What A Flnd!

This Blog Is Dead

2010-01-17T16:52:00.001-08:00

I killed it, with a blowtorch.

Done

2010-01-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

I have called a stop to this fast, I made it to the end of day 6, a 144 hour fast. Since my previous post I'd been sick as a dog, with barely the energy to get up and grab myself a drink of water. Extreme dizziness, nausea, and a splitting headache were the chief problems, so I decided to stick to the original date I'd set for ending the fast before my slip up at day 4.

At the end I weighed in at 126 pounds, still with normal vitals. I have to admit, I'm fairly disappointed it ended the way it did. There were moments during this fast that I felt really good, with decent energy and no hunger, but the majority of it was a struggle, which I suspect was caused by improper preparation, several slip ups that kept me from fully switching over to ketosis, and having un-supportive family living with me. I felt like I was trying to quit smoking, while my family was standing outside my door every couple of hours lighting one up!

While it's somewhat early to tell, I was expecting to feel better about having food in my gut, but after being without it so long, it's kinda uncomfortable to be honest. I find myself already looking forward to the next time I can fast. I've already added a much higher percentage of fat content to my diet, in the form of more avocados and coconuts, and I'm also snacking more on nuts and seeds. I think avocado has become my new favorite food!

Anyways, I guess that's it! Thanks for reading. My next trial will probably be another attempt at the Uberman sleep schedule.

GP

10 Day Water Fast Day 5 - Not So Strong

2010-01-11T20:23:00.000-08:00

127 lbs, 113.5 hours, 36.6C, 54 bpm

I'm not feeling so hot today, it's like I've got a nasty cold. Movement is sluggish, my thinking is foggy, I feel depressed and unmotivated and keep considering ending this fast. No one seems to be too interested in what I'm doing, my family is against me and offers nothing but discouragement, and the food just smells so god damned good... But that's just the negativity talking. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow before I actually start entertaining thoughts of quitting. Tomorrow will be the actual tenth day of my fast if you don't count the blip I had at the end of day 4.

I have to admit, I look really really skinny. Not to the point of looking anorexic yet, but it's not far away. I haven't been this light since before I was 16 years old.

It looks like I'm losing about a pound a day now, so theoretically speaking, to do a 40 day fast without my body cannibalizing itself, I would need to start out at a weight of about 180 lbs which would be very large for my 5'6" frame. It's looking like I'll have to put that one off till I'm old and fat, and do a fast that's more reasonable in length. Perhaps just go out there and stay till I get hungry with no set time. I'll think about it more when I'm in a better frame of mind, right now I'm just bagged and ready to go lie back down.

Peace.

GP

Water Fast Day 4 - The Magic of Ketosis

2010-01-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

128.5 lbs, 84 hours, 72 bpm, 36.2C

May as well start with the negative. I'm pretty physically tired, and it takes very little to send my heart rate through the roof, just stripping down for my weigh-in was enough to put it up to about 100 bpm. I had to go up two flights of stairs carrying a finished load of laundry, and needed to lie down once I got to my bedroom.

However, mentally I feel unbelievably good! Not only that, but my vision has seen another upgrade, this time to color quality. To put things into perspective for you, it's like I've lived with an old CRT monitor my whole life, that I could never get the color balance quite right, and now I'm looking at a big screen plasma in HD. HD! It's really that big of a difference, I don't know if other fasters experience this or not, and it could also be the high amount of organic carrots I'd been eating in the previous month (1 or 2 a day, sometimes more).

I also understand the reason I slipped up during the previous day 4, it was the honey in the tea I drank on day 3 that foiled me. I wouldn't have thought that a mere 40 calories of carbohydrates would make such a difference, but apparently they stalled my ketosis off.

I wasn't feeling hungry at all until I started to think about my slip up, and carbohydrates... :P It really goes to show just how connected my body and my thoughts really are. Shut up stomach or I'll feed you vinegar!

Thanks for reading, any feedback is more than welcome!

GP

10 Day Water Fast Day 3, Going Strong

2010-01-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

129 lbs, 72 hours, 36.8C, 80 bpm

Well I broke under 130 lbs today, I haven't been so lightweight since I was 16. I had the mother of all bad breath for a bit today, but it seems to be subsided now. Then again, it's not like I'm blowing in someone elses face and getting their opinion... I'll be sure to check with someone tomorrow. Or, I could go out tonight and drive about erratically trying to find a cop, and then just ask them. The BO is also smelling a bit odd. Also I may as well note, my sinus arrhythmia is really acting up, I had to hold my breath to get a pulse reading, so 80 bpm is faster than actual. That's a bit concerning, but I seem to remember something similar around this time the previous day 3, I'll have to look back. Wow that's interesting, it was at this exact time I was having this same problem with the heart rate, but I have no idea what that means. Perhaps it is part of one of the stages of the switch to ketosis. I recently joined a website run by a doctor who supervises people doing fasts, and I'll be sure to ask about it.

I'll now shift into storytelling mode, so feel free to stop reading if you're into brevity. :)

So I went for a drive today, which I haven't done in a couple of weeks or so. The Civic was happy to get a chance to stretch her legs. These are her last days in my care, so I thought I should enjoy them while they last. My parallel parking has gotten sloppy, so I practiced that a bunch until I was satisfied I was back in the groove and then went driving around the city. It occurred to me that I probably wouldn't need to know how to parallel park for awhile since I'm giving up driving, but it gave me something to do. I went past the old Macs I used to go to buy my crap, and it triggered some old responses. I decided to pick up a Prime Time, my old vice. I wasn't really craving it, but the idea seemed good at the time since my sense of smell has been bothering me, it's just too intense for this environment. People are cooking chicken downstairs and I can smell it wafting under the door, not to mention I'm training my cats to use the toilet instead of a litterbox, so every time they take a crap it just stinks up the whole floor since they can't bury it. Plus, smoking has this odd effect for me, where when I have one the next whole hour just flies by like nothing. I noticed that effect when I was first incarcerated in the Edmonton Remand Center, which is incidentally the same place where I became addicted to smoking. Before that I'd been an adamant non-smoker, but believe me, you'll do anything to make the time go faster if you've got any amount of time to spend in that hell hole, and I was there for 10 months. That damn addiction kept me for 8 years, but I'll forgive myself this slip. I don't pretend to be perfect.

I haven't touched any smoke since last November, so it did burn my lungs and tasted a lot like the first cigarettes I ever smoked (nasty), but I enjoyed the consumption of something other than water. Hopefully that puts a damper on the olfactories for awhile. I also broke another rule of mine and bought a bottle of water, but I've been needing a water bottle anyways so I'll be reusing it a lot. It's just nice to have a different flavor of water for a change. Nice to have some water that doesn't have any fluoride in it too. Supposedly the water filter we've got here removes fluoride, but I've never had it tested since that would require sending it to a private lab for testing apparently, which is expensive. If anyone reading this knows of any cheap ways to test for fluoride in the water, I'm all ears.

10 Day Water Fast Day 3

2010-01-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

7:14PM I'm not taking stats, nothing is going to be drastically different than this morning.

This is hard, but I'm being my own worst enemy here. I coached two people today on dietary changes that they would be happy with, talking about all my favorite foods, and the result is predictable. I'm starving. But at the same time I'm happy to help, and this could be just the last thrashings of magic day number 3. If this time is anything like the previous fast, the hunger should disappear by tomorrow. Still, I feel like just sleeping till then. Okay, enough complaining!

I'm quite hungry, and feeling somewhat exhausted mentally. Physically I seem to be fine, I can bound up the stairs without any issue, and last night I did some decent cardio. I've just been online learning so much today already, reading page after page of information on fasting of various kinds, checking out other institutions that support people during their fasts, various diets, and so many emails... This is why fasting in the desert would be better than fasting in the office. I need to focus on myself right now, on exploring this new state of being, not on the things I want to accomplish. Actually, I think some meditation is in order right now. Ciao!

Edit: A breakthrough of sorts happened. As I was meditating my emotional state was getting swamped with anger, hopelessness, and anxiety, accompanied by hunger. The deeper my breaths were, the worse it got. Finally the voice in my head said out loud, "I don't want to feel this way anymore!" and that exact instant I felt it all get even worse, and I suddenly realized what I was doing, trying to deny my emotions. So I tried a different approach.
"I accept all these feelings as my own, and they do not control me." And just like that, everything but the slightest bit of hunger evaporated! At that point I believe I fell asleep for 1.5 hours or so, and while I still feel a bit hungry, I also feel very clean and light. I feel so grateful for the opportunity to do this, while most people are slaving away at their jobs trying to support their standard of life, I've been given the perspective to realize that I don't need a high standard of living. All these toys, these houses, these cars, and all this junk food, they're all completely unnecessary. People are slaving their lives away for stuff that doesn't even matter. If there's one thing that I would like you to take from these writings, that is it.

Thanks for reading.

GP

10 Day Water Fast Day 2 - Complete

2010-01-09T03:02:00.000-08:00

4:00AM, 48 hours SLF, 130 lbs, 68 bpm, 36.3C

There were more cravings for food today, similar to the ones that influenced my decision to break my fast once already, and interestingly they occurred at the same time as the last ones did. There wasn't even any hunger, it was just a craving like for a drug. As of now, those cravings are gone, but I can't say I did anything specific to deal with them, I just ignored them hoping they went away. I think a better strategy would be to find a way to handle those cravings as they happen so that I don't have to fight with them in the future, because it's stressful to stop yourself from having something you want. I will try a method similar to how I quit smoking, using my thoughts to help my goal, instead of to tempt me. I'm sure I'll find the proper mantras when the time comes, but something like, "I'm grateful for this opportunity to fast." would work, "I'm happy that my body is getting the rest it needs." stuff like that.

Also, I've decided to make my upcoming 40 day fast a sort of pilot project, assuming there is any interest, and am opening up my trip to anyone who wishes to join me. I will arrange transport to and from the site, and will provide supervision. You can feel free to join me for as long as you wish, 2 days, 10 days, or the entire 40. If you are interested in a spiritual experience, a healing experience, or just want to get away from civilization for a while and try deep fasting, you are more than welcome to join me! I might include juice fasting on this retreat, I'll have to see where the interest lies.

If you would like to join me for my fast in the semi-arid desert of beautiful British Columbia this summer, you can write me at gaianretreat@live.com. Just put "desert fast" in the subject line. My privacy policy is to never share your address with another party under any circumstances, as I wish was the case more often these days.

Edit: After considering this for a few hours I've changed my mind about opening this up to others, I consider this fast to be a rite of passage of sorts, a spiritual communion with the universe that I need to do alone. It is my definite intention to learn the ways of fasting and cleansing, and provide a place where people can come to do so, but now isn't the time.

Thanks for reading.

10 Day Water Fast Day 2

2010-01-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

1:45PM, 7.5 hours sleep, 130.5 lbs, this stupid Walmart thermometer says my temp is 35.3, now 35.6, 60 bpm

I had another crazy dream, but this ain't a dream diary. I just want to note that in my last 2 dreams I'm way more powerful than I normally am in non-lucid dreams, running and leaping incredibly fast, taking gunshot wounds but just pressing forward anyways, learning to operate new technology quickly. This is very different from normal where at best I run and jump at human levels, and often get bogged down with paralysis, mechanical devices often simply won't work for me, and getting shot means losing most of my mobility. I also seem to be a big hit with all the women I meet in my dreams, also different than usual. Interesting.

Waking up this morning was the easiest I've had it yet, not a stitch of hunger yet, I feel really comfortable. The urine was very dark colored though, I'm making an effort to drink a lot of water to flush things out this morning. I notice no nasty detox symptoms yet today, actually I feel pretty wicked. I'll do some light exercise and see if it goes anything like yesterday's workout did.

Edit: 6:12PM, 130 lbs, 69.6C, 64 bpm. I still felt pretty powerful working out, but it didn't last long, and at the end I felt like going to sleep. I sat down for a bit and was back to good in a few minutes. Energy levels are stable, there's no hunger, dizziness, I don't even really notice that I'm fasting at this point as long as I'm not exerting myself too much. The thermometer is back to reading normal temp, maybe it is accurate. Could my body temp really be that low as it was reading this morning? Also, my hands and face are back to being flushed with blood, and my face feels hot.

10 Day Water Fast Day 1 - The End

2010-01-08T02:22:00.000-08:00

The end of day 1 that is, I'm at 23.5 hours SLF, and I thought I'd update the situation for those interested, and I have to admit I'm surprised. First of all...
3:30AM, 130.5, 80 bpm, temp 69.8 blah blah blah for posterity. And I feel fantastic, btw. I just finished working out, and it was quite extraordinary, it was like I couldn't get tired. I just kept going and going, and I couldn't even work up a sweat. Given, this isn't the most intensive workout known to man, but it's the best calisthenics I can do in a house full of sleeping people, and normally it's quite sufficient to get me sweating and tire me out. Not today.

Also, I was expecting my hunger to be back in full force, but that simply isn't the case. Right now, there is no hunger, and during the past 24 hours I got maybe 2 or 3 noticeable hunger pangs. As for bowel movements (I know you're itching for news on that), I passed the dessert I ate and it was gross, and so far that's it. The body seems to want to hang onto the rest for awhile longer... The next paragraph is all about what I ate yesterday after that 100g or so of Sex In A Pan, feel free to skip it if you're not interested.

One banana, one tomato, one carrot, 1/4 cup baked corn chips, 1/4 cup salsa, 1 bowl (32.5g) of oatmeal, 1 piece of multigrain bread with honey and peanut butter, 1 cup rice milk, and 1 cup superfood gold. I was stuffed, and then I slept for 10 hours.

So, I guess it's because my metabolism is lower from the fast that I have so much energy still from that one meal 24 hours ago, or it could be the superfood juice, that stuff is potent. Either way, here's hoping tomorrow goes like today did.

Take care, and thanks for reading.

GP

10 Day Water Fast Day 1 - A New Hunger

2010-01-07T15:38:00.001-08:00

5:00PM, 13 hours SLF, 131 lbs, 36.6C, 68 bpm, 10 hours sleep

Well I'm not the kinda guy who beats himself up over failure, so I'm just happily starting over again. (I did, actually start beating myself up for a bit there, but we're talking metaphorically now.) After all, the goal is a 10 day fast, not 4 days or 6 days. So instead of a carrot and some leafy greens I made a full meal of it, and I ended up eating quite a bit more than I was expecting! Then I sat back on the couch and meditated for 30 minutes, meditated on food digestion which is a big first for me. I ended up nodding off I think, and I had a pretty crazy dream which I'm sure I wouldn't have had if it weren't for my practice at sleep cycle compression (Uberman sleep schedule). My only regret is that I didn't have any avocado.

After that I was pretty exhausted, but I managed to write down my dream before I passed out at 6:15AM. Waking up at 4:15PM I remember a lot of dreams, dreams where I'm in high school, except it's not like any high school dreams I remember having before, because in these ones I'm all awesome and kick ass! Dave Grohl was teaching a drum class. :P

I notice that the level of detail on everything I see is higher than normal. I have had my eyes fixed with Lasik a year ago, and while yes everything looks pretty sharp, now it's like I can see further. It kinda always felt like my eyes weren't mine since I had them fixed, like the image I was seeing was "off" somehow, but now it's like they're perfect. It probably something to do with all the carrots I've been eating lately (one a day or so before the fast). Could have something to do with the fast itself too, who knows?

You know, if science was really interested in helping people out, and not the almighty dollar, they'd start doing tests on this, seeing exactly who will take benefit from a good deep fast. I would love to run a healing center where people can come to fast and rest, and find people with terminal cancer who supposedly there was nothing anyone could do for them, and just put them on various fasting diets to see what works the best. I could take normal people and get them on regular fasts, like 2 deep fasts a year, and 1-2 day long fasts bi-monthly, etc, and see how their health benefits. Would they have better dental health? What diseases would they tend to have less of over the course of their lives? And how exactly would mice and rats respond to regular fasting, has anyone ever tried this out? I think I will place that Center as a life goal, now that I'm thinking of it. So mote it be.

Thanks for reading!

GP

Water Fast Day 4 - And The Devil Said, "Eat That Dessert"

2010-01-06T23:14:00.000-08:00

This is worth mentioning because it'll drop your fast hopes quick (no pun intended); not having control of your environment is BAD! This works for any addiction you care to name that one is trying to quit. You must bring your environment into congruency to what you're trying to quit, or you'll increase the difficulty of ceasing exponentially. Get rid of any food that you're addicted to before you start fasting, especially knowing that it's going to go bad before you're done.

So I saw my brother eating globe grapes today, and I really wanted to have just one, so I figured that I'd just take one grape, chew it up and then spit it out. My cat was there and he wanted some chicken, so I pulled out a tupperware container that I thought was the meat, chewed up my grape, then spit it out. Mission accomplished.

Then I open the lid. Inside was a dessert that my mom had made at the beginning of my fast, and it was clearly going to go bad inside of a day or two, I used to work in a kitchen so I know what a desert that is ALMOST bad looks like, slightly discolored pudding, darkened banana. It had hardly been touched! I think I was the only one who'd eaten any of it, just before I'd started my fast, so only one square was missing. This stuff is called "Sex In A Pan", and has whipping cream, chocolate pudding, graham cracker crust, some sort of banana pudding, pecans, and apparently 3 more layers I can't identify, if you'd believe the cook. The name of the stuff is not an exaggeration.

Now, here's a thing you should know about me too, is that I HATE HATE HATE seeing food wasted, and to watch a dessert like that just spoil, all that rocket fuel energy and oh so gooey chocolate and real whipping cream sweetness just tossed down the toilet, to me it's a travesty. I tried to fight it, I really did.

Ya... NINE! Yaaaaa... NINE! Yaaaa...... NINE!!! I put it back into the fridge. And then I gave my cat some chicken from the bowl on the other side of the fridge. And then I pulled that Sex back out, set it on the counter, and opened it up for a closer examination. Yup, it was definitely gonna go bad soon.

I thought about just leaving this bit out of the blog, and I'll be honest, there was a time in my life where I wouldn't have given it a second thought to lie and say I hadn't eaten a thing. But what does a man have if he doesn't have his integrity? So there it is; I chowed down on half of it, telling myself I wouldn't tell anyone about it. I'm veeeeeak!

I have a feeling that I'm gonna regret that too. For one thing, my stomach is firing back up to digest that mostly mush sugar, so it'll probably take another day at least to shut back down, could be up to 3 days. And the body will switch from itself to the stomach for the source of food, and it's gonna have to switch back so I'll go through that stage of lethargy again...

I don't know what possessed me to even consider opening up that fridge, I suppose that's that wily devil sitting on my shoulder, whispering. "You can chew one grape, what's that? That's nothing! No one's ever gonna know, just open that fridge up and lets take a look in there... Oh look, what's that stuff there? Better investigate! Oh my!!!" Devil begins laughing. He thought he was gonna get away with it, little did he know I would only rat him out in the end. I should've remembered that line Jesus used on the devil, what was it? "Thou shalt not test thy GOD!" or something. Meh.

So, call me pathetic and weak if you want, I deserve it. The lesson learned? When cleaning up yourself, clean up your environment first. Or at least avoid the areas of your environment that you know are gonna be a problem.

So, that's nearly 4 days straight consuming only about 40 calories from 1 teaspoon of honey, 92 hours which is a personal record for me. And I'm not done, I'm still not going back to food till Dec 13, 4AM. That said, I hope you can forgive me eating some carrots and a some lettuce. I'm gonna need some fiber to go after that dessert.

GP

Water Fast Day 4 - Hunger Fading Fast

2010-01-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

2:00PM, weight 131 lbs (as of 11:30AM, when I woke up), 82 hours SLF, heart rate 68 bpm, body temp 36.6C. Went to sleep around 7:00AM, so 5.5 hours of sleep.

I've got a bad taste in my mouth that won't go away, but my runny nose has died down, hopefully for good! I'm not sure what to expect in the future for detox, since as I mentioned earlier, this isn't my first fast, in my younger days I'd do it fairly frequently, but only for a day or two, and never deeper. However it's been a long time since I fasted at all, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes as my body eats through the rest of it's extra fat.

I feel normal as long as I don't start running around. If I'm keeping a steady pace, even going up the stairs doesn't phase me anymore. I've started doing some very light warm up exercise and static stretching to keep myself active, and I went outside very briefly this morning for a short walk, which I cut short since it's quite cold out there and I'm not set up with polar gear. There is very little hunger now, just a kind of quiet feeling in my abdomen. Occasionally I'll hear a rumble coming from down there, and there will be a kind of minor ache from my stomach, but it's easy to manage with a glass of hot water. It's interesting that my weight hasn't dropped since yesterday, but I'm not using the world's most accurate scale.

Some of my contacts are interested in seeing me go back on the 100% raw food diet for a longer period of time than 30 days, and I'm kinda interested myself in seeing if I can quickly gain a substantial amount of weight on that diet by upping the caloric intake, since my 40 day fast date is coming up in only 5 months and I'm going to need some fat reserves. The rest of my water fast now will show just how much fat I can expect to burn in a day, which will give me a rough weight to aim for before I go out to the mountains. God, the thought of stuffing my face with as many bananas as I can eat is just... Ugh! *drools*

Okay, no more talking about food...

Thanks for following!

Water Fast Day 3 - Revenge of the Runny Nose

2010-01-06T01:38:00.000-08:00

11:45AM, weight 131 lbs, 56 hours SLF, heart rate 68 bpm.

Oh good job, another Star Wars reference... This blog will be committed to the annals of history, I can see it now! :P

I haven't experienced any hunger yet today. I felt really lethargic when I first woke up at 11:00, but I got up and had a glass of water and moved around a bit, and I'm feeling pretty snazzy now. I stripped down for a wake-up weighing and noticed how obviously trimmer I am, it's the ultimate weight loss diet. 5.5 lbs in 3 days. I am expecting to put it back on though when I'm done this, I'm not dieting to lose weight. I'm gonna eat so many avocados... And for the record I wouldn't recommend this as a way to lose weight either, the detox (while purifying to say the least) is hard on you. When I first woke up my kidney was burning a bit. I had a little bit of breast tissue that developed under my nipples when I was incarcerated, due to being on Risperdol, which has completely disappeared. My fatty regions feel a bit tender and softer than usual.

Last night at 4am (48 hours) I was having some weird stuff going on with my heart. When I'd move around my heart rate would jackrabbit up to 100 bpm, but I'd sit down and only 2 minutes later it would be down to 60 bpm, and I felt like there were some times around that period that it was even lower than 60. As far as I know that's the lowest I've ever had my heart rate. Neither the high nor the low was of too much concern to me, since I get my heartrate up past 120 bpm on a regular basis, and a low heart rate is a good thing, but it was accentuating my sinus arrhythmia which I found a bit disturbing. So I broke fast somewhat, and (really enjoyed) a cup of chamomile tea with a teaspoon of lemon juice and a teaspoon of honey. The heart stopped being so noticeable after that. And wow, it was like the first time I ever ate something while stoned, delicious like, "God DAMN! That's some tasty tea!" except even better. The sense of smell is getting better still. I smelled my cat take a crap before he even did (probably farted as he walked by me to the toilet, that black bastard).

Did I report detox symptoms yet? Well there aren't really any at this point anyways. The only interesting thing of notice is how my teeth feel. Really really smooth, and while I normally have a bit of sensitivity to cold and hot water, this seems to be completely gone. Also, since I started this, not a single bit of blood from the gums while brushing. I'm recalling the time I read a book written by a Jewish doctor that had been through the concentration camps in Nazi Germany (I think it's called "Man's Search for Meaning" or something), and I remember him mentioning the exceptional tooth and gum health of his fellow starving prisoners. Have I discovered the key to dental health? I can see it now, the Canadian Dental Health Association is gonna be coming after me for damages any day now... For the record, I recommend brushing on a regular basis WITHOUT toothpaste or mouthwash, unless you enjoy scrubbing your teeth with abrasives twice a day, and then burning the hell out of all the tissue in your mouth. It doesn't hurt to use it occasionally, but I don't brush with toothpaste unless I'm trying to scrub something off, like stains or something. I've never had a cavity, while my little brother, who brushes twice a day, uses mouthwash, and doesn't eat sugar, practically has rotted out every tooth in his mouth. "You mean dentists don't want me to have a mouth free of tooth decay?" Go figure...

Will write more if there's anything to report. May you live long, and prosper. A little Star Trek for ya to balance out the Star Wars. :)

Edit: 4:35PM body temperature is 36.9C :D

Edit2: 8:30PM after sleeping from 5:30, 64 hours SLF, weight 130, temp 36.6, heartrate 72 bpm.

Breath is kinda gross again, got a bit of nasty smelling BO like strong meat eater kinda smell. Hunger cravings are still somewhat present, but infrequent and not very intense. Energy level is low, I won't be shovelling off any drive ways tonight. I'm looking forward to the 72 hour mark, hopefully my sources are correct in saying that day 3 is the last day of feeling hungry, it's getting old. I have to say that today has been the day I was most likely to break the fast so far, my brother was putting globe grapes into a container to take to work, I nearly reached out and ate one. I feel low energy and somewhat discouraged, I'm doubting whether I can make it 10 days like this. I will find a quiet spot in the house and just meditate for awhile on my reasons for doing this, see if I can't find some strength in stillness.

Thanks for reading.

Water Fast Day 2 - The Detox Begins

2010-01-06T01:35:00.000-08:00

Time is 8:34 pm. Weight is 132.5, BP 124/82, pulse is 68 bpm.

It is now 40.5 hours since I last ate. Today hasn't been so difficult for the most part. It was when I first woke up, I was so hungry I just about took a bite out of a cardboard cover for some cookie sheets that was leaning against the wall, displaying some scrumptious looking double chocolate cookies. After I got some water into me I felt better.

Detox symptoms are a slight fever, more like a flush. I looked at my hands a couple of hours ago and noticed the skin is quite pink, and my face is as well. I would've liked to have taken my temperature, but, you'll see why I didn't in the next paragraph. I've also got a bit of acne breaking out on my face. The breath is still bad, and still with the runny nose. I'm also experiencing some minor joint aches in my knees and hips. I feel a bit like I've got a mild cold or something.

I was upstairs in my room with the door closed when I smelled it, wafting in from underneath my door apparently. Cooking rice... I don't ever remember the smell of rice being so potent before! It was mentioned that I would notice a further increase in my sense of smell, much like what I experienced when I was eating nothing but raw foods. I feel like I can smell everything, I went to a pharmacy store to pick up a thermometer and to check my blood pressure. The smell of the place was overwhelming. So many scented candles and perfumes and cleaning agents and any other number of chemical smells. Yuck. BP is excellent, but the only thermometers they had there were almost $100, the $12 ones were out of stock... I had hoped to monitor my body temperature during this trial, I will go back tomorrow and see if they have any more, maybe try some other stores.

Edit: 11:12PM, 43 hours. I slept only 1 hour, theoretically not enough time to get any quality REM sleep. However, I feel extremely alert and well rested, and the joint aching that I reported has gone. Looks like I kept something from Uberman, either that or I'm requiring a great deal less sleep from this fast. Yesterday I did only get a total of 6 hours. We'll see how it goes.

Water Fast Day 1 - There Is No Try

2010-01-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

Current weight is 136.5, down 1.5 pounds since the last time I measured 2 days ago. The last food that I ate yesterday in preparation for fasting was 4 carrots and a lot of spinach. Oh, and a tomato, so I'm not surprised to see some weight loss already.

11 hours into my fast, and all's well! I slept probably a good six or seven hours... oi, I had almost forgotten how nasty it is waking up from sleeping so long. Right now I'm not following any sleep schedule whatsoever, as I practice something called free sleeping. Basically I sleep whenever I feel like it, for as long as I feel like it, it's very simple. I plan to sleep like this throughout my fast since I understand that the detoxification process can be hard on the body, and the more water I drink and rest I get, the better able my body will be able to deal with it.

I had a bit of hunger when I first woke up, but it went away as soon as I told my stomach that I wasn't going to be feeding it for awhile, and drank some room temperature water. I have a standing water filter that holds something like 4 gallons, so the water in there is always room temp except when I refill it, which is how I like it.

And other than that there's not really anything to report. I feel normal, if a bit stiff and groggy still from sleeping so much. I really can't wait to get back to Uberman. Even though I haven't been able to fully adjust myself to it yet, I still prefer sleeping that way. And this time I almost made it, I was actually starting to have dreams during some of my naps!

Well I'm off to do some light exercise. May the force be with you.

Edit: I'm now at 25 hours, feeling rather elated when I'm not feeling hungry. I've noticed I'm more talkative than usual, and in the mood for rave music, which hasn't been the case for quite awhile. maybe the body is metabolizing all that ecstatic residue from my happy days. :P

My nose is runny, and I have a slight cough. Also I'm noticing that my breath isn't smelling so sweet, but that's all for detox symptoms so far.

Evidence of my food addiction has never been so apparent. I enter a room and find my eyes unconsciously darting about the room looking for something to eat, like a crackhead surfing the carpet for nuggets.

I haven't fasted in a long while, but I'm remembering it being much more difficult back in those days. Could be because I'm setting my expectation much higher this time, 10 days is much longer than I've ever fasted before. It also could be because I'm a lot more in control of my thoughts than before, I don't allow myself to indulge in thoughts of food. Whenever those thoughts come about, I just rebuttal them and they disappear. No point in thinking about something I can't have.

Well I'm getting drowsy, time for some more sleep.

Water/Juice Fasting

2010-01-06T01:28:00.000-08:00

Well I have taken a break from trying to adapt to polyphasic sleep, due to oversleeping. So I'm resetting my circadian rhythm which basically involves sleeping whenever I feel like it for awhile. I've decided to take advantage of the time off, and try out a long fast.

I'm not a stranger to fasting, but I have never done more than 48 hours at a time, but these days I'm hearing about people fasting for much longer than that. Apparently (in most cases) it's perfectly fine for a healthy, well nourished man to consume nothing but water for 50-70 days straight, and some people have fasted using juice for even longer than that. This is used by folks trying to rid their bodies of disease, and is supposedly very effective against cancer. This makes a lot of sense to me, since the body would be scavenging itself looking for anything other than the vital organs to consume for energy, and a cancerous growth would certainly fit the bill. I tell ya, I'd try this for 40 days before I'd ever do chemotherapy/radiation.

Regardless, I'm perfectly healthy as far as I can tell. But there's always room for improvement, and it's been a long time since I've had a good fast. I smoked tobacco for about 9 years, and have done a wide variety of different drugs including legal ones that I'm sure have left something behind, and it would be good to give my body a chance to take care of that.

So for some reason the part in the Jesus story where he goes out into the desert for 40 days popped into my head. Now don't get me wrong, I don't buy into the Bible as a source of reliable information, but I'm sure that it is based on things that actually happened. And while I don't buy for a second that Jesus was anything more than a human being, I do think that he was an exceptional human being, worth using as a role model. I only wish I had an accurate representation of his life. However, I can use my intuition to filter out the things that I read, and when something pops out at me like the way this story did, I tend to pay attention to it. So 40 days it is, in the desert, having nothing but clean water from the ground and the sky.

A 40 day fast is a serious proposition however, especially when done in isolation, and would require a level of faith in my body that I don't currently have. So, I'm going to start with a 10 day fast in my house, drinking nothing but filtered tap water, and maybe some small amounts of juice if I feel I must. I began by eating the rest of my carrots and spinach this morning, which clears out all the perishable food of mine that is in this house. I will resume eating on Jan 13 barring some sort of medical emergency. Sounds pretty straightforward right?

I'll do my best to keep a progress report of the subjective effects this has on me on this blog, for your consideration.

Uberman Again Day 5 - Couldn't Get Started

2010-01-06T01:26:00.000-08:00

Well this’ll be my last post for the next few days. I got in the full nap on middle watch, but I woke from it dizzy and extremely tired and cold. I really wish I lived in a warmer climate, or at least had decided to do this in the summer time instead of the dead of winter. I made myself some tea, sat in front of the computer wrapped up in a blanket trying to get warm, and passed out there in the sitting position… I woke up still sitting there, I don’t know how long I was sleeping, but my tea was cold, so I decided that I will be good on my word and reset again. I feel I’ve made progress this time so I’m not too disheartened. I made it to the beginning of day 5 with only one 1.5 hour oversleep and I got a dream during a nap. Also, this attempt seemed to be quite a bit easier to make it through than my first one, so if that makes a trend then 3rd times a charm!

Edit: Actually I’ve decided to take this break as an opportunity to try a 10 day water/juice fast. It’s something I read about a little after I discovered polyphasic sleeping and was interested in giving a shot. It’ll be nice to get something accomplished after the two failures at Uberman, cuz I’m pretty sure my brain won’t be able to trick me into eating like it does for sleeping. :P A good website on the topic is linked here if anyone else is interested in the subject.

Uberman Again Day 4 - A Dream Perchance?

2010-01-06T01:21:00.000-08:00

Seems like my 1.5 hour oversleep yesterday didn’t affect me badly, the same nap today went well, and I may have begun having some limited sort of dream activity. About 3 minutes before my alarm went off, I found myself lying down in my brother’s room, and I was very confused. I tried to pull myself up to look at the clock, but I must have been rousing from sleep paralysis because my attempt to get up was like trying to push myself through molasses, and as I got up from the bed the room morphed into mine in a dreamy hallucination kinda way, since I was indeed sleeping in my room. This is very good news for me because it would mark my first napping dream and indicates that the adaptation is finally taking hold.

I’ve decided to try out Dan’s suggestion of calling my phases by the watch system names, which are listed here.

20:00-00:00 – First Watch
00:00-04:00 – Middle Watch
04:00-08:00 – Morning Watch
08:00-12:00 – Forenoon Watch
12:00-16:00 – Afternoon Watch
16:00-20:00 – Dog Watch

Of course, my schedule is an hour faster than this, so I’ll just start my first watch at 21:00 and go on from there.

Also interesting to note is that I only had a very short period of zombieness through this whole second attempt, and that was during Morning Watch yesterday. Since then my naps have been getting more and more restorative, but the PM naps are one thing, it’s the AM ones that are the true indicators of how tired I’m feeling. Again, I must suspect that my previous attempt at Uberman has given me a boost towards this one, and I’m feeling more confident that as long as I remain vigilant, it won’t be long before I’ll have this schedule down, and will be able to introduce some measure of flexibility to the system. What I’m really looking forward to though is a return to being able to dream and recall those dreams, not to mention become lucid in them. One of my biggest motivators for doing this schedule is the boost I’m expecting to see in lucid dream frequency, and the fact that I haven’t been able to dream during any naps till this point has been very discouraging. I can’t tell you how excited I am that dreams are making their way into my life while I’m doing this schedule! Seriously I can’t, I’m still too tired for stuff like excitement. :P

Uberman Again Day 3

2010-01-06T01:20:00.000-08:00

Well I had a full sleep cycle today, that's 1.5 hours of sleep that I wasn't supposed to get. What happened was, I was sitting on a heat register trying to heat up, and I nodded off for 23 minutes. That wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d left it at that, but it was only half an hour till my scheduled nap time, so I decided to get that nap in as well. Turns out that’s pretty much the same as having back to back naps, and I didn’t wake for my alarms till the 1.5 hour emergency alarm went off. I always set an alarm for 1.5 hours past the time I fall asleep, as damage control in case I oversleep. Well I said earlier that if this happened I would do a full reset, but I feel like I’ve made good progress so far, maybe this isn’t too bad of a set back. And besides, what’s the point of setting a damage control alarm if you’re not planning on pushing forward? :P

So my three unbreakable rules for uberman adaptation are, no napping within 2 hours of any previous nap or doze, no sleeping for more than 25 minutes at a time, and no missing scheduled naps unless said nap would violate rule number 1. I’m giving myself one chance to pull through on this, but if I mess up again I’m doing a full reset, I don’t wanna have a repeat of my last uberman attempt.

Uberman Again Day 2

2010-01-06T01:19:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had 5 minutes just seem to drag on forever? It’s getting more difficult to put off the nap time those few extra minutes. Now that I’m starting to feel the exhaustion I’m falling asleep very quickly on my AM naps. If I go down more than 25 minutes before my alarm is set to go off there’s a real danger that I’ll sink into torpor and not wake up for my alarms. So I wait it out, and those few little minutes feel like they go on for hours. It’s worth it though. Reducing my nap time, and conditioning myself to always turn on the lights before I shut off my alarm have made adaptation quite a bit smoother this time around.

I finished Assassin’s Creed 2 today, anyone who had been watching me play would think I have severe anger management issues. I’m not sure if it’s just me and my sleep deprivation or not, but the character is so hard to control. I’ll be scaling the side of a tower, trying to jump up to a high ledge, and suddenly he’ll just leap backwards and fall to his death. Or trying to jump to a pole or something, and he’ll just go flying off to the side, typically into the water or the middle of a pack of guards. It just seems so counter-intuitive the way they have him move, unless it’s just me. And lately it doesn’t take much to make me fly off the handle… Sleep dep makes me quite irritable, and my PS3 controller now knows that intimately. I wish they’d made the game longer, 2 days seems like a pitiful amount of time for a game to last, although it doesn’t help that I’ve got such an incredible amount of time to play. I wonder how many hours I logged so far… I guess I’ll start in on God of War, and maybe pick up Fallout 3 again, now there’s a game that can eat time. Hmm, perhaps a fresh WoW subscription is in order… Think of the leveling I could do!

Uberman Again Day 1

2010-01-06T01:16:00.000-08:00

Here we go again! Going with the theme of constantly working new possibilities for success, I’ve made some small alterations to my sleep system. First off, after reading as much as I can on uberman, I’ve decided that I’m sleeping too long per nap sometimes. Looking back on my notes, every time I fail to wake up to my alarms, I also happen to fall asleep immediately on putting my head to the pillow. This means that 30 minutes elapses before my alarm goes off, and I’m sure that this is causing me to fall into a state of rest too deep for my alarms to rouse me from. So while I won’t be changing anything about my PM naps since I generally take 5-10 minutes to fall asleep for those anyways, my AM naps I’ll be starting 5 minutes later. Also, I’ve changed my nap wakeup times from 12,4,8 to 1,5,9. It’s too complicated setting an alarm for 12 when am and pm must be differentiated, I’m really surprised that I haven’t fudged that one up since the first day of my first uberman attempt.

I’m feeling pretty tired already, I woke from my last long period of free sleep at 4:00pm yesterday, and so far have napped twice today, 5:06-5:30 (a bit late, but I wasn’t tired at 4:30), and 8:38-9:00. When I woke at 9:00 I was confused and thought the alarm had gone off too early for some reason, thinking 9:30 was appropriate, and actually went through the process of resetting the alarm for 9:30 before I realized I was mistaken. I probably somehow had it mixed up because I’d taken the first nap of the day half an hour late.

I had been planning on getting started with this a few days earlier, but I went and saw Avatar, and decided it’d be best to wait till I saw it again (which I did last night ) before I began. It wasn’t as good the 2nd time. We got better seats this time, but I thought we’d be nearly first in line since we showed up over an hour early. So wrong, there were hundreds of people there already. Movie goers are so proactive these days!

I’m determined to make this attempt flawless, and this time through I’m not accepting oversleeps. If I sleep more than 30 minutes I’ll stop the experiment, do a full 48 hour reset, and then try again.

Well, I’m off to find something hot to drink.
****
It’s actually the start of Day 2 as I write this, but I thought I’d update day 1 since things are going extraordinarily well so far. I feel zero effects of sleep deprivation, which is different from previous attempts around this time (I’m at 35 hours since my last time sleeping more than 30 minutes). All I can think of to attribute it to is that I’ve had 2 unscheduled 20 minute naps today, very close to one another. The first happened as I was watching M play Assassin’s Creed 2, I was freezing cold and wrapped up in a blanket, feeling pretty damn tired, and I just nodded off for a bit. The clock was at 2:00 when I sat down, and I woke with a start when M got up to go upstairs, and the clock stated 2:20. I still felt tired, but it cleared up pretty quickly. The second one I was listening to tunes at 8:30 waiting for 5 minutes to pass so I could pass out, and I don’t even remember closing my eyes. When I woke up (unassisted) it was 8:48. In my foggy state I figured that I hadn’t really slept for that time, and I reset my alarm for 9:20. It took me a little bit to get to sleep, so the next nap was probably 25 minutes or so, and waking up for the alarm was no sweat at all, I felt totally well rested.

I was just reading about this sort of thing, someone calling it “lucidman” schedule, basically taking back-to-back 20 minute naps, but they hadn’t indicated any success at trying it. I can think of no other explanation for why I feel so well rested at this point, except that maybe Uberman attempt #1 was more successful than I’d previously thought. Maybe the first nap increases the quality of the sleep of the second nap somehow. I wish I had a brainwave scanner… Well I’m actually starting to fade a bit now, it’s 67 minutes till my next bed time. Here’s hoping everything continues to go so smoothly today.

Uberman Day 33 - The End, For Now

2010-01-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, perhaps my brain didn’t appreciate the comments I made yesterday, because today I wake up after 4.5 hours, with no missed alerts on my cell phone alarm, with my clock alarm turned off, and no idea how all this happened. The only possible conclusion is that my body got hijacked while I was sleeping.

So I’m going to take some advice I read yesterday, and just do a full reset. Not going to try monophasically sleeping mind you, the thought of sleeping that long seems so nasty to me. I’d wake up all groggy with a sore neck, and with a lot less time. Funny how the perspective can change so radically so quickly, it wasn’t that long ago when the thought of sleeping under 8 hours a night was a horrific one.

So I’ll just kinda free sleep for, I dunno… I’ll just go till I feel like trying again. I’ve had enough of scheduling for a bit I think.

Uberman Day 32

2010-01-06T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it’s been over a month since the last time I slept monophasically. I don’t feel all that worse for wear considering my average sleep time has been 6 hours over the course of this experiment, and in the last 3 days it’s averages out to 3.69 hours per day. I wish I could say that’s an exact number, but I record each successful nap as being 30 minutes, while I can’t really say exactly how much sleep I’m getting during each period. It could be taking me 10-15 minutes to fall asleep each time and I have no way of knowing. It’d be interesting to get my hands on one of those Zeo Personal Sleep Coach things just to see exactly what’s going on during these naps, I’ve considered picking one up many times, but the cost is prohibitive for what it offers me on this. I wonder if it has a Nova Dreamer function, something that can flash or beep during REM.

Well I overslept yesterday as I described in my previous entry, 3.33 hours out of an interim nap. It did have some affect on my schedule, my midnight sleep didn’t happen because I just had too much energy. I wanted to get up and shadow box, not lie there like a fat cat pretending to sleep. I tried everything I could, but it was like I was buzzing on caffeine and nothing I tried to mantra into my mind seemed to have much effect. But the next two naps at 4 and 8 am worked out, which is good since those are the two in the morning that I have the most trouble with. It’s interesting that I have trouble at these same intervals as everyone else on uberman seems to, even though when I was monophasic my bedtime was 8 am or so. Must be a melatonin thing, more to do with where the sun is, or when the people around me sleep.

I can feel the onset of zombieness coming on, earlier than the last time. Ok well lets get on with it then, the sooner it starts the sooner it’ll be worth it. I’m hell bent on getting through this time, because I’m not going to relax one bit until I get at least one nap with a dream. I don’t care how many times I oversleep getting there, I’m not gonna let myself slack, because the more I slack the longer this is gonna take, and the negative health effects of sleep deprivation are well known. And as far as I can tell right now, there’s no excuse for me to oversleep anymore with my setup the way it is.

On a somewhat unrelated side note, I’m rather unexpectedly gaining weight. Only 2 lbs, but still this is odd to me, because I’ve been following a diet of mostly raw fruit and veggies, with some nuts and seeds (raw sunflower seeds and almonds), and by rights I should be losing weight especially with the extra waking hours I have. Also odd is that the weight is definitely not fat, I’m visibly more trim than I was at the beginning of all this when I weighed 140 lbs. So it’s either some kind of water retention or I’m gaining a lot more muscle from my new workouts than I was expecting. I should’ve taken measurements.

Uberman Day 31 - My Brain Is My Enemy

2010-01-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

Well after 72 hours of flawlessly following my schedule of 0.5 x 6, I slipped up and decided that an interim nap at 09:00 would be a good thing. After waking up 30 minutes later I decided to go for another nap immediately after, because my alarm was set another half hour ahead to ten oclock. The only problem was that it was set for 10pm, not am. Brain doesn’t work so well under those circumstances I guess! I was so excited too, because I woke up immediately after having a dream and thought I was finally adapted, but then I looked at my clock and saw I’d slept for 3.33 hours.

I have already made the decision that back to back naps are a nono, but apparently I forgot about that… :P So I guess this means I need some more wake up conditioning focusing on that aspect. And I guess that’s it for interim naps, they’ve caused me nothing but problems so I’ll have to make do without em. Hopefully this doesn’t set me back too much.

Edit:

Well so far the impact of my oversleep this morning has been nil as it affects my naps. I fell asleep no problem for each of them, waking as usual, and I’ll add that I feel very well rested as of now. However, I suspect I’m in for at least 76 hours the same as before, zombie-land, and it might even be worse since my brain probably thinks it can fool me into sleeping for longer than 30 minutes again, despite all my tricks… Hey, if it really wants to keep doing this over and over and over, I’m not going anywhere. Y’hear me brain? I’m the boss, now get adapted god dammit or else, I’ve got a big bottle of vodka with your big fat name on it!

I’ve been sleep deprived too long… -_-

Uberman Day 28

2010-01-06T01:01:00.000-08:00

While I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it, today is only the second time I managed to make it through 24 hours without any oversleeping whatsoever. I must admit, I’ve come a long way since day 1, having learned some valuable techniques that help me get to sleep within minutes, picked up some minor programming skills by making my own alarm clock using windows task scheduler and itunes, and not to mention gained some good wake-up hygiene.

Probably the hardest part of this task has been overcoming my old wake-up habits, sluggishly rolling myself towards my alarm to hit snooze 3 times before I’d finally get up. More than once I’ve woken up and had to bite my tongue for shutting off my alarm and then going back to sleep, only to wake up 4-8 hours later. But I think I’ve finally worked my system out, and I’m ready to tackle “zombie phase”, which is just getting started.

One of the most useful tools I’ve picked up since starting this program is the use of mantras to set solid intentions. Not only have they helped me to not sleep through my alarms (I’m actually waking up fairly frequently now before my alarm goes off), but they make falling asleep a breeze. Nothing helps the conscious mind disengage like repeating the same thing over and over. I’ve also found them very useful for helping me remember my dreams, and I’d imagine that once I start dreaming again without oversleeping, I’ll be able to lucid dream much more effectively with the use of a good mantra before sleep. Being a person reasonably experienced with meditation, I’m surprised that I’ve never used mantras before; I just never felt the need.

Another thing I’ve picked up from this, is the ability to condition myself out of my old habits. I was having major problems stopping myself from going back to bed after shutting off my alarm, it was just too ingrained of a habit for my sleep deprivation addled brain to get out of. But after a hundred or so repetitions of false wakings, following a routine that involves turning on the lights, making the bed, and recording any relevant sleep data, I’m having a much easier time of this. And while I haven’t felt the need to repeat a false “pass-out” routine, I’ve developed one none the less and I can say that I can usually fall asleep now within a couple of minutes of starting, as opposed to the 15-30 minutes it used to take me.

Even should I choose to abandon the uberman schedule, the effort has still taught me a lot of skills that I can apply to other areas of my life, and I’m very grateful for that!

Well, I must go feed. Until next time…