Starting 3-DAy Fast Today by lauray Blog entry

Blog: Lauray's 10-Day Fast
by lauray

Starting 3-DAy Fast Today

With a Plan, phone contact for support at night

Date: 8/30/2007 10:09:33 AM ( 17 y ) ... viewed 2086 times

hi,
so, since my last post it has not been that bad. Although I have not succeeded in staying off fruit, I have also not bloated that badly with what I have eaten. Also I have respected my body's messages nott to eat or to stop eating -- to some extent.
I have not been able really to sit down and plan out my days for this fast I want to start. Nevertheless, I am I guess going to try to start it today. I have planned this fast-starting meal of 950 calories to be eaten shortly (thurs morning 7::30 a.m.)... I must be honest and admit 1. this is too much to eat at once and not really ok with me 2. I am having trouble envisioning fasting through the rest of the day and night and for seven days like I want my fast to be. HOwever -- I actually have made a tentative plan for the day today, to preserve the fast. I have gathered phone numbers of support people and intend to call tonight. to requir myself to make 20 phone calls. each as long as the other person desires. an intentionally unreachable goal. and assert myself on the calls -- say where i am coming from, that I am trying to fast. also discuss my life difficulties -- housing, boyfriends
what is holding me and lifting me up right now is having heard unexpectedly from an old college boyfriend and being in email correspondence with him -- he being someone I really want to associate with - he's married
also last evening i was at the store and wandered around and around but was able to refrain from buying anything, respect my body's being unable to handle food. i did get food compulsively later and did bloat but it was not horribly painful -- tho it was painful. Here is how yesterday went. I got up and posted -- then actually went back to sleep instead of taking a first meal of day s I am compulsed to do right now. I do not know why today is different. maybe it is being depressed about my posts being erased. I am compulsed painfully in any case.
I do not remember how it ws i went back to bed. but I think I did and then got up and ate 950 in a sort of vague attempt to start a fast... no, I wanted to start the fast but I did not really make a plan to suppport it despite my determination to mak a detailed plan. I had to go to a housing interview. then i saw my ex. we took a walk. then I was free and was compulsed to go to the store. but as i say i wandered around and around and it was a miracle -- i did not get anything. I returned to the car and tried to do some life and day and fast planning but ws so tired. But I did write goals and in doing this waas infused with a wonderful desire to be sober, to be there for others, basically, to be a good person instead of using others. Then I had to get on line and i went to the library so as not to use my roommate's computer but the email message i was sending for references for my situation i am applying for got lost at the last moment as the liby. closed and the computers shut down. giving up on beginning the fast, I went to the store got 4 peaches and an apple and went home ... got on line again however before eating... taking care of my housing email first... eating only at about 12 midnight, after that task was all done, my body thanking me. But I bloated myself via that fruit... so painful and humiliating and frustrating and incapacitating. i keep eating fruit and keep bloating myself.

what is worrying me is I have semi-committed to a housing situation only 200 a month and around the corner from therapy but involving being a mindful presence for an elderly woman with dementia

as usual my loneliness and disengagement are provoking me to be unable to start my desired fast.

last thing: today i am as i say compulsed to eat 950 right away without sleeping first. One change i will make is not really positive but strategic in a way: yesterday after my 950 fast-beginning meal which had no fruit and was non-bloating, yay, I was nevertheless craving fruit and thus planned to get fruit after my interview and seeing my ex. Being unable to handle food at that point I succeeded in refraining, yay; but today I want to try to begin the fast and so with this 950 calories I am going to have fruit. This is so I do not get compulsed to postpone the beginning of the fast by eating the craved fruit later... I wish I could do it i.e. eat the fruit now without bloating and incapacitating myself and getting hyperventilation and painful congestion/cold symptoms (got these yesterday though w/o bloating after non-fruit-containing meal)... I am going to be in such pain. well posting has helped
I am trying to envision starting the fast by just making sure to get on the phone and stay on the phone tonight and engage with others and so be distracted and not be lonely.

I want the fast to go for 7 days.
I want to stop bloating myself: I want to stop eating too much at once and stop eating fruit. These are the things that bloat me. Also eating before my body can handle food. I want to stop this too. Fasting will enable me to do this. I have to stay out of the fear of thinness and stay with the fast. FAsting will enable me to stop intoxicating myself and become a better and more functional person.

I want to commit to starting the fast today and using my strategies to keep it tonight and for seven days and nights: calling people and getting together with people. I think also yesterday having responsibilities to attend to kept me sober for a while during the day and increased my desire to be sober. I desired to LET GO of intoxicating myself and COMMIT myself to OTHERS -- to take this risk instead of living selfishly -- withdrawing and getting stuporous by eating food. This action of sobriety is the key and fasting is the first step of it or something.

I want to commit to really starting this fast today and to working out how I am going to be sober. Commit to others. How I am going to change my selfishness -- specific ways. I was envisioning yesterday for instance engaging with the elderly woman in my prospective new home.

I think it involves letting go of compulsed eating plans and giving other people my totally engaged, full attention and my time -- or just of letting go of compulsed eating plans, period. Giving to others is a strategy for this, enables this abjuring of compulsive eating; and fasting is probably the primary and fundamental strategy and tool since it gets the body out of the craving state and so the compulsed eating plans will not be formed in the first place. It's odd -- a physical healing results in better moral behavior, and yet desiring/committing to moral behavior (gettign sober and giving self to others) supports the willlingness to fast and thus get the physical healing in the first place -- is perhaps the primary supporting motivation for fasting and getting the physical healing.

Anyway, I want to commit to starting the fast today and keeping it via phone calls for support. Requiring myself to make 20 calls. I am doubtful but can connect a litle bit to my willingness of my most recent fast, of 40 hrs, water only , ending 1 am Tuesday. This seven-day fast will go from this am thursday to 7 days from now in the am thursday and that day i will have only 200 cals all day -- very gently -- in watermelon in small servings at intervals.

I lastly commit to making detailed plans for the next 4 days trusting after that the fast will not be so hard. Detailed plans of connecting with others for support -- requiring myself to connect numerous times per day or soemthing. Anyway I commit to having a detailed and realistic plan -- for real distraction, too -- that has got to be a part of it -- perhaps the main part ... what do I really love to do? seek a boyfriend read the tabloids, whatever. Maybe make a real list of these things and take steps to get them, commit to getting them