40 Day Lent Water Fast

Day 1 of a 40 Day water fast: Feb 22 - April 2 2012.

Intentions: Posting on this forum to go 'public' with others who share my interest/experience/goals versus doing a private journal or blog and restricting my interactions with less knowledgeable or supportive influences. Self-discipline has been an issue with past attempts at both maintaining a healthy lifestyle and fasting. Coordination with Lent will emphasize spiritual aspects and provide extra accountability. If you would like to follow me, join me, coach me, or otherwise interact, you are most welcome; just know that I plan to focus more on progress updates rather than responses or debates.

Goals:
1. Break food addiction and find healthier, more fulfilling ways to cope with stress, negative emotions, and difficult people which lead to unhealthy eating.
2. Restore 3 aspects of self: control, esteem and respect.
3. Enhance spirituality through daily devotions, reflection and prayer.
4. Jump-start dramatic weight loss and adoption of clean eating post-fast.
5. Gain a clearer vision of life priorities and ability to plan for future changes.

The Plan:
40 days. Water. No food. No modifications (ex: flavored/vitamin water, tea, coffee, juice, supplements). Toothpaste and mouthwash will become daily highlights.

Even to regular fasters, a strict 40 day Water Fast is intense. To those with limited knowledge, it's comparable to suicide. To those who have done a bit more research, it's both safe and healthy, but quite unpleasant and an experience rather avoided. I'm somewhere between well-researched and can't-bear-the-thought-of-not-eating-every-4-hours-yet-facing-major-health-and-quality-of-life-issues, and fully prepared to engage in a miserable struggle between mind and flesh, which will both ultimately be renewed in the process.

I'm not a natural optimist or one for cheery pep talks, but respond to competition, logic, and peer pressure. Depending on how many/what types engage with this thread, I may need to rationalize and support the continuation of the fast to myself.

Not the most appropriate way to frame the situation of weight loss via water fasting, but going with the 'How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.' method of breaking down a large challenge into achievable steps:

40 DAYS:
This is equal to exactly 1 month and 11 days.
The total time span from 2012-02-22 to 2012-04-02 is 960 hours.
This is equivalent to 57,600 minutes.
You can also convert 40 days to 3,456,000 seconds.

40/365 days without food also makes this period of fasting seem reasonable. Or at least not impossible.

Plan to spend the rest of Day 1 being as nice to myself as possible so as not to miss or stress myself into food; bubble bath with candles and soothing music, books and movies, a relaxing country walk with my four-legged companions.

Thanks for reading/commenting/joining. Until tomorrow, take care. Tweet