Ravenous Fast - Day 3

Day 3 and my throat feels like the sahara desert. I keep drinking water but my mouth continues to feel cotton mouthed and parched. I am continually having cravings. They are hard core spikes that are demanding my attention.
I read part of the book last night that dealt with the fast. She had a last meal, then fasted completely for two days and then had dinner the third day with her family. I am trying not to give in to it. I was planning on doing three days and then waking up to eat breakfast on the fourth day.
My cravings are trying to have me give in and eat tonight. I set out to do what the author did, three days. Around 10 pm tonight will be three days.
Maybe I can go with a fruit and veggie meal before bed? Or maybe I can skip it all together? We shall see...
The other side effect has been a low constant head ache. Nothing I can't handle, it is just there. Also, my eyes seem extra sensitive to the brightness of the sun. They also seem to still have spouts when they are not in focus. And over all that is a hard core lethargic exhaustion. I am so tired I just want to curl up and sleep through the rest of today. That is in no way possible.

The stress at work doesn't seem to help at all it makes me even more anxious. They have a catered lunch in there that I have to walk by. I know I can make it through lunch and the end of the work day. I will try my headphones. Pray God my headphones will take me to a happy place.

The head phones helped.  I made it out of work and to the grocery to prepare for my meals tomorrow.  I got everything cooked and ready, and then I did it.  I decided to eat dinner.  And it was delicious.  It was worth every bite and I savored every bite.  Now I am completely exhausted and am going to climb into my bed. 

My throat feels scratchy and thick, don't know if I was starting to get sick due to the toxins in my body or if the coating of pollen on my car this morning is doing it.  Oh well, the fast is done.  I stayed strong and I am proud of myself.  Now, back to sparkpeople.

Day 2 of fasting

Day two of the fast….

To say it is considerably harder today is an extreme understatement.

Lesson about myself - I googled everything I could possibly google or research on the internet or spark people about fasting. Why? I think it was so I could find an excuse, reason or justification to make my body self feel like it is ok to stop. I need approval from factual research so that I can back my case up and allow myself to stop. It is amazing the tricks my body self can come up with.

I am having a serious craving right now, for anything. I have been trying to map out my breakfast on spark people for Friday morning. I don't think it helped. The craving kind of takes over everything. It takes away my sanity and my eyes don't even focus. I went home for lunch today and occupied myself with replanting lettuce, doing laundry, and drinking my broth.
I made it thru lunch so I know I can get thru dinner when I am back home by myself. My mouth feels heavy and full of cotton, but I'm drinking my water like crazy and using the bathroom a lot.

The perks of the research - fasting can be really good for psoriasis and high blood pressure. There are even cases when after fasting the issues were no longer present in an individual.
However, this is a serious head trip, trying to avoid the thoughts that lead to food; I don't know if being at work helps or hinders it. I thought it would be a good distraction, but now I feel like the clock is dragging and I just want to get home where I can keep busy! I need to walk around a bit.


I wrote the above around 4 PM on day two.  It is now 10 PM.  After emailing the above entry, I got up from my desk and walked over to my friends’ desks.  I told them what I was doing, I needed support, and I was on the verge of breaking - another lesson about my body self... I need justification from others to stay on the path that I am on.  I knew they would be supportive and not joke with me about it and I got lots of great advice.  Turns out, one of them had fasted five days recently and did not publicize it at all.  Five days.  WOW.  This isn't easy for me at all and I am simply on day two.  She gave me hope that I could definitely continue on with my journey.

Once I got home it was no sweat, I rearranged TomTom's room a bit since he is not home I figure I will give it a good clean out.  I vacuumed the whole house since I had skimped on that this weekend with Mardi Gras.  I took out and put in the dishes in the dishwasher and I did about another three loads of clothes.  I also watched my favorite American Idol in the background while all of this was going on.

I can tell you that work was stressful, this added to the anxiety I was having earlier.  Stupid things brought up by silly people, making mountains into mole hills, and all in all just the normal bullshit that I would rather get away from in everyday life.  Why do people stress over things that they cannot control?  Why must everything be an issue?  And more importantly, if you did something to come alive for five seconds why should you feel guilty about it later and blame it on unprofessionalism?  We really need to take more advice from children.  All in all, it is not my issue to dwell on - so I am dropping it now.  However, it was a crappy start to a return to work day from vacation.

Here I am.  Sitting with my fast and all the crap in my head.  Here is a gross little tidbit - I have a quarter size patch of psoriasis on the back of my scalp buried underneath all of my hair.  No one knows it is even there except my immediate family.  Today it pretty much all flaked off in a fit of fury.  This is not normal.  Usually it flakes a bit when I itch it, like dandruff type stuff, but not all of it just coming off in chunks.  This makes me feel really optimistic about how this fast may help my psoriasis.  Basically I won't have anything left in my system to irritate the condition.  Interesting.

Lesson learned - I can really keep myself busy when I am avoiding something (like eating).  I am turning out to be stronger and stronger than I thought with every craving for food.  I am dreading having another 24 hours of this.  I can't wait to eat again!!! These are the thoughts that I get lost in and I have to move on.  I have prepared my meals for Friday and will be at the grocery store tomorrow night so that everything I need is on hand when I need it!!!!

Here is the meditation she did in the book on day two of her fast; you are supposed to say the first thing that comes to your mind.   Below are my responses.

What demon do you want to work with?
Fear

Does it have a feeling?
It is a lingering sadness.  It makes me want to curl up inside myself in the dark and fall away from everything.

Does it have a color?
If it has a color I can't see it.  It wants to be hidden in the dark.

Does it have a texture?
It reminds me of a blanket.  Something that can cover me up, but once it is over me it seems sharp and cutting, making it hard to breathe.

Where is it held in your body?
In the middle of my chest, it moves out into my throat and covering my lungs.

What does it look like now?
It is dark and unfriendly, but comforting because it is hiding me from seeing the outside.  It is like a safe protective layer on the side I am under, but on the other side it is covering me and keeping me from my life.

What does the demon want?
He wants to keep me from pain; he wants to protect me from things that can hurt me. 

What does it need?
It needs acceptance and unconditional love.  It needs a support system, it needs belief that it can grow into something wonderful.  It needs to know that the things it likes and wants in the outside world are okay to go after.

When its needs are met it will feel....
Free to live

Feed the demon sweet nourishing nectar with acceptance, unconditional love, and a support system that believes it can grow into something wonderful and supports its choices in life.  How is the demon receiving it? 
Timidly, the demon is shy and doesn't want to seem greedy, but it realizes that it is getting what it has wanted for a very long time so it cannot turn away.  The demon is a lost child being beckoned out of a dark corner by a trail of bread crumbs.  She peeks out so you can see her eyes, pale and lonely, she grabs a crumb and then ducks back in the darkness.  She is still afraid, full of fear, but she wants to have the support to make her dreams come true.

Look for your ally - the figure that will help and protect you thru your demon journey.  What is my ally's gift to my demon?
The gift is open arms for tears on a warm and welcoming lap rocking and rocking and rocking like my grandma used to do.  A warm heart to talk to that does not laugh at my dreams or make me feel like they are not good enough.  My ally talks about everything I am interested in and everything that I want to be in this life.  She will hold my hand and help me mark out a path to achieve everything that I have wanted.  And she will be there when I have fear again and want to duck behind the darkness.  It may be safety on one side, but on the other it is a barrier from all the things that will light my path in this life.   She will remind me that I can overcome the fear.  She will give me the acceptance and warmth that I need when I become afraid, she will give me the strength and protection to go after everything I want in this life.

Ravenous Fast - Day One

Day one of the fast.

And my word for it so far is… bearable. 

I slept in really late today knowing the impending doom.  I think I woke up some time around noonish and didn’t actually leave my bed until maybe 1 pm.  I had my water bottle by my bed and realized I had actually made this choice to fast for the next three days. 

When I first woke up I knew I had a ton of things to do around the house.  Emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the litter box, there were many routine chores that kept me busy for awhile.  Most of these were done in anticipation for making room to make the fasting broth.  I ran around last night from store to store finding my ingredients.  When I looked at the ingredients and then at my stock pot I realized it wasn’t big enough at all.  I had originally made the plan to head to my mother’s house for her stock pot.  So I gathered up all the trash in my house to bring to her garbage can (she is kind enough to let me add to her trash service). 

I got in my car to head out knowing I looked like absolute crap.  I had bathed, but not showered and tacked my hair up in a barrette.  I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt.  The weather outside was gloomy.  I felt much more in reality today on the streets and much more capable of driving.  I still had people messaging to go partake in the Mardi Gras madness, but there was no way in hell I wanted to feel like this again.  And the temptation was way too strong for drinking.  I’m in the car and one feeling is calling out to me more than any other – bloated.  I look at my face in the rear view mirror and realize how swollen my eyes and face are… my blood pressure medicine has changed and I am no longer on the diuretic version.  I felt like all the liquid in my body had accumulated in my brain.  I remember I forgot my trash and was trying to take the short way out by just stopping by Wal-Mart for the stock pot.  I detest Wal-Mart and have stopped shopping there since the end of last year.  I had to resort to them for the air purifiers or waste too much gas driving to find them.  I am contemplating all of this in my bloated head and scream out in my car “I am not going to justify going to Wal-Mart after the way they treated me!”

So on to Target I drive, the less of the two evils???  I run in and find the stock pot and also take a look at their food scales, something that I have been thinking about purchasing for awhile.  The coolest one was a measuring cup that had a scale on it.  However, it was the same price as the non digital stainless steel scale with the bowl on top – so I went with the stainless.  No battery replacement needed for the old school one.  I got back to the house and all the morning had been sipping the huge bottle of Fiji water I bought last night.  I get home and unpack everything and start my broth.

I have never worked with beets before.  I think maybe I had seen them once in my past out of a can, but the smell and the look was an instant turn off.  Don’t think I have eaten them since.  One thing I learned…. Beets stain.  My hands were a lovely crimson red, as well as various splats throughout the kitchen that beautifully matched the ones on my white tank top I was wearing.  They were an absolute mess. 

The fasting broth recipe can be found in the book Ravenous and it calls for beets, carrots, and potatoes.  But you are only supposed to use the skins.  Basically you peel all of these veggies and keep the actual veggies for later.  I stuck the beets in baggies and froze them.  I have no idea what to do with those.  I shredded the potatoes in the food processor and put them in serving size baggies for hash browns in the future.  I also sliced the carrots in the food processor and froze them in baggies.  Thomas and I love to eat those in butter with dill on top for dinner.

Then I put in the other veggies and water and brought the new pot to a boil.  Then I covered and simmered on medium low for an hour.  I took a taste before it started to boil, but I couldn’t really taste anything at all.  It took me awhile to get the ingredients ready for the broth.  I am talking at least an hour here.  I was getting hungry and had been plagued by the usual stomach growls since I woke up.  Stomach growls are what I usually judge my hunger by and then I eat something.  Other than that I had the really bloated face, and the head ache.  Was that from lack of food, or lack of drink, or lack of smoking?  I figure my body is going through all kinds of withdrawals here and it will be hard to pin point which ones are affecting it most.

The broth is cooking.  Then I went on to clean some more of this disgusting house.  I packaged some more garage sale items in boxes.  I thought of all the other things I need to do and how I should go about doing it.  I started the dishwasher, did some laundry and cleaned up most of the mess from the broth preparations.  The scent of the broth was filling up my house and I was excited to taste it, or to taste something other than water.  Come to think of it, I have hardly drunk that much water today anyways.  I noticed after prepping and waiting on the broth that my face wasn’t as bloated anymore.  I went to the bath room for the first time I think today and took another look.  My eyes look much calmer now, less swollen.  My face is broken out however, another way of my body rebelling from the damage I had done this weekend.

I opened the Ravenous book and went to the fasting chapter to refresh myself with some motivational tools.  I wrote down some lines from the book that made this all make sense again and posted one on the fridge door… “Let whatever arises arise, and do so without snuffing it out with food.  Notice that things pass and maybe you’re not who you think you are.”  To me this has to do a lot with cravings, feeling hungry, the stomach growls.  I can’t just keep busy the whole time to distract myself from not eating.  There are going to be moments when I will just have to sit with the feelings and overcome them without all the busy work.

The one that I decided to put up on the cabinet called out the most to me today.  “I’m not repenting by giving up food for three days; I’m’ honoring myself by letting what I’ve kept hidden under endless mounds of food finally see the light of day.”  I can hear the little voice in my head keep asking myself, "Why does it have to be three days?"  Wouldn’t one day be enough?  And does fasting mean you can have this, does fasting mean you can have that?  Three days.  It’s a small sacrifice to make.  When I start feeling myself leaning toward why I am doing this for three days - this will be the cabinet I turn to.

The one I put on the microwave door is “Three is what you need to wrestle the issues deeper than the physical manifestation of hunger.”  This is where I feel all this is going.  I’ve practiced yoga for awhile now and tried my best to work with meditation and relaxation.  This process seems like one long journey into a meditative type of state where things are going to come up in my head to rebel against what I am doing to my body.  It is going to reach out and grab me by the neck and ask "what the fuck are you doing???" I need food.  I realize how much presence I give my body… my body is going to do this… my body is rebelling from the drinking I did this weekend…. My body feels like this…. My face feels swollen and it feels stuffy and headachy…… However I do not connect my body to myself.  It is one entity and my mind or myself, is another.  This could be one of my issues.  I don’t relate myself and my body together – they are two different things to me right now, not the one solitary unit.  I am realizing and becoming aware of the fact that what one does directly effects the other, but it is not a team effort it is one side rebelling against the other and the consequences of the battle.  I need to figure out how to get the two back together again.  To stop saying my body feels and start saying I feel.  Take ownership of my body and make my body and mind one being again.  One cannot live without the other and they can no longer be separate from each other.

I briefly read through the fasting chapters and write down another yoga exercise that she did on day two of the fast and look forward to hitting that one up tomorrow.  I strain my broth and put it into jars.  I leave a tea cup full on the counter and go in for the big sip.  I have done many diets, the cabbage soup, weight watchers, veggies and fruit only, a nasty tea drinking diet.  I have been to them all and suffered through them as long as possible – keep this thought in mind when I tell you about the broth.  It isn’t bad at all.  Maybe it is the hunger??? But it is good.  I definitely prefer it when it is piping hot.  It pretty much tastes like vegetable soup, without the vegetables in it.  Yes, it is missing salt, pepper and all those things, but all in all, it’s pretty dang good.  I’m now on my second glass.  It cooled off a bit and I popped it in the micro wave and decided hot is the way to go. 

After a day of keeping myself busy I have decided to come over to the computer and sit with the hunger.  It’s not so bad; the author of the book described her hunger as coming and going like the waves lapping the shore.  I can agree with that symbolism a bit.  It is there on day one, a lingering flame in the background.  But the nutrients in the not-so-bad-tasting broth definitely help.  I don’t know if it is from not being around others in two days, but my head does seem a bit lighter too.  I have much more energy than yesterday and I keep thinking of things that still need to be done.  It is almost 7 PM and this day is almost over.

I wonder if tomorrow will be harder, being at work and around other people that will probably be eating.  I will look forward to work as a bit of a distraction from wondering about food.  I have noticed that I am not an absolute binge eater.  I don’t eat everything until it is gone.  The traits that I am aware of that my body self seems to enjoy when it comes to eating…. Eating when my stomach grumbles or my head starts to ache.  I have never eaten breakfast before last year and have slowly tried to implement it into my diet.  Sometimes I still slack and go for the starbucks iced mocha instead of an actual meal.  However, I have grown to like oatmeal again.  I know I like grits and have done that for awhile, but the oatmeal is much sweeter and I can do it without added butter or salt.  Let’s not forget to mention I have been doing cinnamon roll oatmeal and maple and brown sugar – so most of that stuff is already in the package, but it is all accounted for in my calorie volumes.

I usually don’t eat my breakfast until late when I’m at work and not at all when it’s the weekend.  I have resorted lately to eating some special k chocolate delight with skim milk when I have eaten most of my calories at lunch or if I know I need to eat breakfast on the weekends but don’t feel like preparing anything.  I think it is a good thing that I have started to turn to it – it is easy to prep and it fills me up when I don’t really want to eat anything or don’t really need more calories.

However, during the week I eat my oatmeal breakfast somewhere between 9 and 10 am, sometimes later.  I usually wake up at 6 AM so you can see what I mean about eating it late.  But lunch, lunch is my enemy.  We sit and talk about lunch for hours at work – what are you doing for lunch?  Where are you guys going for lunch?  And I so often give in to my favorite Thai restaurant or Greek restaurant at least once a week.  And then we have catered lunches on Thursdays.  From logging in my nutrition on spark people I have realized that most of my daily calorie intake happens at lunch.  I can put down about a thousand calories at lunch very easily.  I was awakened this week that my subway tuna sub, cheetos, and I had a cookie topped the calories at a thousand calories.  I had no idea!  I get about 1500 calories a day with sparkpeople and with a 400 calorie breakfast and using a thousand at lunch, you can see not much is left over for dinner.  This is a problem I have been running into more and more lately - another awareness that has come from this remarkable web site. 

I don’t know what sparks it at work, maybe the talk of food – or the waiting for food – or maybe just not a big enough breakfast, or maybe a too late breakfast.  However, I find if I keep it easy on the lunch calories I get that huge hunger in the afternoon and usually break down with a snack.  And here is another one of my greatest evils… I have a really filling lunch and then decide I need something sweet to top it off with – a menchies, or a cookie – no meal is complete without that sweetness.  Maybe I could try a cup of hot tea to help with this sweet need??? Another thing to experiment with in the future.

I am now finished my second cup of broth and figure I will do one more later in the evening.  I am going to continue with my chamomile tea routine before bed. 

How do I feel about the fast right now?  I feel I need to realize why it is significant for me.  I want to use it as a way to promote detoxification from all the drinking and smoking I did this weekend.  A sort of cleansing of the pallet to bring me back to normalcy.   I want to use this fast as a tool to help my stomach issues get back to normal again too.  I hope this will completely clear out my stomach of any nonsense so that I can get back to feeling normal again.  I want to see how my body self is going to react to the various levels of hunger.  I know the surface levels, I never let myself get past them – there is an ache in my belly and it usually rises in a rumble.  I am feeling those the most today.  Out of habit I always suppress the grumble with food.  I wonder how long it is going to lay silent in the pit of my stomach.  I want to use this fast as a tool to get to know myself better.  I have never fasted before other than before midnight for blood work or surgery.  And that is easy enough.  You go to bed and wake up for an early doctor’s appointment – you don’t even notice the fast. 

The timing is right – I am noticing all kind of things that my body self is trying to tell me about the way I have treated it.  My son is not in town so I don’t have him to distract me from any realizations that may be going on inside me.  My parents are not in town so I don’t have a three course meal waiting for me at the end of the day when I go to pick up my son. 

What have I learned so far?   I separate my body and my mind into two different beings.  I refer to them as different beings; they don’t seem to communicate with each other openly in my head.  It is just my body feels this way, not what are you going to do about it?  I am going to try to incorporate the two views into one by calling it my body self.  I have had to do that throughout this entry just to realize how much I separate them.  Every time I have written body self so far I was going to refer to one and not the other, but brought them back together by using the word body self.  I will start to realize when I am separating the two and mentally bring them back together.  I live in my body self all day and all night, they are never separated.  Where one goes the other one follows, what one experiences the other one must experience too.

Ravenous decisions - last meal.

I decided to go with the three day fast.  This was my last meal the night before:

I decided to have an orange because it was referred to so many times in the book.  I don't really like eating oranges because of the pulp and always went for the juice.  I didn't really know how to cut it being that I don't eat them.  I hadn't had anything but soup so far this day, so my mouth was already reacting to the orange from the smells.  I basically ate it by sucking the juice out and not getting any pulp in there.  It was delicious.  Sweet and perfect in the mouth.  I will buy more to keep around when I want a sweet snack.

I followed with a big bowl of watermelon.  One of my favorite melons!  I could eat watermelon all day and night.  It was an easy bowl to make it through.

I followed that with a lemon pepper rotisserie salmon cutlet from Fresh Market.  This was really salty.  It had been sitting in the heated case all day so it was also a bit dried out.  It was not as good as I was hoping for a last meal, but the inside was good, just way too salty.

I then had a small bowl of my favorite creamy tomato soup from the organic section at Rouse's.  It is not very fattening or salty, and it is just plain good.  Yum!  Perfect!  It also keeps in its store container (like a broth box) so it will be in the fridge too for when I can eat again.

I finished off my left over crawfish ettouffe from Sunday's lunch.  It only filled up about half of a very small plate but I wanted to be sure I didn't have any food in the fridge to tempt me through my fast.  I had also bought a hidden valley ranch packet because I was craving that dip with veggies.  I cut a few celery sticks and had made the dip with organic sour cream. Yum!  Perfect!  I didn't really have the hunger to eat this, but I made myself since I bought it.  I know the dip will hold up for this weekend and after my fast it will be ready and waiting for me!

I ended my last meal before fasting with double chocolate gelato from Fresh Market.  Oh, this was heaven.  It was dark chocolate gelato with chocolate chips in it.  They were a present that I wasn't expecting.  A definite highlight!  I am writing about this at the end of my first day of fasting and my mouth is going crazy with drool just thinking about the better points of this last meal.  I already can't wait to eat again!

Ravenous decisions

I finished reading the book "Ravenous: A Food Lover's Journey from Obsession to Freedom" by Dayna Macy today.  I highly suggest buying it.  You can get the 1.99 kindle version for your laptop which is much less than the $25 I spent on it at the book store.  Either way it was worth it for me.  I found the book from a reference on sparkpeople.  This is my blog entry on it.

Tonight I finished off the book Ravenous.  It is a biography type book about a woman who had issues with her weight all of her life.  Most of her issues dealt with over eating and the reasons that started the eating.  It got me thinking about my own issues.  Her turning point question was when her yoga teacher asked her, why are you in this body?  What does it have to teach you?

When I first opened this book, I read the question, and I did not get it at all.  I mean, I read the words, but they didn’t fall off the page for me if you know what I mean.  As I kept reading her book there were a few things that did fall off the page for me. 

One of these entries involved a corn chip, and a sort of food guru who had asked the crowd to taste it and tell him what they thought of it.  Then the crowd asked him what he thought about it and he said something along the lines of a bland mushy tasteless pulp in his mouth.  He stated that with the corn chip “there was no there there.”  And if he didn’t catch himself he might find himself eating many of them looking for the “there” that they didn’t hold.  Then he had them think about eating an orange.  It tastes like the sun, and to a certain extent it can be felt in your heart.  This is a very alternative thought process, but it was another step in the author’s journey regarding her relationship with food. 

So where does this put me.  I’ve started sparkpeople, continued with my exercise workouts in the morning, and have lost seven pounds.  My main goal this year was to create a bit of a wellness plan for myself.  However on my personal journey so far I have become aware of many things involved in my personal diet. 

I don’t get enough nutrition from the foods I eat.  I have never been fully aware of it before.  The years I have spent counting points completely threw out my nutrition factors.  I relished in the easy to fix things that I could shove in my mouth and added up their point’s value.  Eventually the foods I ate the most fell into a routine and I fell into that routine too.  I never thought about how much magnesium or potassium a food item had in it.  Or whether or not I was getting my necessary amount of protein for the day, fats for the day, or carbs for the day.  I have become aware that I was blankly eating random things that did nothing for me nutritionally.  That awareness has come from the nutritional trackers at spark people.  This may not mean much to others, but to me it was definitely a point that changed my approach and as a result I am trying to introduce as many people to sparkpeople as possible, but I can tell they don’t get it.  It doesn’t click for them.  So maybe this is my journey.

I have been able to integrate exercise into my everyday life.  This step wasn’t that complicated for me.  I have been on a path now for a few years to become more healthy and active.  It started with a gym membership, then the couch to 5 K program, then going back to a gym I really enjoyed and holding fast with that for about two years.  After that I went back to walking out side and occasionally trying to run from time to time.  This year I have been very on top of it by waking up extra early to work out at the house in the mornings.   Maybe it has had to do with quitting smoking... again....and trying to find things to do to keep myself busy and away from those cravings.  I wake up in the morning and do my work out.  I also walk my dog about 1.25 miles a day, on a good week, seven days of the week.  I have also incorporated having TomTom ride his bike in the evenings along the route with me at least three times a week.   I completed the 9 week challenge on the Wii Sports Active 2 and I am ready to move into the 28 day boot camp challenge at sparkpeople.  I have taken this week off due to TomTom being out of town and it being the Mardi Gras season.  I also log my daily exercises into spark people fitness trackers.  The website also provides me with strength training routines to do three times a week.  I have completed them weekly up until this week off.  Leslie suggested I keep up with strength training because muscle burns so much more calories and fat - it helped her through her plateau.

Where am I now?  Well, sparkpeople led me to the book Ravenous.  And as I was reading it some things started to click with me.  Another sentence from the book that called out to me went along the lines of this…. She didn’t fit in at home, and she didn’t fit in at school.  She was going to have to make the decision - she was going to have to make her own place in this world - there was no part of the world that she just easily slid into.  I can completely relate to this. 

What lesson is this bringing to me?  With my recent awareness about nutrition and my recent doctor visit that found my blood pressure very low – get that??? LOW from a person who has been on blood pressure medicine since 2006!  That maybe I can change things from just general awareness.  Food has always been a part of my family, as it was with the authors, maybe from my Italian background or just my Grandma Maud’s excellent and tasty southern cooking in general.  Food was good.  Always prepared with southern love and a meal was a meal - Not a small plate - a heaping plate - and at home we weren’t allowed to leave the table until the plate was empty.  And I can’t forget the “Why did he get more than me???”  Most of the time was the answer that he was a boy.  I can also relate to the author’s inner rebel, because my inner rebel would come out at that point and tell myself that I could do whatever a boy could do, and this probably included eating more than I needed. 

This all brings me to this week.  My son is out of town with my parents and I am left to revel in the Mardi Gras spirit all alone.  This week means a lot of things for me.  I have some very sad moments when I realize how much I miss my son.  I disguise it in my phone conversations with him, but there are tears in my eyes when I tell him I love him.  I miss him.  I also get to be back out in the real world on my own with no responsibility to return to, nothing waiting for me at home.  I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and this thrill usually only keeps me entertained for a day or two.  Friday night my friend was nice enough to entertain me with some shopping.  Then I came home and prepared for our parade outing the next day.  Unfortunately the fates intervened and the parade was cancelled due to weather.  Luckily, my plans with friends were still intact and we would just hang out at the bar for the day.  Everything went well and I had a great time visiting, and meeting new people, a small reassurance to myself that I could still participate in that world.  What I didn’t like is when I got my drink on people started handing me water and telling me I was getting a bit drunk.  Was it that I was having a good time, and smiling and speaking freely that people decided to step in and act as if I needed to sober up a bit?  I don’t think I behaved that badly.  My brother bruised the entire tip of my nose from when he squeezed it which I barely remember him even doing.  I was smoking again because I was drinking, a likely excuse I seem to keep telling myself and I had to take slack for that too.  Or is it just the fact that someone has to rain on my parade?

  My Aunt was nice enough to announce later to someone that I was not drunk and had in fact been drinking water for about an hour now.  What the fuck?  Let’s not forget that I haven’t really gotten out there and gotten hard core drunk since….. I don’t know??? New Years Eve??? And I was with my brother then anyway so they weren’t even there to witness it.  I think about it now and wonder what was that thing I did that set off the comments?  Could it been because I was having such a good time and being a general socialite?  Why would anyone be against that?  Or was it because my mouth got dirty when we played “ I never” and my aunt and uncle were there?  When have I ever hid that I talk like a fucking sailor from my family?  Not sure that I ever did?  Do they just forget because most of the time I am disguised behind TomTom and the desire to be a good example for him?  This is an issue that I could go on forever about so I am going to stop and get back to the main point.  How my body felt the day after. 

I sleep horribly when I am not in my own bed.  And to top off my night with the futon I woke up two to four times and puked in the bathroom.  I don’t remember how many times exactly, but I remember I was exhausted and very neat about it so that no one noticed.  However, this does happen as I have become older and drink too much.  My body no longer holds it in so that I can just sleep through it.  I am compelled to wake up and puke. 

I slept very lightly and woke up with every noise.  When my cousins left the next morning I was pretty much awake but trying to deny it to myself.  I had to use the restroom and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.  My stomach was obviously screwed up and I had to deal with that as another issue on top of a night of puking and a general 35 year old hangover.  I moved to the more comfy bed and tried to sleep some more.  My other cousin returned home and I wasn’t in the mood to talk.  I was still too busy trying to process how my body felt.  I did have moments of realization that I might not want to drink ever again if this is how my body was going to react the next day.  I was in a fog.  I couldn’t really make coherent sentences much less even want to.  My stomach had rebelled and I was dealing with that.  A nice shower didn’t help make me feel any better.  The smell of smoke in the apartment was enough to make me want to puke.  One nostril was stuffed up and my breathing was pretty much labored and wheezy from giving into my smoking addiction.  I didn’t want to eat and I wanted Gatorade, but I did not have a vehicle or the comprehension skills to wander into a gas station and check out.  Abi wanted to talk and I couldn’t even be there for her because I was just trying to keep my head up.  I don’t know how much sleep I had, but I had to keep moving because I had a day of parades to live through with my other friends.

They came to pick me up and I managed to hold it together for lunch and then I was off to doing it again.  Drinking, smoking, etc.  I finally started to feel somewhat better, but knew it was just the alcohol filling in the holes that were missing earlier.  I had lots of fun but still had my general body issues in the background.  I made it back to my home, ate my left over lunch and passed out on the sofa.  I woke up around 5 AM and moved to my bed.  I tossed and turned again.  I tried to stay in bed as long as possible and make myself wake up around 1 AM.  I felt like crap.  My stomach was still an issue but I was still unable to actually use the bathroom.  I remember there was a moment last night when I pissed my pants because I waited too long for the portopotty.  How could no one have noticed????  There are many other things that happened and I am not going to mention them because it would be inappropriate and it is mine only to remember, or not remember how things ended up one way or another. 

I woke up and had life waiting for me on my cell phone.  I had to let a few friends know I was in no shape to do another day of it.  My body had pretty much rejected me and I was left to deal with it.  I walked to pick up the dog from the vet.  A normal walk of about three to four blocks which usually left me energetic was draining and made me feel like an asthmatic again from the fucking smoking.  I managed to pull sentences together enough to retrieve my dog, put on his leash and exit the vet for our walk home.  My voice sounded like that of an 80 year old smoker.  My tone was all wrong I said words loud that are normally soft spoken and vice versa.  I was in no shape to be around other humans.  I called my brother so someone knew I was still alive and pretty much made it back to the refuge of my home.   The top and back of my throat was killing me - Maybe from tensing my jaw all night when I was sleeping?  Not sure, but it hurts.  I’m extremely tired.  I decided to spend the day watching movies and reading.  I am no longer drunk, but still not exceptionally well at driving my vehicle.  I finished the Ravenous book in between movies and made myself some noodle soup and sweet tea for lunch.  I didn’t think my stomach could handle much else under the conditions.  I ate two turtles for breakfast and water, glasses of much needed water and some nice cold milk. 

When I finished the book I was toying with the idea of doing the three day fast the author’s yoga teacher recommended.  It was a tool for her to identify her real hunger from the other normal hunger that she easily relieves with food.  She is allowed to drink a strained broth and water for three days. 

At first I panicked and wondered if I could commit to three days without food.  Then I realized TomTom wasn’t going to be home and I really had no reason to prepare food much less have anything substantial in the house to eat.  It would be three days to learn about myself and the way I would react to it.  I have decided the timing is perfect and I have no reason to not do it.  Besides, it will help tip the scales in my favor for this week’s weigh in after a weekend of too much excess.  And not to mention help my stomach by completely emptying it of whatever is in there bothering it.  So I ventured out for the simple ingredients of the broth.  I felt like I was in a fog.  Like I existed in some separate universe that none of these other humans I saw in public could enter.  I was detached from head to toe and barely able to make conversation enough to check out. 

I went to three different stores for my last meal and broth ingredients.  I returned to my house that is in such a state of disarray I can’t even think about it now.  I will deal with it tomorrow when I am trying to keep myself busy and away from eating.  By fasting for three days I will be able to eat again Friday morning.  A nice breakfast I am thinking - for now, no more thinking about it.  When I was out in line at the grocery store it dawned on me how much I hide behind my son.  He is my main reason for existence at this point and everything I do is for him.  I have no agenda, no personal need for survival.  It is all energy that goes to him.  I do not go to the grocery.  I go for him, because it is the normal thing to do and to supply food for him.  I would just grab take out as needed if he was not around.  I talk to him at the grocery store, not others.  He helps me make up the grocery list, he makes it all worthwhile.  I was floating in space out there with no particular reasoning for anything, and I missed him like crazy.  I felt out of place without him there.  I wondered how in the hell I was going to survive when he moved away as I listened to horrible elevator music waiting for my turn to check out.  Who in the fuck was I in this lifetime?

What is it that I want?  Who is it that I want to be?  And what will I have to do to start to make my place in this life?  These are some great questions for me to think about when I have this time to myself.  A week ago I was frantically trying to make plans to keep myself busy so I would not miss Thomas.  Now I am looking forward to experiencing the next three days without food and how I am going to react.  What do I need to realize so that I never feel like I have felt these past two days.  I didn’t like the way I felt and I don’t want to feel like this again in the future.  Those are the only two things I am certain of right now as I type on my couch. 

These are the first steps on my journey.  This is another step in my awareness of myself.  This is where I will spend the next three days.  I think this is going to be harder than any mushroom trip or acid trip.  This is three hard cold days with me and my mind and battling through the various results of addictions, habits and the way I deal with things.