Hi, Forum,
I wrote a post which was lost by my inattention to being out of time on this public library computer.

So, I want to say I made it, 48 hours, with longer fasts to come.

I am committed to a more "sober" plan of fasting. First, I am committing to a reduction in food intake post-fasts. Second, I am able to be willing to wait longer in between fasts so as to aviod having the compulsion to overeat before a fast (thinking, wrongly but compulsedly, that my body "needs" this extra food, has to be "compensated for food "missed" while fasting... and probably being led to the decision to fast so frequently because this gave me an excuse to overeat between fasts/before a fast! I am SURE that was part of my motivation, though I have never yet realized this on a fully conscious level). But I AM aware that part of my motivation for not waiting long enough in between fasts to avoid being thus seized by the compulsion to overeat in "preparation" or "compensation" -- is -- that I thought, How will I ever start to fast again, if I let myself get out of practice? And this was a very real concern for me. Though it may have just been a disguised desire to overeat... I seem to have various of these disguised desires to overeat. I'll ostensibly be concerned about something-or-other but underneath it is the desire to "Get stuffed."

So, my next fast will be 54 hours, with no "compensatory" eating beforehand. I haven't yet decided when to plan this next fast.

I had a really successful (for me) break of fast this morning. I thought I woudl not make it through the night, but I picked up a good book I like, Bridget Jones's Diary, and that made me feel I could stand to wait to eat until my goal time.

I did not come all the way through the initial "detox." This -- feeling sort of too sick to move -- came on as usual at hour 40 but had not really come down much by hour 48. I so wish I had the ability to let my body fast as long as it needed to. I am so scared, is why I don't carry out fasts. I guess I am scared of not getting what I want, in life, to an intolerable extent; this is my basic fear. I don't have a lot of inner spiritual/inspirational/mental-attitude resources, and my life is too empty, sorry to say, for me to go very long without my drug of choice -- food. I am now going to some 12-step meetings and am feeling these help and reassure me.
I will say that I have developed an understanding of the fasting process that has made me more able to tolerate the discomfort of it. i feel less scared of it now. I have jsut been affirming that the (first days, initial) detox symptoms I feel are merely my body's effort to have a bowel movement -- to throw off wastes. Once I have the bowel movement(s) I know I feel better. I just didn't fast long enough this time. My body was damaged by I guess the froyo and was struggling and struggling to have a bowel movement without the artificial stimulus of "slams" of food, which seem to enable moving of the bowel, in a violent/bacteria-related way.

I DON'T like the way I acted in breaking this fast. I did NOT get enough sleep. i forced myself up out of bed, so compulsed was I to break the fast at the appointed hour and not wait a minute longer (actually, I waited 45 minutes after the 48-hour mark, due to traffic...so... good, BUT... ). I am exhausted. I do find myself going through a process of self-acceptance of my not sleeping and not necessarily getting tasks done that don't directly relate to fasting -- I am accepting the no-sleep and the no-task-accomplishment as a part of the process of really learning to fast at length, and really heal my body. this is very good. It is very good for my ability to fast in the first place, that I give over driving myself, whipping myself up with fear of not accomplishing things in life and consequently putting way too much pressure on myself - maybe not a lot compared to the average, functional person, but more pressure than I can handle, as someone whose primary task in life REALLY is to learn how to fast -- to get food-sober and to fast at length. ... I AM changing the whole focus of my life, to a serious focus on fasting. I am giving priority at last and attending at last to my sprouting operation, which generates "sober" food for the times wehn I am compulsed to eat (in my present condition no desire to eat amounts to anything but a compulsion. THis is the difficulty. I am constantly toxic and in need of taking a ten-day fast, yet I am emotionally incapable of this necessary healing, and I limp along, never experiencing anything like true hunger). ... I am wroking on actively making really realistic schedules for myself, realistic day plans, so I do not over-pressure myself, which I think pushes me into the food. Today's day plan I have actually almost followed as I wrote it down. It is a largely realistic plan. ... So there is some progress. But there is real trouble, too, as you will read below.

Anyway, I had pledged to limit my caloric intake for today and tomorrow to 1000 cals. per day. This I have actually succeeded in so far. My first meal was 500 cal, all raw, and my second will be also 500 cal. BUT I am having trouble -- major. I first of all am at just after 3 pm finding it ALMOST impossible to wait until 5 pm to eat my final meal of the day -- I am just craving some sort of pleasure. It is horrible. ... Well: I will wait until 5 pm, though it will be torture. THis I can do. BUT!!! BUT!! I am actually compulsed to eat processed foods, oh God. .. I will not eat my nemesis, sugarfree frozen yogurt (wlil I?????), but I am compulsed (even though I do not even physically FEEL like eating processed food and would SO MUCH RATHER have raw foods!!!) -- I am mentally rigidly compulsed to get the processed foods ([supposedly] zero-calorie Alfredo sauce; low calorie pasta, and nonfat CHEESE oh God, not even vegan, and not even a salt-free meal. .... I hate this! Why do I want these things??? ... I am in fear, is what it is. I am so scared. It feels like Fear is at the bottom of it. ... I felt unduly hurried back into my raw-only commitment after my relapse into froyo last Saturday. I rushed myself into this big commitment of a new day-count on raw foods only because it was Easter and I just felt like that was a significant day. Actually, I got (totaly unintentionally on his part) a bit of pressure from my 12-step sponsor to "start on Easter." I'd been planning a day of processed food for Easter. I was NOT going to do fro yo, but I felt this desire/compulsion to do the foods I mention above. And I DID NOT do them, on Easter. I let myself be pressured/convinced to STOP all processed food and do raw only, besidescommittin g to greater responsibility to my sprouting operation, and more relaxation exercises before eating and even one yoga sun salutation before any meal... But I felt pressured into this! I felt, "there is going to be trouble... I do nto feel committed to this..." But what is the right way to think? No rela[se need occur jsut because one is unsure of one's commitment to sobriety....Yet my willingness has gone. What am I to do? I really need more motivation and willingness to do raw food only. How can I get this? ... I notice how hard even a 48 hour fast is, both mentally and physically, after froyo; I just am siting here trying to justify myself in this maybe "last hurrah" of other processed foods with the idea that maybe they will not make my next fast so difficult. Oh God. What if I go back to fro yo????? I HAVE to admit that I am havign that thought. Oh God. I always makes me SO sick. My head is telling me "after a fast, you will handle it better." But I must not act this way, since I can see how much I am overspending on food in the first place!!

The troubles I am having generally are: One: I REALLY need a LOT of help and conviction and positivity and willingness and support to fast 54 hours, as i must do next; and I am not sure of finding these. ... This is scary. I have got to figure out what i need, what will enable me to take this next-longer fast in the series I want to be committed to doing. ... I have had the idea just now to get back in touch with my 12-step sponsor, who might be there for me and make me less alone... aside from my 12-step meetings ...

Two is the compulsion to eat processed food. I feel as though it will be easier to limit my caloric intake if I use the processed food. CAn this be true? No, please!!! Help!!! ... I am VERY afraid that in spite of the AGONY I endured less than six days ago from frozen yogurt, that I will just be re-compulsed to do it again!!!1 I cannot stand being so out of control!!! I sacrifice my whole life to the horrific experience of eating processed food!!! I am so scared that after the salt-load I am going to have tonight (mostly out of a fear that if I do not get the desire to have it out of my system, I will ALWAYS be plagued with the desire. But it is fine to be plagued with a desire. And the longer you are abstinent, the less the desire will plague you. But my inner child refuses to listen to this. I have this notion of getting ).... I am so afraid that after this salt-load that I am going to have tonight, I will crave sugarfree froyo tomorrow... since you crave sweets after salt. What the hell am I going to do? HOw can I possibly stay away from this s***?

I feel good from the fast. I feel a tenderness coming over me in this fasting process. I feel myself becoming much less harsh with myself and presumably with others. I feel myself "getting gentle." I feel a personality change coming. I so wish the change were more solid and I had the courage to "give myself" to it.

I have always felt processed foods were just wrong for me. But I cannot persuade myself to forgo them today. I am so unhappy.

More in a second, my therapist is calling.

... Okay, I have edited the above now and have this tiny glimmer of willingness to forgo the processed food tonight. But no, I don't either. I am totally compulsed to go get it.

I do not know what to do. i do not know what to do. How can I

I do know that I am ending my relationship with this particular therapist who was so abusive and cold and getting new therapists. Will that help, maybe? God, she was awful to me ont he phone just now. Is it I? Am I constructing this situation of abuse? We choose our situations... but no, this was entrapping me from just momentum and from the advantages of having her as a therapist. I wasn't actively choosing this, haven't been actively choosing this for a while, just passively? I don't know what I am saying. I do know that a lot of homeless men are around me in the library now and I do NOT like this and it makes me feel horribly degraded snd I have got to get out of this situation of using the library to work in. What am I to do?

One argument for the sprouts only diet is that I have spent SO much more than I can afford, on food, lately. The expense of eating non-sprouts, even some raw foods that are "treats", is horrible. I am out of control in my spending, too. Maybe go to Debtors Anonymous. Oh God another task. What am I supposed to do???? ... Meditate and I will get better at doing what I need to do and my capacity for constructive work-tasks-for-my-life will increase. I hate meditattion. I can't do it lately. I can't get to bed enough early to do it and the only time I can stand to do it is morning and I want to get the he** out of my apartment early always before my roommate wakes up because she is so abusive. This is stressful. I want to go to bed super-early and try to get to sleep super-early tonight but maybe I will jsut have to force myself awake early ... it is all in the service of fasting... and I will become able to fall asleep early if I keep myslef on the wake up early schedule. The meditation is necessary to fasting as is some big big support. The meditation becomes possible when I awaken early. Like, 4 a.m. So to go to sleep at 8 p.m.... Now, this is raising the justification in my mind for eating dinner at 4 instead of 5, so I will have time to settle down and get done things I want and need to... but I can't do that. I need to wait until 5 p.m. So -- I had planned to have a life-goals and daily-life-scheduling session this afternoon or before bed, but it looks like I won't even really have time to plan. My day plan is NOT going to be followed exactly. But I know since it is 4:09 now I will succeed in waiting until 5 pm to eat. I cannot stand to perform any tasks not related to "setting up" this dinner -- shopping for the processed food (the waste! The financial waste. God help me. God please give me back the willingness and inspiration and self-love and conviction to do raw foods only.... I think I can maybe make a plan to give up processed foods gradually... but I don't even feel any desire/commitment to give them up!!! When is my next fast??? How can I manage 54 hours???? Will it be horribly hard if I do processed food now? Why can't I get a solid plan and forward movement in my life? Why do I jsut want to languish in food addiction, this emptiness???? This numb feeling this safe horrible lack of any achievement. I need to go into society where people are achieving things, and I need to conceive the desire to achieve, and link achievement to fasting and green-living-only diet. But it is tricky because I can also be brought into despair by the experience of entering upper society. But I DO feel the conviction NOW that it IS safe and okay and allowed and suppoerted and necessary for me to do only green living foods and for me to fast, because THAT IS WHAT IS NECESSARY for ME to function on the level that these upper society people function. Okay, so...)... This is rambling. I have got to get out of here since a homeless man who actually smells has jsut sat down beside me. This is where the processed food takes me, horrible places with horrible people, I have got to tell myself that. But do I BELIEVE IT?
OK, going now. Next post will be plan for giving up processed food and next life task is to have major sitdowns with myself until I get the willingness for totally living green raw diet again, I guess. I guess this current relapse does constitute a crisis. I mean, I am taking time off from school TO LEARN TO BE FOOD SOBER AND FAST. So I have GOT TO pay attention to this -- it is the only thing to do!!!!! My nagging question is, will this processed food REALLy interfere with my healing fasting??????? What am I to think? I hate the danger I am putting myself into right now. I despise this. ... I have a little more willingness to commit to raw only now... after this processed food... so that is good.

Lauray