Day 14 – How to End a Fast

 There is something incredibly liberating in allowing emotions their proper time and place. It’s called self-respect. Self-respect does not allow emotional blocking in order to exit the body and seek comfort in the mind. Self-respect embraces the whole. It does not segregate the parts.

Fasting is not only a freedom from the bondage of eating it is a freedom from the underlying emotions that cause us to want to eat when we are not hungry. Fasting produces a feeling of overall lightness in body, mind and soul, and after the first few days of emotional irritability as the mind settles into the task at hand, a feeling of emotional lightness results too. In the absence of suppressing unwanted emotions with food, most fasters experience emotional freedom and find alternative energetic ways to express emotions such as talking, walking, contemplation, prayer, artistic outlet, meditation, and resting. Many fasters experience disturbing dreams as a result of suppressed emotions, thus dreams are a process of emotional healing too.

Because my fast involved eating fruits I had many opportunities to witness how I use food to push uncomfortable and unwanted feelings into the depths of my stomach where they cannot consume me. The reason most fasters lose control at the end of a fast and consume copious amounts of food or eat foods that the body is unprepared to digest is two fold. Firstly, fasting does nothing to provide the necessary skills or tools to effectively manage emotions. Secondly, there is a false sense that because the faster has deprived herself she can now indulge freely because she’s earned it. Ironically, this anomaly occurs in most crash diets resulting in weight gain far above pre-diet weight. Thirdly, some fasters ***** for a particular food near the end of their fast until the idea of eating that food consumes them.

Occasionally ending a fast, especially if the ending is rushed, can have life altering effects. In spite of my urgings not to, my husband decided to have flank steak as his first meal at the end of a 40-day fast. For weeks he had envisioned and anticipated his meal. Yet nothing could have ever prepared him for his life altering experience. Within seconds, as he cooked the meat and watched red blood turn brown and smelled the aroma through heightened senses, he swiftly renounced eating all meats and transformed into a vegetarian.

Ending a fast is a lot like starting one except that food is weaned in instead of out. Foods should be introduced in small amounts for the first week. Portion sizes and variety should be gradually increased over the next seven days. Too much food all at once can cause severe stomach pain and nausea and hinder any progress you made while fasting.

A progressive entry into and exit from fasting helps establish mindful eating, portion control, slow weight loss, gain and ultimately maintenance, minimal stress, and an overall sense of wellbeing. Most importantly, it allows for the necessary time needed to physically and mentally reconnect with emotions. The following six weeks guideline should help you ease into a healthy lifestyle while preserving the benefits of your fast.

Week 1: Vegans, Vegetarians and Carnivores: Introduce watery fruits that are easy to digest such as watermelon, melons, and pears on the first day after your fast ends. The second day should include more substantial fruits such as grapes, berries, pineapple, oranges, kiwi, and grapefruit. For the third day add apples, fresh figs, cherries, mangos, papaya, and bananas. Introduce a quarter to half an avocado on day four and small salads with lettuce, celery, tomato, cucumber, and sprouts with a fresh lemon juice and oil dressing day five. For days six to seven, introduce denser raw vegetables like broccoli, carrots, cabbage, and cauliflower. Cooked vegetables can be introduced the final four days.

Week 2: Vegans: Days one to four add cooked vegetables. Introduce nutritional yeast, miso, hemp, soy, and tofu days five to seven. Pescetarians, Vegetarians and Carnivores:  Days one to four add cooked vegetables. Add soy, tofu, miso and fish days five to seven.

Week 4: Vegans: Add seeds, nuts and their butters days one to four and whole grains days five to seven. Lacto-ovo Vegetarians and Carnivores: Add poultry and eggs days one to four and whole grains on days five to seven.

Week 5: Lacto-ovo Vegetarians and Carnivores: add dairy.

Week 6: Carnivores: add lean meat.

Mindful Eating

Food should be consumed in small bite sizes and chewed slowly and thoroughly, approximately 21 times before swallowing, to stimulate digestive enzymes in the mouth. The more food is digested in the mouth, the less the stomach has to work thus preventing possible nausea, cramps, gas, and bloating. I suggest you pre-cut your food into mouth-sized bites. While you eat pay attention to how the stomach responds. If you notice emotions or anxiety rising, stop eating, get centered and try again.

Portion Control

A portion of food for one meal for days one to three could equate to a half a pear or apple, a small to medium sized wedge of watermelon, six strawberries or grapes, half an orange, one full kiwi, or a quarter of a grapefruit. Eat every two or three hours. For days four to five increase your portion size by one quarter to half.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Eating

Never eat raw and cooked foods in the same meal.

If you eat a variety of food groups in one meal, and in order to prevent food from fermenting in the stomach, which causes bloating, gas, and nausea, consume the most watery foods first followed by denser and richer foods last. For example, soup followed by salad followed by protein.

Decide ahead of time exactly what food you want to eat and where. Then sanction out your portion and put the rest of the food away and out of site.

Plan for an activity that takes you away from your food source for at least 30 minutes and be mentally prepared to act out your plan.

Eat in a quiet environment, void of the distractions of driving, television, phones, computers and face-to-face conversation where your full attention can be directed to the task of eating. If you find your mind is racing take a break from eating and return at a later time once your thoughts have settled.

If you are redesigning your lifestyle habits from carnivore to vegetarian or vegan, seek out resources, information, and help needed prior to ending your fast. In fact, I strongly suggest you do this prior to fasting in order to have the necessary time to mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically prepare for the upcoming changes during the fast.

Journal Notes

The last day of my fast fell on June 7th while the full moon was is in Sagittarius. Full moons are excellent for endings and new beginnings. The Sagittarius moon reminds me to slow down, meditate on decisions, transform old outdated visions for seeds of a new vision, and above all, to live with a balanced head and heart. To help prepare for the continuance of this new lifestyle I purged my kitchen and bathroom of all toxic chemicals, including dish soaps, bleach, oven cleaner, air deodorizers, shampoo, conditioner, cosmetic makeup, skin lotions, nail polish and removers, soaps and body scrubs. Next, I introduced organic environmentally friendly products. All that remains is the preparation of homemade laundry soap and fabric softener once I track down the few missing ingredients. Yet this is just the beginning. Transforming my diet, tossing out chemical products and replacing them with greener, human and environmentally friendly solutions are the first steps of a much larger and longer journey.

It suddenly occurs to me that the first half of my life was spent in vast recklessness, without consciousness or care about anything but my own agenda. And while I thought motherhood might change my selfish ways, it didn’t. Motherhood did not change me instantaneously but instead served as the catalyst of all future changes yet to come. Motherhood served to produce a wedge under the stronghold of my footing causing me to feel a steady rhythmic imbalance and drawing me ever so inward to the closeness of my fears, identity, and thoughts. Motherhood reconnected me to my own childhood, to my biological mother, and to Mother Earth. I have resolved to dedicate the remaining days of my life to living consciously with heart so that I may not only heal myself but also help others in their quest of healing our relationship to and with Mother Earth and her inhabitants. I recognize that while humans may have dominion over all the beasts of the planet we have not been just in our rulership. Instead we consciously choose to exploit and kill one another and everything else in our path so that we can fulfill the insatiable appetite of ego. Our species will extinguish itself should we choose to continue. And the idea that a loving god will save us is yet another abdication of responsibility and accountability for our actions. Have hope, yes, but not without action. Hope without action is illusion and self-deception. I embrace the unknown of what lies ahead for all is unknown except that which we give meaning to and commit myself to changing the greatest stumbling block I will ever have to face – myself. For it is true that when you change yourself you change the world.

Overall I believe this fast met with great success. My stomach seems to have finally cooled down, my appetite has increase as has my ability to eat slightly larger portions, and the two organic blue-corn and black sesame seeds tortilla chips from days ago met with great success, though I’m sure portion control had much to do with that. Finally, after careful consideration I’ve decided not to introduce grains until after the endoscopy results, which should happen sometime this year I hope. My consultation is set for mid-July.