As part of our vow to make healthier choices in 2006, Katr and I briefly considered starting out the year with a fast. You know, a cleansing sort of fast. A lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup kind of fast, you know, to really purify ourselves. I remember a friend of mine, Garo, being on this fast several years ago and he swore by it. I also remember going shopping with Garo at West Edmonton Mall while he was on the fast and wanting to punch his lights out because he was so tired and whiny. Looking back, Garo's whining wasn't just the fast talking but still - it wasn't pretty.
My own experience with fasting (barring a strange starvation "diet" I imposed on myself in Grade 7 for about two weeks) has been minimal; I have, in fact, only sincerely attempted fasting once.
Back when I used to obsess about my weight in order to avoid actually living my life (oh, to have that time back, people), I was on the Protein Power diet, which is similar to Atkins - lots of protein, very low carb. I was pretty successful on the Protein Power plan, unless you count the times I would freak out and spend the weekend eating my weight in pie (which happened about every three weeks). After a rare period of pie-free activity, however, I found that my progress had "stalled" and someone on the Protein Power message boards suggested I might break on through to the other side by trying the Atkins "fat fast".
The fat fast is basically this: you eat 1,000 calories a day, with 75 percent to 90 percent comprised of fat. I KNOW - fantastic, right? A thousand calories a day! That's hardly a fast at all!
I beetled off to the grocery store and stocked up on the required fat fast food items: macadamia nuts, cream cheese, beef patties, brie and spinach (I added the spinach myself - the all fat all the time idea kinda freaked me out). Then I set out on my three day odyssey to overcome metabolic resistance.
Day 1:
Breakfast: Beef patty, spinach, coffee. So far so good!
2nd breakfast: Ounce macadamia nuts, ounce Brie. Not hungry at all. Love the fat fast.
Lunch: Ounce tuna, two tsp mayo served in quarter of avocado. How delicious and fatterific.
2nd lunch: Ounce macadamia nuts. Starting to feel faint and dizzy. Better drink some water. And have another snack.
3rd lunch: Ounce Brie, more water. Still feel a little woozy. Maybe I'll lie down.
4th lunch (about 20 minutes after 3rd lunch): Entire bin of macadamia nuts. Entire brick cream cheese. Rest of triangle Brie. All remaining avocado. Ounce spinach.
Dinner: Pie.
Clearly, fasting - not so much for me. If I can't make it through a day of fat "fasting", no way I'll make it through a week of lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Fortunately, over the weekend, Katr and I discovered an alternative to the fasting kind of cleanse when we made up a pot of "stew" consisting mainly of cabbage and chick peas. I'm telling you, if we could feed this stew to all the world leaders, there would be no war. Because they'd all be in the bathroom 75 to 90 percent of the time.
