Hello Dr Mom.

You might not remember me but we met briefly one snowy day late last year when you were in Ohio to speak at Joel's new barn/house/school..... you might remember Drew who drove in with dog....from Pittsburgh, waaaay early in the A.M... in a pick up truck.....with a non-working heater......and had to leave early due to concerns with the return drive at night during the first bout of winter that had been a lot worse than than had been forecasted.

First I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for the diary you provided for your recent fast.... 40 days, unless i'm mistaken. The way you wrote these daily updates I could almost feel as though I was there fasting along with you even though I was not fasting along with you :) I got a lot out of those reports. Thanks.

Right now I am about 3 hours short of completing hour 72 (yes, for me, fasting is kinda like being a child again .... a time when it is important [to a child ] to tell people how old they are in terms of years, months, days and hours ) of an impromptu fast. It has only been in the past year that I first began experimenting with 1-day fasts, so I have several of those under my belt now, with the goal of some day reaching 21 if not 40. Being apple season, and with the local farmers market guy providing the only cidre i've found thus far around here with NO PRESERVATIVES, I'm using apple juice as my main sustenance during this fast, plus the occasional cup of hot herbal tea, perahps a shot of Cayhenne and Hawthorne berry tincture here and there, and 2 LBB capsules per glass of cider, and thats all I've had for 3 days.

Sunday morning I was feeling a bit ill, nothing serious at that point, just felt kind of run down, a bit achey, kinda clammy (not always easy to diagnose when the humidity is already at 80/90 % ), that kinda stuff, all which of which are are sort of status quo for me.... plus the few other maladies that tend to accompany these for me personally whenever I come down with something along the lines of upper respiratory illness, mainly achey ears / tubes, lots of drainage, etc. At bed time Sunday I put garlic oil and then B&B in both ears, plugged with cotton, and then to sleep. Monday morning I awoke feeling better but not completely over the hump. After eating a meal somewhat late Monday night, I went to bed sort of in a hurry IE> no treatments. When I woke up Tuesday, it was like waking up on Sunday morming all over again plus some nasty collection of phlegm discharged from throat on the first trip to bathroom for morning rituals. It was at this point I decided to do another 1 day fast..... so far, this is all pretty much normal stuff for me, but just wanted to give you some back ground.

During past 1-day fasts, I noticed that there is usually 1 or 2 moments in the day when the hunger/eat urge (or programming) becomes great and it is ast this point that is sort of the make or brake for me.... if I resist the urge, I'll usually have no more problems continuing the fast for the rest of the day. For me, the first urge usually comes about 3 to 4 in the afternoon. It is at that point where, to quote Richard Schulze "everthing I see looks like a baked potatoe with all the fixings....I could be driving down the highway with a big truck in front of me, but I don't see truck, I see baked potatoe with all the fixings". If / when this round 1 urge passes, the second one will usually come around 8 to 9 pm. Comapring the two, once I get to urge #2, it is kinda easy. At that point, I realize it's only another hour or 2 before sleep, which is another way of saying that the next morming is effectively only another hour or 2 away. It's the first urge that I usually struggle the most to get by. With respect to the current fast, urge #1 came around 4 in the after noon. The strange thing is, since then, there have been no more urges. This is why I am now on day 3 when I never planned to do anything more than a 1 day fast.


So, this sort of gets to my question. Long story short, have you ever experienced a fast when you started off expecting hunger urges but then the next thing you know, an additional 48 hours has passed with no urges? Yes or no, at this point I'll take this a either good / fortunate news, or some kind of quirk for which I should just try to enjoy it while it lasts.

One other thing I wanted to comment on. You mentioned that it was around day 3 of your fast that you noticed a distinct change in BO. Realizing of course that it is seldom a good idea to compare between 2 people and expect same or nearly same results, nonentheles, I noticed a distinct change in my BO this morning..... what's up with that? On a normal basis, my BO, especially underarm, has the mild scent of an italian deli that is perhaps next door or down the street...and yes, I regularly eat a lot of italian cuisine. Today my BO is the strong scent of italian deli on steroids, not next door, but up my nose and everywhere all around me. Any insight on this 3-day effect?

For now, having spent hour 24 through 70 with virtually no hunger pains/urges, aside from being really thrown off by this unexpected surprise, of course feel like I can easily fast from now till eternity with no problems..... but expecting this to change at some point..... like maybe the next hour or by tomorrow morning or.... so I'm just gonna ride this thing out and enjoy it for as long as it will last for now. Thanks in advance.

PS - all of the lead in malaise - achey clammy run down ears & tubes and stuff - were gone by the end of the first 24 hours fast.