36 hour post new year fasting

Today I've completed a 36 hour fast and I thought I would share my thoughts on how it went.

A rough nights sleep

I started the fast on Wednesday evening and went to bed. The for the rest of Thursday I didn't eat anything, I had a couple of glasses of water, two cups of black coffee and a cup of green tea. Having done fasting before, usually for 20-24 hours, getting to tea time wasn't too much of a problem. However, by tea time I was pretty hungry and ready for food, mostly because of habit rather than starvation. I forced myself to be busy and concentrated on blogging and researching for my book to distract myself. I then decided to get an early night and was in bed reading by 10pm.
The night was less comfortable. If you've ever tried a fairly long fast, you will know that your sleep isn't the best when your body is already in a fasted state. I felt slightly cold and for some reason my mind wouldn't rest. Eventually I got some sleep, setting the alarm for 7am.

Hunger is not starvation

After more or less 36 hours the one thing I will note is that real hunger is starting to kick in. When people haven't eaten for 6 or 7 hours and they have the shakes and feel weak, this is not hunger. It's low blood sugar which tends to have this affect in people who are used to eating simple carbs on a regular basis. If your diet is more whole you tend to be able to cope better with fasting. However, after 36 hours the real hunger starts to kick in. I felt somewhat light headed and a little bit dizzy, but otherwise reasonable fine, and not even particularly hungry. I could have probably carried on for a few more hours.

OMG – Breakfast was amazing!

Breakfast in the morning at 8am. For breakfast I made poached eggs on brown toast. One of the best things about a long fast is breakfast (Break Fast). The flavour and satiation was superb. Every mouthful is absolutely delicious and worth waiting for.

Some benefits of fasting

Some of the other benefits of fasting, as well as Autophagy (where unhealthy cells dissolve themselves and pass the nutrients to more healthy cells) are an appreciation for food and the rush of energy that you get when you do actually eat. Its about 12pm now, I've had a third cup of coffee and I feel absolutely alive. I feel energetic, awake and mentally alert, despite having a rough nights sleep.
Fasting also has some time and environmental benefits as we are consuming less and spending less time preparing food. I find myself very productive during a fast day, even though I'm a bit peckish.

I usually fast for 24 hours twice a week, but for 2018 I'm committing to doing a 36 hour fast once per month to really accelerate the health benefits.

Here is a list of 20 additional benefits:
https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/health-benefits-of-fasting/

How to try fasting

If you've not tried it before I recommend starting out by simply missing breakfast.
Don't have any calorific beverages like coffee or tea with milk or sugar. Plain black tea or coffee are OK but take it easy because the caffeine can make you dizzy on an empty stomach.
Once you can comfortably miss breakfast, try pushing your lunch back to as late as possible. When you can get to about 3pm you might as well miss lunch and have an early tea. Then push your tea out to the normal time, and hey presto! You've just fasted for 24 hours.