I just broke a 30 day fast. Ask me... lecture me about ruining my health.

[chaska]

After taking no solid food (and very little liquid food) for thirty days I just had a nice big greek salad. It was good.

[Lucky Luciano]

1. So was this because of a health issue like your jaw was wired shut

or are you one of those "new-age" quasi-health experts that probably do not have an average life span longer than anyone else and needlessly tortures themselves?

[frank frankly]

2. any enlightenment, ideas, etc, from the experience?

the longest i've done was 3-4 days. very thrilling mentally, a little scary. i can't imagine a month.

hope it was pleasant!

:hi:

[chaska]

9. No.

I think if you take no sustenance at all you'd probably get pretty wacky. I took vitamins in addition to the other stuff mentioned below.

[soothsayer]

3. Cool

I think that's neat. It's a long time, but neat. What liquids did you take during it?

Was it hard?

[candy]

4. Why?

[chaska]

5. It's easy.

After the first 3-4 days the hunger goes away. There was a little hunger *because* I was taking the liquid foods. To explain I started out taking a glass of milk every day, but it gave me stomach trouble, finally it just made me really nauseous so I had only water for two days and all hunger disappeared totally. I took some limeade with splenda sweetener and green iced tea with same. somedays I had a can of chicken broth. That's it.

And yes I am a bit of a masochist. I like to do extreme things occasionally.

[TrogL]

7. So does your weight yo-yo?

How do you keep it off?

I thinking about doing the same thing. I'm tired of the love handles and I want to go back down to my fighting weight, but it means losing 12% of my body weight, then keeping it off.

[chaska]

8. I've lost weight lots of times.

Mostly on long backpacking trips. It always comes back. My theory is that your body is always going to try to take you back to your highest weight. So, does that mean I should accept defeat. I choose to keep losing it.

And if you think about it, this is the history of mankind. Food has never been as available as it is now. Most of history is a cycle of feast and famine. I posit that this is all perfectly natural. I have read several books on fasting (they are getting hard to find - it truly is a lost art) and while there is a lot of misinformation in them, the history is pretty clear. Yo yo-ing is what we do.

[chaska]

6. Oh, I forgot.

I needed to lose a few. Lost thirty. I'm svelt now. I know, it'll come back. Don't care.