For starters, i knew it was to be my final day of fasting whether i achieved a return to genuine hunger (also known as "fasting to completion") or not. I was both excited about the prospect of achieving this goal of 30 days (if genuine hunger did not arrive sooner) and about the truly exciting prospect of being able put something in my mouth that had an actual taste.
What took me by extraordinary surprise is that about 8 hours before the 30 days were up, my body entered into this amazingly desirable (and desired) state of "genuine hunger", telling me that it was definately time to break the fast. I had pretty much given up on the hope of achieving genuine hunger this time around, so the surprise to me was phenomenal and i am sensationally excited that this arrived!
Had i not been 8 hours away from reaching a full 30 days, i would happily have broken the fast within an hour of experiencing this... the hour would have been to just be sure it was the real thing. But since i was so close to the 30 day goal, i forced my way through this very powerful sensation of physical hunger in these final 8 hours, which became more and more intense with each passing hour. These final 8 hours were most certainly the most fantastically difficult hours of the entire fast as my body was SCREAMING for food the entire time and it was so intense as to be all-encompassing.
The transformation of how immensely hungry i became today contrasts rather strikingly with the near total absence of physical hunger i had experienced in the previous 29 days and 16 hours.
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As stated in the previous post, i plan to gently and gradually reawaken my long slumbering digestive system starting with only live juice and fresh vegetable broth for about 7 days.
My produce was about 6 days old and its a bit of a distance to the nearest major store (i live in a small mountain resort town), so i had to toss out all of the green leafy vegetables and a couple of other items, but most of it is perfectly fine. I was really wanting a nice broth from various green leafy vegetables, but had to settle for a tomato broth and a 3 onion broth. Now that i know i am done fasting, i'll make another trip soon because i really want to now nourish myself with the best of everything
. I chose to break my fast with fresh juiced red bell pepper, wanting to break it "live" and not wanting anything too sweet just yet. The juice was diluted 50/50 with water and initially i had only about 2 tablespoons... waited 5 minutes then had 4 more, waited 5 minutes then had about 8 tablespoons. I continued to break the fast very gently in this way, and after an hour i had a half cup every 15 minutes or so. I then enjoyed some delectable tomato broth.
Throughout the entire fast, i experienced no nasty symptoms whatsoever... no heartburn, no nausia or other debilitating feelings of illness. To be sure i was often light headed upon rising and i had a coated tongue and a bad taste in my mouth, but i consider these to simply be par for the course and not so unpleasant as to cause me discomfort.
In the end, i burned 20 pounds of actual fat over the 30 days (keeping in mind that i walked 2 hours per day for the first 21 days which contributed substantially)... and 18 additional pounds of temporary loss (predominately water) which will be back on my body within 2-3 weeks. Thus i consider 172 pounds to be my "real weight", though today i weigh 154 from a starting point of 192.
I am excited to enjoy each step of the easing out process and to get back to the point where i am eating immensely nutritious full meals... as well as once again enjoying the intense exercise which i had taken a 30 day break from.