Introduction: An Instructable to Become Indestructable
This instructable is mainly about eating healthy and incorporating dry fasting, at least short dry fasts, into your regular routine to improve your health. Dry fasting means going with no food or water for some period of time. My last dry fast was 4 days. The next one will hopefully be 5 days.
I didn't really build anything for this instructable, but I do advise the eating of fermented foods, see my other instructable to learn how to make yogurt and fermented foods cheaply, easily, and in bulk.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Lo-Tek-Yogurt-Mak...
Whether you follow this instructable in whole or in part, I hope it helps you to improve your health. These principles have helped me to improve mine.
Breatharianism is sustaining your body through breathing alone. I don't know how long you have to be able to to go for to call yourself a breatharian. Breatharianism is essentially a really long dry fast. That's why I used the word breatharian in the title. This instructable is not about dry breatharianism per se, it is about dry fasting. To me they are one and the same. You definitely do find yourself walking, moving, and breathing in more conscious ways when you dry out through fasting. If you breathe like darth vader, it maximizes the moisture levels in your nasal passages and throat, preventing them from drying out. Mouth breathing and talking too much will dry out your mouth very quickly when dry fasting. When you really dry out, you find yourself choosing your 'swallows' carefully, using what saliva you are still producing to keep your mouth wet. you will wish that would have occurred to you to do earlier. Natural saliva production will increase through regular dry fasting.
If you can only dry fast for a few hours comfortably at first, that is fine. You never have to go out of your physical comfort zone if you don't want to, yet you can still build up to a longer fast of 1 day or more if you feel any benefit to your digestion or mood from the shorter fasts.
Think about when people get old and die. They stop eating, they stop drinking. The body is attempting to reach equilibrium but it is too late, the body cannot survive the sudden change and we pass away, lungs and limbs full of fluid, bowels filled with slow moving, undigested food. The morphine they give us towards the end to 'ease our pain' does not help. It slows down respiration and other bodily processes/signals. It is essentially the 'kiss of death." Do not take it unless you are ready to go. But don't be ready. Fight. Dry Fast. Rehydrate. Avoid solid foods. There is no reason for anyone to be kicking off or become bedridden if they are not well into their 80's or 90's. And if you are bedridden, their is still much exercise you can do to heal yourself. Slight leg lifts, head and neck raises and stretches, arm raises, light sit-up motions but not full situps. If you lie in bed doing nothing, you will atrophy and get worse. But if you use what energy you do have to say moving and increase your range of motion/strength, you will get better. If you are not sleeping, avoid the pillow. It will only make your neck more sore/sensitive/weak in the long run. As will lying still on very soft surfaces for long periods of time. You will need softer and softer surfaces to sleep on, until no mattress is soft enough. You will not get bed sores/pains if you regulary change positions and work through the soreness/weakness you do have. But lying in bed awake is fine as long as you do keep your body moving. You do not have to strain yourself at all. We are not doing '100 crunches' or something. You should not get cramps from light exercise.
Dry fasting causes stem cells to be released into the body. The body enters a regenerative state that it does not otherwise once we are fully grown. Here's a link to the science:
Step 1: What to Eat to Lose Fat and Feel Better
The best fat loss diet in my opinion is some form of a low carb diet. Also reffered to as a 'keto' or 'ketogenic' diet. Why they are called that is because they put your body in a state of ketosis, where the body burns fat to create energy. A low carb diet is the best diet for fat loss.
I reached my weight loss goals in less than a month. All I wanted to do was fit into my old pants. I don't know if I lost weight or not. I don't have a scale but I feel lighter on my feet.
Once I reached my weight loss goals, I added back in fruits and dairy to my diet with reckless abandon, not limiting myself at all. Weight gain has not been an issue. If anything I have been continuing to lose fat. But I've also been doing a lot of dry fasting recently. Two days on, two days off, 3 days on, 2 days off, 4 days on. I have not gotten weaker. I've gotten stronger. Possibly a tiny bit smaller, but stronger. If you're looking for big bulgy muscles, this is not for you. Power lifters, runners, yogis, martial artists, anyone looking to heal or improve their body and mind, it is for you.
Step 2: Water
Bottled vs tap vs spring vs deinonized vs alkine
Prove that aerating/distillation increases alkalinity
Step 3: Ultimate Keto Diet
The Ultimate Keto Diet is snake diet.
It incorporates dry fasting, water fasting, calorie counting, carb restriction, etc. If snake diet guy can't help you lose fat, no one can.
Just know that his 'Snake Juice' is way too strong to rehydrate you efficiently. It's basically a salt flush drink. You will be on the toilet.
If you want to salt flush, drink snake juice. If you want to rehydrate, Use the formula that the global charity UNICEF uses to save the lives of people who would otherwise die of dehydration from severe diarrhea.
13.5 grams dextrose (same thing as anhydrous glucose.)
2.6 grams sodium chloride
Sodium citrate 2.9 grams (same thing as sodium citrate dihydrate)
Potassium chloride 1.5 grams
1 liter of plain water
If thirsty, make another liter of oral rehydration salt solution. The dextrose can be replaced by adding lemon juice to taste. The small amount of sugar helps in hydrating and the lemon is alkalizing to the body. Dont worry about the sodium citrate if you can't find a source of it. Health food stores may have it. This will work better to rehydrate you and taste much better than snake juice!
But yes, snake diet guy's fatshaming, yelling, and his nasty salt flush drink called snake juice may help you lose a few extra pounds. I'm not sure. You'll notice in the videos that he drinks 'Snake Juice' and plain water. That's because salt water dehydrates you. Full Strength Snake Juice will eventually kill you if that is all you drink.
Personally, I skip the plain water, the snake juice, and the UNICEF life saving drink. I'm working on recreating the Unicef drink as a replacement for gatorade, but I drink whole milk, sometimes juices, and of course I get water from food as well. Here's the link explaining the UNICEF drink more: https://www.unicef.org/supply/files/Oral_Rehydrati...
Step 4: Incorporate Dry Fasting Into Your Routine
Dry fasting means going without food and water for a period of time.
I've done water fasting, juice fasting, and the master cleanse.
In my experience, dry fasting is easier and you can see results from it a lot quicker.
The reason I say it's easier, is that when you deny the body food and water, after a period of time, usually a few hours, hunger and thirst go away. Thirst gradually comes back. Hunger becomes secondary to thirst.
What we commonly perceive as being 'dehydrated' is not caused by having too little water in our bodies. We are not 'dehydrated' in that sense, what we have is an imbalance in the blood. A person might feel faint or even pass out from what they think is being dehydrated. They are correct, but have a misconception of what dehydration is. It is not typically caused by having too little water in the body. It is more often an electrolyte imbalance, caused by drinking TOO MUCH WATER and too few electrolytes, mainly sodium and potassium. Or what is often thought to be 'dehydration' may be a sugar slump,caused by the body's unfortunate dependence on refined carbohydrates as it's main source of energy.
Step 5: Intermittent Dry Fasting
If going a full day or more without food or water seems like too much for you, try 'intermittent dry fasting' which is simply a short dry fast of less than 24 hours repeated at regular intervals.
Intermittent dry fasting is not physically hard. You do it every day whenever you are not eating or drinking. The concept here is to gradually increase the window of time that you are dry fasting everyday and decrease the window of time where you are eating and drinking.
Many people now say that 6 small meals a day is best. Next is probably going to be '12 micro meals per day is best'. And then 'being on a constant drip feeding tube is best'. It might be. That's pretty much what dry fasting is. Except that your body is the constant drip feeding tube. You are not 'on empty' the moment you stop eating and drinking. You've got reserves. Depleting your body of them every now and then trains your body to better manage those reserves.
Consider the way animals eat in the wild. They either eat fruits, vegetables, and grasses for most of the day or they are predatory animals that go for long stretches at a time without eating anything until they make a kill, at which point they gorge themselves.
Organ meats, bones, and brain are where most of the vitamins and minerals are inside an animal. The Inuit Indians ate little else besides animals, yet they ate at all parts of the animal, thereby remaining healthy. Soldiers in early American wars who ate organ meats remained healthier than their officer counterparts who ate only the loins, chops, etc.
If all that seems to gross to you, I guess eat hot dogs? Or a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Step 6: What to Expect During Your First Extended Dry Fast
**This section is not about intermittent dry fasting. If you build up the amount of time you are able to dry fast gradually, you can avoid many of these negative symptoms. This is for people who launch right into an extended dry fast of 24 hours or more.**
The Bad
Your first extended dry fast is going to be the hardest. You'll likely experience stomach problems and intense faintness when going from a seated to standing position. Your mouth will be dry. You will be very thirsty. It will be very annoying, but wont be as bad on subsequent dry fasts. Allowing saliva to build up in your mouth until you have a mouthful of liquid will help greatly to alleviate symptoms of drymouth. It will also help to keep your mouth and teeth clean and smelling fresh.
I work in a store mainly stocking shelves and was able to do my job during first 48 hour dry fast, but I was significantly weaker than normal.
My body went into sort of a 'low power/battery saver' mode where I could do stuff if I had to and once I got going I would build momentum to keep going.
-Urine will darken. It may be painful or contain visible sediment.
**Note- Urinary blockages, such as stones and infections tend to form when the environment in the urinary tract is either too acidic or too basic. Alternately raising and lowering the ph of urine may help to eliminate all forms of urinary blockages. Bear in mind, I am not a doctor. I am just a dude. I work in a store.
Also the ph of foods when ingested is not a good indicator of the effect they will have on urine ph. There is a scoring system for foods that assigns each food a score, called a PRAL score, which is a measure of how the food will affect urine ph. A lower PRAL score food will have an basifying affect on urine. Foods with a higher PRAL score have the effect of making urine more acidic. I would think that by alternately lowering and raising the PH levels of one's urine, one could reduce or eliminate all urinary blockages cause by infections or kidney stones. That seems logical to me.
Consult the charts in the links below to see the PRAL scores for various foods and drinks.
https://www.precisionnutrition.com/acid-base
http://www.greathealth247.com/ph-acid-alkaline-foo...
Small booklets of hundreds of ph strips to test your urine can be bought for as little as 3 or 4 dollars. Rather than keeping track of and having to calculate the overall PRAL score for all the foods you eat, simply use the disposable ph strips to see whether you are building alkalinity or acidity. The color will let you know.
Scores are based off a serving size of 100 grams, which may or may not resemble a typical suggested serving size for each different food or drink. For example, a 'suggested serving size' of fruit might be 15o grams, while a suggested serving size of meat might be 3 ounces, which is only 84 grams. That needs to be taken into account. A 'PRAL serving' is always 100 grams.
Think of the PRAL Score as points. A 100 gram serving of chicken gets about 8 positive, or 'acidifying' points. 200 grams would be 16 points.
100 grams of raisins gets negative 21 points. 200 grams of raisins would get negative 42 points. If the negative and positive points cancel out, you are eating neutral. If the number is positive, your diet is said to be 'acid forming'. If the number is negative, your diet is said to be 'alkaline.'
Here' some interesting info from the above site that you wouldn't logically conclude simply by looking at the chart:
"Another interesting fact is that while a high protein diet is acid forming, the high protein diet also seems to counteract some of its own acid loading potential. In other words, while protein produces an acid load, it also increases the body’s capacity for excreting those acids. None of the other acid producing foods are as effective as protein in doing so. Besides, just like with the other acid-forming foods, all you have to do is consume enough basic foods and supplements to neutralize the acidity."
-Your underarm odor will be wicked strong. Rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer does wonders to take away underarm smell.
If you're doing a hard dry fast where you avoid all contact with water, your breath may start to smell very strong. If you let saliva collect in your mouth, you can use it as a natural mouth rinse. Salive also contains an enzyme called amylase which helps to digest carbohydrates such as potato chips and candy that can become stuck on and between teeth. We only know sugar and teeth don't mix, so wash away the sugar and bad breath smell with natural saliva. Or just brush your teeth. It's up to you. Be careful with water in your mouth on an extended dry fast though. Your mouth tissues become so absorptive that holding a small amount of water in your mouth becomes almost the same thing as drinking that small amount of water.
The Good
Dry fasting is not the easiest thing you will ever do, but it gets easier each time you do it. You will spend more time feeling amazing while dry fasting and less time feeling terrible. Weakness will pass and you will experience a mental clarity and physical well-being which will eventually last even after you break a dry fast. Your natural giddiness will increase. You may find yourself smiling and and laughing about small things in a way that you haven't in years.
If your health has deteriorated a great deal over time from what it used to be, I recommend not dry fasting for more than 24 hours to start out.
The Neutral
-Expect your sense of smell to heighten during a dry fast. You'll start to notice bad smells that you didn't notice before. Good smells will also be more intense.
-Your sleep cycle will change. You will probably sleep much less at night and may find yourself wanting to take a nap during the day. Allow yourself to wake up gradually and you will awake feeling refreshed. Have something productive to do at nightime when you can't sleep. You will probably feel like being productive, at lthe very least, have a good book to read or movie to watch when you can't sleep. No sense in tossing and turning all night.
-You may experience heat waves when doing physical activity, similar to drinking a lot of caffeine. Maybe this is your body going in and out of ketosis. From what I've read, dry fasting gets you into ketosis and keeps you there more than any other diet because your body is pulling from your fat reserves to meet both energy and water needs. Dry fasting also trains your body to better use it's water reserves. The more fat you have, the quicker you will shed it through dry fasting, but I wouldn't worry about being 'too thin' for dry fasting unless have crazy low body fat, 3% or less. Certain individuals who are bone thin yet have trained their body through dry fasting are still able to dry fast for days at a time without any complications. The longest I have read about people intentionally dry fasting is 10-15 days. Do NOT try to start out with a long extended dry fast. You will suffer greatly, and may die. Also, it isn't necessary. As I mentioned earlier, if you drop too much fat too quickly, you could be left with skin flaps. You might say, "Oh it's mostly water weight that you lose through dry fasting." It is mostly water weight. We are mostly water. And to much plain water is what is bloating your belly. Watch your belly shrink on a dry fast and then balloon right back out if you go back to drinking too much plain water. A half gallon is enough to do it, even if you have dry fasted for multiple days. Trust me. I did it. I was having painful urination due to passing sediment in the urine. Sediment that could otherwise lead to kidney stones. I thought drinking a lot of plain water would help. I drank a half gallon. It didn't help. Instead, I got a bad headache and felt generallybad. There was a lot of fluid sloshing around inside of me. That lasted until some time the next day.
Step 7: When Breaking Your Dry Fast
When breaking your first extended dry fast, go easy. Don't chug a big volume of water. You can if you want,but what might happen is that the soft tissues at the roof of your mouth will swell up painfully. It happened to me. Jus take some sips and hold them in your mouth to test your mouth's reaction.
Many dry fasting practitioners do not even break their dry fasts with water, but instead with water-rich fruits. I know of one particular group that practices dry fasting one day per week They always break their dry fast with a lemon and a banana. I don't know if there's a particular way they eat the lemon and banana, I don't think so. But they will wait to break their dry fast until they can find a lemon and a banana. I like fresh lemon juice and banana smoothies, about one big lemon per two medium bananas. Some people know this about me.
You may not be hungry at all after a dry fast. Or you may want to binge. Be sure you have lots of healthy foods around when breaking a dry fast. You might go to eat one of your favorite foods and suddenly it tastes bad or contaminated. Don't worry. You taste buds and appetite will go back to normal or even better than they were before a day or two after breaking the fast. Dry fasting helped to normalize my appetite and get rid of the constant feeling of nausea I was experiencing.
Step 8: Reduce Symptoms of Mental Illness
My own symptoms of mental illness are greatly reduced since changing my diet and beginning the practice of dry fasting. See step 16 for details of my story.
Mental fog, body coldness, and weakness always seem to return to me when I go back to eating my usual foods, which usually is fresh fruits, whole milk, and soft cheeses. If I just eat lemons and bananas and follow my appetite, the fog does not return. When the lemons start tasting sour, I stop eating them. Not overeating definitely helps limit mental fog and physical weakness. It is hard to eat just lemons and bananas.
Step 9: Improve Skin
My skin, normally red and enflamed at least on my face, looks amazing when dry fasting.
I think it has to be a 'hard' dry fast for this to work, meaning you have to avoid all contact with water. If you must clean yourself, put a sprayer top on a bottle of rubbing alcohol and use that. It will knock out stinky armpits quick. Probably just hit the principal 'stink zones.' Rubbing alcohol is not great for skin.
People don't often think about it, but water can irritate your skin. Our skin cells contain a certain amount of dissolved solids, mostly sodium. Bathing or showering in water than contains less dissolved solids than our skin cells can be drying to the skin, pulling solids such as oils and electrolytes from our cells through a process called osmosis.
I now take baths instead of showers, adding a boatload of epsom salts to the water. I dont think 2 cups is enough for a full bath. I skip the soap and shampoo. Since starting to eat and bathe this way, the red dots and pimples have dissapeared from my thighs. The bumps on the back of my arms are mostly gone.
*UPDATE*-I no longer reccomend baths or showers of any sort. Make up a solution of Vinegar and coconut oil in your sink and just use a wash cloth to clean yourself. People with hair may have to use a 5 gallon bucket. You can tell you're getting clean because the oil gets dirty, and the oil will clean your pores better than soap. Like dissolves like. Your pores are filled with waxy, fatty oil. I dont know which oil is best. I used melted coconut oil, the clear part.
I don't think the comedogenic ratings of oils means much due to differences in the production of the oil between companies. Just let the oil melt. The clear part is less comedogenic than the solid part that remains, but if it's solid waxes/oils that are stuck in your pores, heat a very solid/comedogenic oil to liquid and use that. That is theory, I haven't tried it. i'm not suggesting putting burning hot wax on your face, but most oils melt at a comfortable temperature to put on your skin no matter their comedogenic rating.
Skin looks great after a vinegar/oil wash! I did add a bit of tap water too. Increasingly, I'm just thinking tap water is bad for everything. The one thing it's got going for it is that it's aerated, where as bottled is not, but that's a simple fix, shake it up!
My skin does feel a bit oily, next time I'll use less oil, or maybe try a baking soda water or peroxide and oil bath. Might try lotions instead of oils.
Step 10: Reduce Pain
My clothes fit better. I went from a 34 size waist to a 32 waist in less than a month. My lower back pain is reduced.
No matter where the pain is in your body, simply letting your body dry out through fasting and moving that painful area through it's range of motion is what is going to help reduce pain.
An athlete in pain is often told to "Shake it off." Dry fasting makes it easier to do just that. Your back cracking will be amazing and you'll find yourself able to position your body in ways that you haven't been able to comfortably in years.
If you've got a 'hunch' and pain in your upper back like I did, a wide foam roller can help to 'crack that area'. I'll add A pic later. It's similar to a tennisbass back massage.
Get one at least 18 inches long and 6 inches in diameter. Bigger in diameter is better but you may have to build up to it if you are super hunched. Link video of dude with roller "Fix hunch posture" on youtube.
You can get a similar stretch by hanging your head and upper back off the end of your bed, but you may find that that stectch doesnt go deep enough. I don't know. It might. I dont ise a bed so it's hard to say. I do have one in my closet.
Step 11: Improve Bowel Movements
Since I started eating this way, my bowel movements have been amazing. There is no more pain or burning or straining, or feeling like I 'didn't quite get out as much as I would have liked to. It comes out in long sections and is very light in color, not brown. Here's the kicker: IT DOESN'T STINK. It takes about one minute and I'm done in the bathroom.
Here's what I've eaten in the last 2 days:
A gallon of whole milk, a pound of soft mozzerella, a few bites of yogurt, 3 or 4 avocados, several oranges, two bananas, a few lemons, some water, about 4 ounces of feta goat cheese, one crunchy taco with beans instead of meat from taco bell, about 4 ounces of 1% milk from taco bell.
*UPDATE*-My doodoo went right back to stinky and dry when I added back in a lot of yogurt and fermented drinks to my diet. I think maybe they should be used more of as a preventative medicine than a food staple, and I think it's good to keep local cultures for that reason, rather than depending on a few store bought strains to defend us against every possible pathogen. I dont think our guts need to be overflowing with yogurt and kefir to be healthy. We are born into this world virtually sterile. Many fruits are harvested virtually sterile, they come in a wrapper, a protective skin, just like we do. The biggest concentration of pesticides/microbes is on the surface of fruits. Go organic if the price is the same or close to it. That being said, I don't buy rotten or overly expensive looking organic fruit, even fruit that I am going to eat the skin, if the conventional non-organic fruit looks healthier and tastes better, I buy that. I hae not fully opted outas a guinea pig in the GMO/pesticide experiment. Sort of still hoping that someday it will turn us into x-men or something. We might need a few more nuclear reactors to melt down here and there to help it along. Mostly, I'm kidding.
Organic, non GMO is better. Don't tell me we're 'feeding the world' with freaky giant fruits and vegetables. There is already more than enough food to go around. They're just isn't enough money and good government in certain countries to make the global food surplus available to the poor people of those nations.
Step 12: Another Way to Improve Bowels Movements and Urination
The bladder can stretch much farther than people typically allow it to. I'm not suggesting going to extremes, but if your urine production is not at least 1-2 cups, consider doing the following:
Hold it.
That's right. If you've never held it before, it's going to be difficult to hold it at first. Do this at home.
When you get the urge to urinate, don't. The need to urinate will pass, and then come back, and then pass. Do this as many times as comfortable. If you feel it is an 'emergency', of course use the toilet. And don't do this exercise in a car or at a desk. Do it at home where you are free to move your body in various ways which will allow the body to expand in a healthy, non-kinked way, like a balloon stretches equally on all surfaces You may find yourself doing the 'peepee dance' until the urge to urinate passes. If you find yourself quickly passing all the flatulence that was trapped inside you, that is a good sign you are increasing your bladder capacity, and increasing the pressure in/advancing the bowels which is why this exercise improves your bowel movements. It moves what is in you along and gets you 'primed to go'. Also your kidneys are a filter. Imagine your urinary system as you would a coffee pot, the greater the pressure of gravity from the weight of the water, the more water drips through. The last bit that remains stays in the coffee grounds and never drips through.
If you go to the bathroom every time before you leave the house or otherwise take scheduled 'potty breaks' or allow the slightest signals to send you running to the bathroom, you are doing yourself more harm than good. You will become a slave to your bladder and eventually incontinent, meaning you won't be able to 'hold it' at all.
Unless you have drank a lot of water or other fluids, you should not be urinating more than a few times per day. If you are going more than that and your urine is very pale to clear, you are overydrating yourself. That is a problem, just as dehydrration can be. If your insides are 'sloshing around', cut back on the fluids.
If you are urinating more than a few times a day and the volume of urine is small, you either need bladder training , or you may have a urinary tract infection if it is painful to urinate.
Step 13: What Inspired Me to Try This
My body was so messed up when I started this. I had gained. I was 25% over my weight at 18 years old, all of it from fat.
My kidneys barely filtered. Very low urine production, yet still not urinating frequently. Constant nausea, hiccups for days after eating a large meal. All signs of organ failure. My health improves throughout the instructable. I can eat without hiccuping now. Back to semi normal urine production, probably half of what it once was. I volunteered for a medical study in my youth where they measured urine output. Mine was over 3 cups. Noiw it's one to 1 and a half if I'm lucky, which is better than it was. It was around a half to one cup. Ive been told I have the bladder of a 60 year old man or older. I'm 31. Maybe 32. Born in July, 1986. Ok, I'm 31.
The fact that I may have actually found a way to get back to a semi-normal state of health, to heal my mind and body, the fact that I can feel it working is what makes me continue to push my limits with fasting. I want to be better. I want my severed arm to grow back but don't hold out much hope for that. Not sure how much use it is praying and wishing for a lost limb to return. I don't think there is one documented case of it ever happening in human beings. If I can just get my mind right. I'll always be schizophrenic. I just want to be the good kind. Not the kind I've been becoming for the last ten years.
Step 14: Improve Short Term Memory and Focus
Through dry fasting, I have been able to achieve a degree of focus, clarity, and stability that drinking coffee or taking a pill has never given me.
**Update- Once you go back to regular eating, your mind goes downhill again. Even healthy eating. So does your mood. And your energy levels. Maybe that's just me and my failing organs. Maybe I cannot handle the physical load on my body of eating normal food but if I heal I will be able to again someday. Food really has never given me energy. Drugs do, but it's a dirty, anxious, manic, self destructive energy. The energy from fasting is pure and sustained until you dry out too much.
Step 15: How to Get the Most Benefit While Putting in the Least Amount of Effort
The very easiest way to experience a benefit is this: Do not drink between meals. By doing that, you are intermittently dry fasting. Work your way up to being able to wake up, eat a healthy breakfast, and then go all day without eating or drinking until dinner. That will be the next step up in benefit to you. After your first extended dry fast, an intermittent dry fast of 10-12 hours will be nothing. You will not even be thirsty. And you will be teaching yourself delayed gratification instead of being a slave to food. How many of us wish we could control our weight? This is how you can do it in a healthy way. You can still exercise. You can still be a body builder even. Dry fasting will help you lose that last bit of food that you can't seem to shed no matter how much you exercise.
Don't be overly scared of calories, fat, or salt. Don't oversalt your food, but salting it to taste is fine. If you eat this way, there is no need to count calories as long as you are not gorging yourself at every meal. You will be able to follow your natural appetite.
It's the refined sugars and grains that are sapping your energy, making your body acidic, making you fat, and causing blood sugar spikes affecting your energy levels, mood, and short term memory. Don't pig out. Fats and protein can have the same effect on your blood sugar if you consume to much of them, the body converts them to glucose.
Balance out salty foods, cheeses, and dehydrated foods with foods that are less salty and by drinking more fluids..
Avoid reduced fat anything. All of it tastes like garbage and your body needs the essential fatty acids, such as omega 3's, found in the high fat versions of food. It's our overconsumption of grains and refined sugar that make us fat, not fats or proteins, unless you eat MASSIVE amounts of them.
Don't try to go 'zero carb'. You can if you're hardcore, but isn't necessary. Fresh, high water content, high fiber fruits and vegetables will always be good for you. Raw is better than cooked. If you can't eat it raw, for example potatoes, then you don't need it.
You don't need grains or beans at all in your diet. If you must have have them, be sure you are eating high fiber beans and high fiber whole grains. But cut way back on beans, grains, dairy, and sugary fruits if you are hoping for fat loss.
Don't be scared of dry fasting. It's good for you. It will improve your mood, digestion, appetite, short term memory, productivity, and energy levels. As long as you follow this guide, you'll be able to follow your body's natural signals of how much to eat and drink. Just remember, when you're not eating, dry fast, and when you're eating, EAT!
Less is more with caffeine. If you are not getting the same effect that you used to from caffeine, consider cutting back, Simply drinking less coffee each time you do drink it will reduce your tolerance to it, as will cutting it out of your diet for a day or two. I know it is enjoyable to drink coffee for many people. If you like to drank a large cup, consider making it half decaffeinated and half regular.
much of the health benefit from coffee is due to the fact that it is roasted into a charcoalish substance. Most roasted plants and beans will have the toxin absorbing effect on the body as caffeine. If you are drinking coffee to lose weight, go with light roast or green coffee. It is quite bitter and will require flavoring to make it drinkable, be that milk or sugar, or fruit juice. Whatever you like. Activated charcoal can be made into a drink that is simlar to coffee and has an even greater detoxifying effect on the body.Much like alcohol, caffeine can benefit you in small amounts, but can become destructive and addictive in large amounts. Going cold turkey off caffeine while simultaneously trying an extended dry fast for the first time is NOT recommended.
Keep your consumption of plain water, bottled or tap, under 32 ounces per day. That is my recommendation. Remember, most drinks are 90% water or more and there is water in the foods you eat. Coffee and Soda are not as dehyrating as they were once thought to be. They may not be dehydrating at all in people who are accustomed to drinking them, as the diuretic effect of caffeine lessens as your tolerance to it builds. Thirst and hunger are closely related in the body. If you are thirsty, reach for the whole milk or if you are going low carb, some other beverage rich in electrolytes but low in sugar. Not all day long, remember, we are intermittently dry fasting between meals, but drink as much of your electrolyte rich beverage during your 'mealtime windows.'
Don't worry about 'mealtime windows' when breaking an extended dry fast. The whole day or next few days can be your 'window at that point. Your body needs to recharge. It is a time to celebrate and enjoy all the delicious healthy foods you have been craving.
End an extended dry fast with a lemon banana smoothie or or other high water content, low PRAL score raw fruits. Once your stomach can handle that, you are ready to start eating and drinking again normally, going easy on the plain water. If that what your body wants though, no need to deprive it of all plain water. Especially if you are eating a lot of hard cheeses, cooked meats, dry or dehydrated foods and salty foods, you are going to need to drink more fluids to balance out your diet. Let hunger and thirst be your guide, but skip the junk food.
Don't eat 3 meals a day or you will likely never experience any of the benefit of dry fasting. You've got to skip at least one meal to start out. Once your appetite improves through regular dry fasting, cutting your meals down to one per day should be no problem for you, and you will not be hungry throughout the day.
By 'meal', I don't mean 'traditional meal.' I mean 'window of time that you are eating. It is ok if that window of time is 2 or 3 hours and comprises several small meals. My advice is to make that window your 'dinner' window, simply because in your home you can go back and forth to the refrigerator as many times as you like, but eating 'lunch' at a restaurant is usually a one and done. You don't go back up to the counter 3 or 4 times to order more food until your appetite is satisfied. And besides, it would be difficult and expensive to eat this way at a restaurant.
That is my advice. I, personally, am on my 3rd extended dry fast, it gets easier each time. 48 hours barely phased me this time. My last dry fast was 72 hours. It kicked my butt a bit towards the end.
Step 16: My Only Worry
My only worry is that you will read this, try short 'intermittent' dry fasts for a few days, and not experience enough of a benefit to your health and digestion to want to continue with it. If you are serious about wanting to get healthy, try for at least a 24 hour dry fast to start you off.
And as long as you are giving your body all the healthy food it wants during non fasting days, don't be scared to dry fast for a day, and then eat for a day, or dry fast for 2 days and then eat for 2 days, etc. Let your body be your guide. When you start to feel like there is 'too much' inside of you, feeling a fullness that doesn't go away with skipping a meal, it is time to dry fast again.
Step 17: Updates
Dec 14, 2017-
I'm at the end of a 3rd day of dry fasting now. I feel great. My mouth is not dry, I am not thirsty. I've had no lightheadedness, I can easily do a handstand against the wall and hold it for as long as I can normally. Every time you do a dry fast that's one day longer than the one you did last time, it's less of an increase. For example, 1 day is infinitely more than zero days, 2 days is twice as a long as one day, 3 days is 1/3 longer than 2 days, etc. My math may be wrong there.
Step 18: For People Who Are Worried That They Exercise Too Much to Dry Fast
Jogging, running, yoga, even mild weight lifting should be fine, but go easy with it on your first couple of extended dry fasts. On my first 2 I had a light of lightheadedness when going from sitting to standing or lifting heavy boxes. If you begin to feel any sort of muscle cramps that you usually do not, end the dry fast with an electrolyte rich beverage such as wholemilk, or orange juice. Water won't hurt you either but wont do anything really for cramps Milk and orange juice are actually more 'hydrating' than water in that sense, both milk and juice are about 90% water, but have electrolytes and sugar which help the body to hydrate. I got one minor cramp one time in the back of one of my legs during a dry fast, that was when I was at work doing a lot of fast walking, ladder climbing, and medium-heavy lifting. I'm on my 3rd day of a dry fast now. I just moved all the furniture in my apartment this morning. My mouth dried out considerably when doing it in the short window of less than an hour and mouth breathing, but it's back to feeling normal to a bit dry now, and I didn't have any cramps. I feel great.
I think dry fasting will improve your exercise routine, regardless of whether or not you exercise while dry fasting.
It is tempting to want to eat bread, chips, cookies, cakes, ice cream, etc., and it's fine on special occasions, but it's sort of like smoking. Consuming a small amount of those foods might not noticeably effect your health, especially if you are fully metabolizing them,but that doesn't mean that they're good for you.
Step 19: Raw Fruits and Vegetables Vs. Cooked
I tend to lean towards raw is better. Raw fruits and vegetables tend to come out looking and smelling more like they did when they went in than cooked foods, which tend to come out smelling like what we're used to smelling from foods we expel. Garlic, onions, certain spices, can make our wastes pungent.
I would say the greatest on the bio-availabilty of nutrients in food is making sure you have a lot of healthy micro-organisms in your gut to help break down the nutrients in food. Eating foods like yogurt, kefir, and fermented foods goes a long way to help with that and also prevent you from getting sick by crowding out/limiting the spread of harmful micro-organisms you may come in contact with. I read about a lady that always carried kefir grains with her and drank kefir water when travelling. She never got sick whereas her travelling companions often did. She lost the kefir grains in an airport one day and started getting sick just like them after drinking the water in a foreign country.
I would think that canned is better than frozen, just because you can eat canned fruit at room temperature, but if frozen fruit thaws out, it's gross. Canned foods can be found only lightly pasteurized and in their own juices. Juices can be found 'flash pasteurized' which makes them more like raw juices than typical juices. Not quite freshly squeezed, but fresher.
Step 20: My Mental Health Story
I have been given diagnoses of Major Depression/Schizophrenia/and Bi-polar by 3 different doctors. I got mentally ill like diagnoses were 'collect and win' or something. But unlike the Monopoly game at Mcdonalds, mental health diagnoses are not collect and win. They are collect and lose. What you are losing is yourself.
Since I started dry fasting and eating differently, my mood has lifted and stabilized. i'm not manically happy. I'm just good to go, ready to take on the world. I find myself smiling and laughing at small things. My anxiety level, before nearly crippling, is now way down. I am more approachable now due to not being so 'trapped in my head'. Customers often come up to me and ask me questions now at work, when before it was rare and often preempted by the question "Do you work here?" I can now just casually talk to most people when before I was afraid of nearly everyone.
But why was I afraid then and not now?
Here comes the biggie:
MY NEGATIVE VOICES ARE MOSTLY GONE! Before I began the techniques in this instructable, my schizophrenia was bad, and if anything seemed to be getting worse with time. I experienced a lot of delusional thinking and massive misinterpretation of distant voices and ambient noise. A mentally stable person might hear someone say 'potato' and mistake it for 'tomato'. Schizophrenia takes that concept to the next level. A schizophrenic might hear distant voices or noises and mistake it for an entire conversation about them, It's usually very negative, such as "You need to kill yourself. You are a schizophrenic. Your life will never improve. You are a burden to everyone to everyone around you. Kill yourself so the voices trapped in your head can be set free." When your manic, the same thing happens but you go from suicidal to having delusions of grandeur, thinking that you're going to be elected president or that the voices in your head have special information and projects for you. I would get very religious, believing strongly in Jesus and the holy family. (And the devil, who isn't quite the devil to me but something else entirely, more like just the yin to god's yang.) I
would hear a choir of angels singing and music constantly in my head, the same melodies over and over, like a recording playing over and over, sometimes with words I seemingly did not think up. Thoughts and ideas that seemingly were not mine. The voices would seem smarter than me, occasionally showing me distant memories that I had long since forgotten. Trying to communicate in images. I still feel that the voices are real and separate from me, and I hope in my heart of hearts that some higher power or ethereal realm is real, the angels and characters of the holy family may just appear to me the way they do because of my Western upbringing.
There were times it was so beautiful. Everything went to a beat, a melody, a free flowing meter and rhyme. I could be made to cry by the sheer beauty of it and overwhelming gratitude for the experience of it. It's coming back. Slowly. The beauty and interconnectedness of all things is returning to my awareness.
But the the 'recordings' of voices playing over and over and the negative voices saying bad things about me constantly have stopped. There were times before I changed my diet and began fasting, when all I could do was sit and be anxious and hallucinate. There were moments in social situations where I would just freeze like a deer in the headlights for a few seconds, analyzing imaginary threats and insults directed at me. I could hardly know for sure what was actually said by a person unless speaking directly to them and watching their lips move. Those were the bad days. I still lived a fairly normal life, I just didn't go out much, because the fear made it very uncomfortable. (I still don't go out much, but for different reasons.)
The worst part is I did it to myself by abusing cough syrup and other drugs. No one else in my family is Schizophrenic and I never was until trying psychedelics and getting hardcore into cough syrup in my early 20's. For that reason I always felt guilty about being schizophrenic. I just tried to suck it up and pretend it wasn't as bad as it was. I didn't talk about it much because I knew it was my fault.
I've tried so many different anti-depressants and anti-psychotics.. The only anti-depressants that seemed to help my depression, made my schizophrenia worse. Pretty much all the anti-psychotics were a nightmare for me. Eventually, I gave up on prescription medicines altogether. I'm not saying they don't work for some people or that there isn't potentially some miracle mental health pill out there, but I haven't found it yet. Dry fasting, changing your diet, and reducing or cutting out caffeine works to heal a variety of physical and mental health conditions.
THANK YOU FOR READING!!!!!
Step 21: Updates
December 15th, 2017 11:42pm
I'm 18 minutes away from ending my third extended dry fast. This one will have gone 4 days. I could probably go another day, but I told myself and my mom that I would end the fast at 4 days. I am beginning to get lightheaded when going from a seated to standing position. Plus, look at the plus look at the food pictures from the intro and the first step. It is going to be so delicious.
Pain during urination is gone. Yes, I am still urinating on day four. Small amounts and only two or 3 times per day, It It's dark yellow to orangish. but not too different from the normal 'first urine of the day.' during non fasting times.
My mouth was very dry when I woke up this morning after only two hours of sleep, probably from mouth breathing. I have been told that one of my nasal passages is almost entirely blocked. That worried me but did not seem to worry the doctor who told me.
I called into work and asked if I could come in later. They said yes. Two and a half more hours of sleep made a world of difference in how I felt, as did getting my body into motion at work.
Follow your daily routine when dry fasting. If you just sit around doing nothing, time will drag and you will suffer more than you have to. Oddly, using your brain and walking seem to get the saliva flowing in your mouth more than anything. I had basically no saliva production at work today. The 'holding saliva in my mouth' trick did not work. There was nothing to hold, yet I remained strong and did as good of a job as ever stocking shelves. It is back up a little bit tonight. My mouth feels lubricated, not wet, but lubricated.
The 1st and second days barely phased me this time. The 3rd day I noticed my eyes drying out from staring at the bright screen of my computer. Turning the brightness way down helped.
The cold air felt very refreshing today. I felt no need for more than a light jacket, though it was below freezing all day today.
Dec 16th, 2017
I broke the fast sometime after midnight with lemon banana smoothies. There was only minor swelling in my mouth which went away quickly, and I decided that I could probably start eating normally again right away. I ate quite a bit of sodt mozzerella, several good slugs of whole milk, and of course a tiny samples of this and that. Nothing tasted especially good. I wish I had not eaten so much. It was only a small meal but feels like I just ate thanksgiving dinner. I feel sick to my stomach. I'm keeping it down, I just wish I had taken things more slowly. I had a bit of plain water to see if that's what my body wanted. It wasn't really. The best tasting thing I had was a low sugar, naturally carbonated mango coconut probiotic drink, and I don't even like coconut. The fizziness is just awesome.
Dec 16th, 5:11 am
Woke up after a few hours sleep, feeling a lot better, full but not naseuos. I ate and drank some more with no proble. A kiwiftuit about did me in. The juice of it was so stong. Eting one of them made my mouth feel the way yjat eating several normally would. My tongue is still burning a little. It was good though.
I know I said no more dry fasting untill all the fresh food in the house is gone but I will probably fast at least untill dinnertime tonight. I do not like the 'too full' feeling. Wake up feeling cold although it is only 1 degree colder than average in my apartment and I am fullly clothed, I am stiller coler than I've been in the last 4 days. Indoor temp is 63 Farenheit, 17.2 degrees celsius.
Kneess are cracking again, something they don't do while dry fasting. Going back to sleep now at 5:28 am.
Woke up at 7 for work. Ate breakfast. Decided to dry fast until dinner which will be at 7. THat way a get in a 12 hour dry fast. I know I said no more dry fasting, I guess but I'm changing that to 'no more extended dryfasting' until the food is gone. I don't want it to go bad. Plus, at this point going without food and water for 12 hours is extremely easy.
I starter making water kefir from kefir grains. Seems to be working. I see a few bubbles
My urine is increasingly foamy, which it hasn't been in years. Maybe because I've been eating a lot more protein when I do eat. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad sign, but that's how it always was when I was a kid so I'm not too worried about it.
My tolerance to cold seems to have gone up. Ordinarily I wear and undershirt under my work shirt but I was too warm today so I took the undershirt off for the time ever. I have not had any problems with being sweaty at work since I began dry fasting and cut caffeine from my diet. Before, I had the embarrassing problem of the back of my underwear constantly being soaking wet and I would worry about it soaking through my pants. I think I could probably go commando now and be fine.
Step 22: Forget Everything I Told You About Diet. (move to After Diet Stuff)
I just ate. I feel terrible. I feel horny and irritated. Mind is foggy. Happy, grand thoughts are gone. I just keep eating because I assume my body needs nourishment.
I also just had a wicked dry, wicked stinky bowel movement. I think this 'symbiotic' microorganisms' in yogurt, etc, are only necessary to protect you when you have harmful microorganisms in your body. I'm doubting how much digestion they are doing for your and thinking theyre more like parasite.
Nature has had it's chance. Food is out. Food is for people. I dont want to be a people. I don't want to have desires. I don't want to feel pain and highs and lows of eating and drinking. I want to feel the constant drip at the back of my throat until it drips no more. Until I am dry. Then I will drink.
Maybe I should have reintroduced food more gradually. Then I'd only start to feel terrible gradually. Yes, I am being sarcastic. I apologize. The food has taken control of me. It consumes me as I consume it. No more food. Only dry fasting and rehydrating.
Ok, thats a little extreme. But I have a theory and here it is:
Urine and feces are not 'waste products' so much as they are 'excess products'. For example there is sugar and proteins can be found in urine and feces. Even identifiable pieces of food, that obviously still have nutritional value can be found. I am NOT suggesting that you find them or ingest urine or feces. By the way that is where commercial yogurt strains are sourced from. Feces. Back in the day when milk and wine was stored in animal skin bladders, that is where the cultures came from. Not anymore.
Back to my theory, what I am suggesting is that if the body were in balance, one would not need to urinate or defecate nearly as often. I'd go so far as to say that one could hold their bodily functions as long as they were able to dryfast. I dont think the bladder is the end destination/exit point for all fluid filtered by the kidneys, simply because of my own health problems which caused me to urinarte very little of though I drank normal anounts of water and had normal stool. It is embarrassing, but previously most of my 'fluid' was lost through *ahem' my backside. Not stinky fluid, just clear fluid, like water. You also lose a lot of fluid through breath, especially mouthbreathing, Breathing through the nose, especially if you have a lot of nose hair, tends to conserve fluid. You wont notice it unless you are dry fasting. To test my theory I am beginning a dry fast starting now, 1:13 am, Tuesday, December 19th, on essentially a mostly full bladder. I'll hold my stool and urine as long as possible within reason. I predict an eventual very dry, very wrinkly bowel movement, as well as en eventual sediment filled, low volume production of urine. If conventional thinking is correct, my bladder should fill and fill to the point of a painful emergency need to urinate. We will see what happens. Keep in mind that I stopped drinking plain water. The fluids I have been getting are mostly from cultured milk products, fresh fruit, and a small amount of juices. Basically, just do not try this at home. Let me guinea pig this one.
It's now 3 hours after I initially 'had to pee'. The pressure built to a constant pressure in my bladder and become uncomfortable. I decided to lay down. I now I'm noticing a LOT of watery saliva in my mouth. My mouth is never this wet. Pressure in bladder is going down. There must be a connection between bladder capacity and mouth dryness level. Also, I had some awesome back cracking down in my lower back that normally doesn't crack. Just a lot of little 'pops' right along my spine.
My eyes are watering. I had them closed lying down going to sleep an noticed they were watering. They're usually normal to slightly dry. Going back to sleep.
Woke up at 9:47am, 8 hours and 37 minutes from when I first 'had to pee.' Again, please do not try this at home. I had a urinary erection, something I rarely have gotten if ever since my teenage years. It came and went. I start thinking about the viagra/cialis commercials that say 'if you have an erection lasting more than 4-6 hours...call your doctor." I wasn't about to wait until 4-6 hours of solid chubby. I was uncomfortable. /not in pain, but uncomfortable. Doing the 'peepee dance' may have helped. I wasn't in the mood to try it though. I relieved myself and measured the output. (I do that and I also check ph level.)
Volume of urine was over 30% above record morning catch from sleeping through the night alone, even though I completely stopped drinking plain water more than a few days ago. Have hope if you think you have a weak bladder. Bladder training is possible. It works, but you've got to collect and measure to know if it's working, and you can't go back to your old habits or the muscle will weaken again.
PH of the urine was around 5.5, or in other words, no change in color. I'm ending the short dryfast now and starting a diet of only cultured milk, vinegars, lemons,limes, bananas and maybe crocodile helper.
Scratch that. Let's be scientific. Control the variables. I have decided to start a diet of pure raw vinegars.
11:17 am-I'm about 3 tablespoons of vinegar in, which induced an awesome, easy, quality bowel movement.
I'm not so sure how much 'roughage' we actually need in our diet. The mucus lining in our digestive tract is there for a reason, and it will naturally shed through shrinking and expanding as long as the tract is not always full. You know how sometimes it looks like a pot of spaghetti when you 'go' and sometimes it feels like you're birthing a small child. That is what I mean by shrinking and expanding of the digestive tract.
