hi, that is really great about the tumor and it was really helpful to me to hear that. Thank you for mentioning it. It really helps to have people openly talk about these dramatic effects of fasting, which might scare people when there is nothing to be scared of. Although it would have been better to tell about the expelling of the tumor in more detail. I feel like it is really good to increase the general knowledge of healing events in fasting so more people can have access to them without fear.
In my opinion I don't think thinness is so dangerous and I don't think there really is a "minimum weight" as our society has somehow worked itself into believing.
I mean look at what you yourself say: the last 9 days were comfortable. I think the body does know what it is doing and how it is feeling and would always tell you if there were danger. your objections to the thinness were essentially aesthetic.
i'm just encouraging you not to fear fasting or thinness . I feel like many people miss out on really important healing and restoration of their control and dignity because of a fear of thinness. Also -- and I am really saying all of the following for myself, as advice to myself -- I must say that probably it can't be an easy thing for your body if you are overeating at this point. With all that food, which your body does not need to function, (that is the proof that something about the post-fast raging "appetite" is amiss) -- you're exponentially increasing bacterial populations in your body and I feel like that kind of binge eating is always "bacterially-motivated," not from true hunger. I feel like the cravings to eat so, so much are cravings created by core bacterial populations urgent to increase themselves/their colonies. It seems to me that THEY are the ones who want all the food -- not your body. Your wonderful long fast has therapeutically killed them off to some extent. At the end of long fasts some people's intestinal systems have been observed to be sterile. I did read that in a reputable fasting MD author's book, i will try to dig up the reference. This seems to me to indicate that a big part of the therapeutic value of fasting is to control bacterial populations. Anyway -- they, the micro-organisms living essentially parasitically within you (everybody has them but they have to be kept under control) anyway, the bacteria/yeasts/whatever have probably adapted to "see an opportunity" to induce you to overeat, and are taking this opportunity now. They thrive in an overloaded system, in which your body can't process the food fast enough and it putrefies inside you. What are the agents of the putrefaction? Bacteria. Probably the very bacteria that induced the overeating in the first place. They made you crave their preferred food, or overload of food, and you ate it, and they got it. I do think they can influence the brain through the "gut-brain connection" much studied by Science recently. I do think they can create actual cravings, if you can consider a craving a brain phenomenon and that these micro-organisms communicate directly or indirectly with your brain. Anyway, it seems to me that this heavy eating really puts a toxic load on the body. the bacteria whose populations you are dramatically increasing by the heavy eating are living in you. Being alive, they are constantly creating metabolic wastes which your unprepared liver and excretory organs now have to work extremely hard to eliminate lest these wastes actually poison you.
I'm sorry for the unsolicited advice. Please ignore it if you prefer. Again, I am really preaching to myself. Thanks again for your story. I've always been rather interested in the phenomenon of the post-fast binge, which has always seemed sort of unhealthy to me -- sort of suspicious. Best regards.
I'm really just trying to encourage myself in my own fasting for healing.

Hi ambler,

Great to have you back.

Man, what a clear out! I would be surprised if you had any gunk left to get rid of.

You might be right about going 9 days too long but then again, who knows? You were obviously able to break the fast without too much trouble so it seems that you were ready.

Don't think that the process has stopped though. Eat properly, get plenty of rest, don't run before you can walk (stop me if it gets too much!) and you should find that you continue to benefit as the body rebuilds with quality materials.

Regards,
NH...