organic Productions is a wife and a mom to 8 beautiful kids including 2 sets of twins. At one point, she weighed close to 300 lbs and then lost half of it just to put most of it back on. D eventually got tired of the yo-yo. She learned some hidden truths about our food system and decided to get educated and make lasting changes. D studied to become a certified personal trainer, nutrition coach, and peristeam practitioner because she realized that she was not alone in wanting to make healthy lifestyle changes but lacking the knowledge to make anything permanent.

That is what D does today, she helps busy moms like herself, get back to where they feel good again, they look the way they want to look and they get to be a healthy role model for their families and friends.