Hello again, tender friends! I hope my last post was sufficiently informative without being too long! If you missed the first set of tips, they’re here. Please continue reading for my remaining tips for water-only fasting.
9. Power through until 18 hours if you’re tempted to end the fast early and see how you feel. Autophagy kicks in around this time. Autophagy is the process your body uses to recycle old and damaged cells. Once your body enters autophagy, your appetite will naturally reduce. (I just love the Greek meaning of the word even though it’s a bit macabre, isn’t it?)
10. Break your fast at the same time you finished your last meal the day before. If I started eating at 5 pm and ate until 5:30, I break my fast at 5:30. My favorite food to break a fast with is bone broth. Check out my bone broth tips if you haven’t had delicious bone broth in the past. Bone broth should be delicious!
11. Listen to your body. If you really don’t feel well, break your fast and figure out what your body wants you to know. I fasted 13/30 days my second month of water only fasting. However, I only fast once a week now because my body did a lot of work and doesn’t benefit from such extreme fasting anymore. I felt a war going on in my abdomen, a literal battle between good and bad bacteria, and could feel my body killing off/pushing out pathogens. This was even after I’d healed pretty significantly. I take the fact that this doesn’t happen anymore as a sign that my body has done major work, and I fast for maintenance only these days.
12. If you are cold and can’t get warm, it’s likely a sign that your body has reached its limit. This is why I haven’t personally gone past 36 hours yet. I am prayerfully open to longer fasts as I feel led, but being unable to get warm is a sign you shouldn’t ignore.
13. Some people use magnesium and mineral rich salt during fasts to prevent insomnia during fasting. Using the method outlined above, you shouldn’t have issues with insomnia because your fasting between dinner one day and the next. However, these are helpful for extended fasts.
14. If your first fast is rough, know that it will likely get easier. My first fast was the most difficult psychologically because I was breaking patterns of behavior that I’d followed for 36 years of my life. The second fast was surprisingly easy for me. I felt like my body and mind were more prepared after going through it once.
15. This tip came from my friend, Shannon. She said she pretends to eat while fasting, as in literally imagines she is eating but doesn’t put real food in her mouth, and has found that it satisfies some of the brain chemicals as really eating does. I haven’t done this because I typically try to avoid thinking about food , but it’s a powerful idea, isn’t it?
Have any of you been water-only fasting recently? What has your experience with it been? Please let me know in the comments!
For those of you who are new, thank you so much! To plan your readership, I’d like to share that next week I’ll be writing about what happened when Anthony and I started fasting together and some tips for rehabilitating your adrenals since I mentioned that in a recent post.
Thank you for visiting, and be blessed, tender friends!
Please click here to return to the home page.
Thank you for sharing!
tea and tenderness 
Leave a reply to Jeffrey H. King Cancel reply