Fasting is Annoying

Sunday wasn't perfect. I was reminded pretty immediately how awful the whole cleansing experience is. Cravings all afternoon. I slipped and slid.

But I found out that day that my neighbor was starting Master Cleanse on Monday (yesterday), so I decided to jump on the fasting bandwagon with her. I'm not doing Master Cleanse, but an almost-water fast. I say almost-water, because one of my coping mechanisms while fasting is to have warm water with honey occasionally (2-4x day), which really seems to help in my ability to deal with it. Purists might raise their noses, but hey.

Tried to do the saltwater flush yesterday, but failed! I couldn't do it first thing in the morning because I had to take my son to preschool, so I decided to do it at mid-day instead. I didn't bothering to think that I had just had a bunch of water to drink not too long before (half hour?). Two hours later, all I was doing was peeing like crazy. In short, it was no saltwater flush, but a saltwater toxification. I felt fine. It actually made me laugh that I could screw up a saltwater flush, but the thought makes me wretch: A full teaspoon of salt down the hatch, and God only knows where it is now. Yuck! So there's a warning to all you cleansing newbies out there: You MUST do a saltwater flush on an EMPTY stomach. (But there: I also did the experiment to see what happens if you eat a full teaspoon of salt, and for me, anyway, the answer is "Nothing," but it's not fun!)

I went to bed early last night at 8:00 and slept in a teensy bit this morning. Feeling pretty good this morning, and just downed the saltwater for the flush -- cross your fingers for me!

I'm not sure how long I'm (almost) fully fasting for; probably at least 3-4 days. I do plan to switch to juice and continue something for the full 10 days, but whether I would do a full fast for 10-days I will have to determine by how I'm feeling as I go along here.

I have to say though, fasting truly is annoying for me. The whole day consists of forgetting about it, then thinking, "I'm hungry! ... Aw, I'm fasting! ... I'm hungry! ... Aw, I'm fasting ..." ad infinitum. I'm not one of those people who feels "closer to God" when I'm fasting, at least not at this point in my life. On the contrary, I feel tightly tied to my body, like it's this masochistic thing that won't let me forget about it. But, saying that, when I fasted for 4 days in January I did gain a ton of energy and felt really healthy. I'm hoping for the same this time -- hoping it will put me on firmer footing to continue progressing -- even if I'm not enamored of the fasting process itself.