April 5, 2013: 6 days now of food sobriety, and first Fast by lauray Blog entry

Blog: Lauray’s Success in Annual 40-Day Fasts Blog: 2013
by lauray

April 5, 2013: 6 days now of food sobriety, and first Fast

figuring out further food sobriety

Date: 4/5/2013 2:32:00 AM ( 11 y ) ... viewed 10513 times

food sobriety is: 1100 or fewer calories per day,
and
raw food only

today will be day 6 of this.

started march 31st, easter day.

I need to fast weekly 1 day per week.

I will incrementally increase the lengths of my fasts. i've succeeded this way previously.

i am committed to the low calories per day and this is the key to my basic/minimum-level well-being. this is a real accomplishment.

my real healing will only come with fasting.

i must and will achieve a 40-day fast annually.

Real sanity will only come with a committed abstinence from food that is in ANY degree tempting/triggering of overeating.

Plenty of raw foods fall into this category. It is an essential first step to go all raw but it is nowhere near enough. I'm still in a certain amount of chaos. The primary clue is if a food compulses me to eat instead of SLEEPING. I NEED to sleep SO BADLY and it is a vicioud cruelty to my body that i get up, eat, hurting myself this way.

I LOVE MYSELF AND I WILL ACHIEVE REAL, SPROUTS-ONLY-DIET FOOD SOBRIETY AND LONG-TERM FASTING.

I've had a great illumination: some foods tho raw and natural are still processed... by nature itself. Any fruit for example is a substance put by a plant through a long process of maturation which produces a sugar- or fat-laden calorie bomb. It's a dead object. Contrast with a sprout, a living, complete plant. Some fruit is more caloric than others.... thus more processed! I guess. i have to think about this.

The great liberation is that I now have a strong basis to really conceive that not all raw natural food is healthful... some raw natural food is actually what one could legitimately call processed! I am full of joy about this realization. I feel more legitimate in my rejection of fruit/any food that isn't alive/ a sprout.

I have to figure out in what order to stop raw processed foods. This is so complicated and hard. Actually only the first step is hard. The first stage involves deciding to cut out permanently foods that have been tool-processed. I don't really use them but i need to stop them permanently.

I want to be committed to a totally safe i.e. non-binge food diet -- NOTHING i could ever hurt myself by overeating; nothing that would ever make me binge -- BEFORE I start to try to fast long periods. i fear bingeing post-fast and getting seriously harmed.

so... tool-processed foods are the first to go.

My approach is to decide on "consoling" substitutes for foods I will give up.

..... Biggest sin foods currently allowed: raw fresh pasta. nut butters (raw but what a hell of a hazardous binge food). raw honey. (I can go vegan so as to exclude that, i guess.) dried fruit. (awful). raw dairy. avocadoes. 9fresh and unprocessed but a nightmare binge food. but can be a consoling substitute for stopping all oils as i will do first probably in the very first stage or stages of this longterm permanent diet cleanup)

I don't buy these things really but I cannot keep allowing them. But i need to give them up slowly. but it will take so long. well i guess this whole thing has to take a long time. at least i feel legitimate and justified and confident and secure in deciding to stop these things forever. they are processed!

Consoling substitutes for these worst foods... raw fresh corn ... for fresh pasta i guess.... grapes for honey or dried fruit. and living stevia plants...dulse for salty things like i don't know, i just know dulse is quite satisfying. ...I CAN feel legitimate with the permanent abjuring of the most overeating-triggering /tempting foods... dulse CAN be my new treat FOREVER

I feel maybe I should try to go slowly in my diet cleanup so as to increase my sense of commitment to each successive degree of "cleanliness" and prevent relapses that go all the way back to the worst foods... this seems essential. i have to build a strong barrier against all these foods.... and
... maybe if i do relapse under this system i will only relapse back to the previous level, not all the way back?

also... maybe if i do it slowly it will really "stick."

i am aware as i write of the dire necessity that i really seriously radically and permanently clean my diet, .... I feel i need somehow to find support to DO THIS , -- to STOP.... *ALL* .... food that is so much as SLIGHTLY calorically-dense, naturally processed, etc. ALL rich food, even naturally rich food, has got to GO, PERMANENTLY, AND REALLY PRETTY SOON. .... A radical decision like this may be what works after all... i can still proceed in stages and i can leave in my diet for the moment such things as fresh fruits that are higher-cslorie. But it does feel good and appropriate to STOP thinking of ANY rich or tool-processed food as EVER being ok at all. this is real clarity and really new progress better than ever in my life so far...

i am impatient for the success and healing of a long fast; this is the horror of it, that i cannot seem to just up and fast 40 days as i need to ... but if i cannot start this fast in a context of a true commitment to basically sprouts-only sobriety,.... maybe any fast not started thus is doomed to fail???? .. it does seem that a fast entered into without this commitment is entered into insincerely in a sense.

maybe not but i seem to need a lot more support than i really have, in order to ... in order to what??? lost what I was thinking.

My first point of confusion is. OK i give up tool processing. But is a freezer a tool? I have to stop the blender, so no more fro-yo-like blends of bananas/ice/grapes. What is the consolation substitute for losing that kind of food? Frozen bananas?? But aren't they worse? More calorically dense? Yes they are more calorically dense. Have to think about this. Frozen melon? Is a freezer a processor of food that is worse than a blender , or what???

should the test be, to what extent the subtle organizing energy fields of the food are disrupted by the processing in question?

a blender seems pretty bad. likewise a nut butter machine. and a flour mill.

Well, ok I have to figure that out. Most obvious foods to stop first are... oils, flours, nut butters. Consolation substitutes are: what?

What abour dried fruit? Worse or better? Which is worse -- mechanical or temperature/low-heat/dehydration -type processing?????

The first goal is obvious: no food touched by machines in any way. god what about the machines that are used in farming. no I am not really confused by that. The first goal is obvious. Raw fresh un-cut-up unpackaged food only. So: consolation substitutes would be. Whole raw nuts/seeds. Avocadoes. Whole fresh raw fruit. Nothing frozen, nothing cut -- even by knives, even by hand tools; I have to be so radical; it makes me feel more faithful to an ideal; God help me, is this setting me up to relapse on EVERYTHING if I one day use a knife???? God help me please.

Also. If no freezing --

HOW TO CONSOLE MYSELF FOR THE LOSS OF THE "ICE CREAM EXPERIENCE?"

I must address this. Artificially/mechanically increasing the volume of food by blenderizing with ice is something that would seem not to be that bad, and to be an essential crutch. If I outlaw tools/machines, I am IN GRAVE DANGER if I don't SIMULTANEOUSLY commit to a very low calorie density diet.

Do I stop more dense foods first, considering nature's processing to be at times worse than man's tool processing??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Have to consider it all.

On to day 6 anyway, 1100 calories or less and raw only. Tomorrow afternoon i start my first fast, weekly fast. I guess I am trying to make Saturday my weekly fasting day.

Also I really need to increase the lengths of my fasts steadily.

But do I need first to clean my diet?

I am impatient for this healing of fasting yet do I need to sit down and do the hard work of committing to diet cleanup first?

I guess I can motivate myself in the diet cleanup process with the realization that the healing fasting will only really be possible when the diet cleanup is committedly complete.

God please help me.

So my task is really to decide which foods are truly worst and how to make a really legitimate-feeling commitment to stopping them.

Rule of thumb is that most calorie-dense foods are the worst. Nuts oils seeds and fatty fruits. But what about the fact that there will seem to be a contradiction if I continue to use tools to process foods. And a whole nut seems less processed than a blenderized banana.

From there my mind could justify relapsing on processed diet foods since they are not calorically dense -- which would make me crave processed binge foods probably uncontrollably.

God please help me figure this out.

I could radically stop all foods of caloric density greater than x calories per ounce -- allowing both raw and cooked, processed and unprocessed as long as the caloric density were low -- and steadily lower the number x.

But the truly least triggering foods seem to be sprouts that actually are slightly more calorically dense per ounce than many actual binge foods (in the fresh sweet fruit category... sesame seed sprouts in the advanced stage are less eating/overeating-triggering than peaches)

So, degree of processing seems to be what makes a food unsafe??
But defining "processing" has to be subtle/complex: A peach: clearly more processed than a sprout. But a raw nut: more or less processed than an ice-blenderized banana? Perhaps more since nature concentrates hideous numbers of calories in the nut, and so do we give greater weight to this genre of processing than we do to any tool processing, even electrical tool processing?

Again, please God help me.

This has to be my focus and project NOW, daily, until I am resolved about it.

I want to resolve it now and I must , so I will resolve it before posting this post. Going to bed now but not posting this till I reach a plan for the first stage of diet cleanup.

OK here it is.

I've stopped all cooked foods already.

Now: stop all TOOL-PROCESSED FOODS FIRST.

My decision is to use very low caloric density foods for calorie control , instead of mechanical dilution techniques.

Romaine lettuce instead of blenderizing things with ice cubes.

I can tolerate the sense of deprivation because I have a sense of pride in achieving a level of purity I really believe in when I eschew all mechanical processsing techniques.

First foods to stop: oils, nut butters, flours, meals (almond meal e.g.), and anything else cut up, blenderized, food-processed with a processor/juicer. No tool use.

Consolation foods: whole nuts served with dulse seaweed to dilute them naturally; eventually require all nuts to be soaked overnight in water; this is good since it paves the way for actually creating the sprouted sesame seeds in the advanced sprouted state that is so anti-triggering and great... I haven't done this in a while and despaired of actually having the good sesame sprouts -- most bitter, nauseating thing I know, and thus the ideal meal -- since I could not respect the unsprouted sesame seeds as off limits and I ate them unsprouted and they are really a horror binge food. I threw away a 10-pound bag to keep myself safe. But with this rehearsal of soaking nuts, maybe I could learn this respect...... fresh raw corn substituting for raw pasta; but ... WHAT to substitute for the ice cream experience????

... Perhaps only a sense of pride. Perhaps only the fulfillment that comes from regaining my human dignity.

I feel it has to be this.

It COULD be frozen things , frozen melon, frozen bananas; but is a freezer a tool? Better or worse than a blade? What is my policy for items altered by temperature or dehydration? Dried fruit belongs in the first to stop list, too; likewise raw honey. ALL these things have to go very quickly.

Stop them ALL and have just certain committed substitutes? Stop the insanity of concentrated foods altogether?

Is there one concentrated food that is relatively safer?

I feel fats are the worst -- the deadliest.

I feel like sun-dried tomatoes could continue to be OK.

But actually I have to stop them in the very first stage I think maybe. Anything dried or freeze-dried is a processed food.

It seems like I have to stop simultaneously everything that is particularly calorie-dense and everything mechanically altered.

So stop: oils/flours/meals/nut butters/blenderized/ground-up items of all kinds; anything frozen or dehydrated or dried; anything tool-altered. Dried fruit of any kind.

And stop: the more calorie-dense foods even unaltered ones: all nuts/seeds (even if not mechanically altered); all fatty fruit. All natural (even unconcentrated) syrups (raw honey). All particularly starchy foods (starchy sprouts/grains/any pulse edible in an unsprouted or just-sprouted state)

Consolation foods: Fresh raw corn. Dulse seaweed. Garlic. "Rich" leaves: Basil. Chives. Arugula. Fruits: all fresh, non-fatty: Dragonfruit. Fresh figs. Mango. Berries. Melon. Tomato. Lemon. Meyer lemon. Onion. Spring onion. Heirloom tomatoes. Grape tomatoes. "Soft" starches: broccoli, cauliflower. Mustard greens. baby greens. Starfruit. Strawberries.

I have a new sense of commitment and validity. This is my health. This is my life. I deserve to do this now and I have to do this now.

I feel like my next daily calorie limit will be 800. I feel like this will bring me benefits during the time i am still learning to fast at length. The long fasts will being me the real healing but the low calorie diet will significantly stop some of the harm I am doing daily. Maybe I will even become quite functional on the 800 a day.

It is all to do with a sense of commitment. I feel serious now.

How to stop all the heavier (naturally processed) or tool-processed foods at once without bingeing on them all at once? --1. well, I am totally committed to 1100 calories or less per day, so not going to binge. --2. These foods have just got to go. I have conceived a certain conviction about this that makes this easier. it just is not ok to eat them. It isn't optional to quit. it is required. There won't be a binge. A disciplined farewell, maybe, but if i get urgent feelings about fitting all these foods in for a final time --I just have to say no. There is NOT going to be a fitting-in frenzy. I might make a hierarchy of them from worst to least bad and stop one of them per week or one category per week... this seems maybe like it could work.

Exact hierarchy and schedule next post. I am ok with that. I know which ones are the worst and am pretty resolved about them all in my mind. Just setting a schedule commits me to keeping my abstinence even if later consideration makes me conclude I am giving them up out of order. Once I make the schedule the rule is I simply respect that. It will take a while to get totally clean but this is real now. I am going to achieve fasting. It encourages me that as I wrote that I shuddered. I am in touch with the part of me that is reluctant and that is powerful.