Re: dry fasting works!

"sorry if you've answered this before but do you mind expanding a bit on what you consider moderate, strong and heavy thirst.

is heavy when you get the dry mouth that is very intense? and are you saying you resisted that ??"

Hi hghbuzz : ),

Yes this is what i mean. I was resisting "want to jump out of my skin" thirst hoping that my body would dig deep and take care of it and it actually led to visibly dry skin and moderate nausia for about 10 days.

"I find when I dry fast I don't really feel thirsty at all much, I suppose I get moderate thirst a bit, but even after 2 days sometimes I completely forget I've not had a drink, then when I go to bed I feel restless and my body feels prickely or something but I don't really feel thirsty...

This is what it's like for me usually for about 15 or 20 hours. Then it becomes work to resist drinking... and after about 40 hours it becomes hard work. I have said in other posts that this is in stark contrast to the experiences of Trimnut and Fonty who are able to dry fast comfortably for 7 days and have moist mouths at the end of it. I am feeling something after 20 hours and something much much stronger after 40 hours that they are not feeling after 7 days.

"do you think it is going too far when you get to the point where your mouth is dry?"

In my opinion, no, this is just a fairly early warning and i would resist thirst in this stage again without hesitation. I would probably consider the point at which the mouth first becomes dry moderate thirst (or even light to moderate), but not heavy. I would say that in this recent experiment, i resisted actual heavy thirst for about 24 hours before finally drinking. I don't believe i will resist such heavy thirst again even for an hour and i believe that my actual dehydrative symptoms would have been avoided by simply drinking once my heavy thirst presented itself... and this for me was at about 2.5 days.

"to be honest after both my 2.5 day dry fasts I think I've been a bit disorientated the following week so I think that is probably a sign the fasts are too long and that maybe a better way to do it would be to do 32 hours (friday midnight to sunday morning) dry and then drink small amounts of water from then on if I feel a bit thirsty."

I can't really comment on this since i haven't actually encountered disorientation, but i suppose that could possibly be a symptom of dehydration. No drying skin?

For me there is a sliding scale to thirst. Mild thirst that actually disappears on it's own, to me, is  not the kind of "thirst" that needs to be satisfied as in fulfillment of the "drink only to thirst" recommendation in a fast.  I have actually gone to sleep in a dry fast fairly thirsty (mild to moderate) and awoke with little or no thirst.   I am trying to recall if i have had a dry mouth become moist, but i don't remember. 

For me a case can be made that actual thirst (the time a dry fast should be broken and the time people in a water- only fast should ideally drink) arises once it becomes moderate and persisting... or it might even be that a dry fast should not be broken until thirst becomes heavy.

With so little literature on the subject i find myself feeling my own way through this, but i believe that any minor harm to myself (visibly drying skin and moderate nausia for 10 days before emerging feeling good) would have been averted resisting even moderate, persisting thirst as long as i drank right away once my thirst became heavy.

I'm interested in practicing that which is optimal for my health and it seems there is a fine line (where optimal health is concerned) between drinking too early and drinking too late, but progressively intensifying thirst certainly gives us a very strong cue to go by. I don't know if moderate thirst should be resisted (though i will continue to do so in my own life), but from my own experience i would definately encourage anybody to drink promptly once thirst becomes heavy.