Yesterday, I chose to stand with thousands of people fasting for climate change on the first day of each month. My previous post explains my reasoning for participation. This post will explain how I did my first ever fast (on the first of October) and how I felt.
I felt very well the entire day. Our household starts to stir around 6am every morning (except weekends, which is by 7am). I did my usual bed stretches and my current version of a 4 minute-morning. Made the kids their breakfasts and walked briskly with Dot to the bus. Got home and did household chores, and some on line research. I had been drinking a natural amount of water throughout the morning – about 8oz each hour. By 10am, I started to feel a faint request from my stomach for a morning snack; I acknowledged it with a smile and carried on. By 11:30am, I started to feel that rumbling, more like demanding for lunch. I kissed that demand with some hot water and started contemplating what other liquid would be acceptable for my rules of this fast. Tea came to mind but then I remembered that the previous day I had made a batch of beef stock. By 1pm I drank an 8oz glass of hot beef stock. It was the most amazing drink. The homemade beef stock nourished me; I felt like a wilting plant that stands to attention when given water, I could sense my very own cells responding in that way. I chose beef stock over herbal tea because, being naturally low on iron I would need something substantial to sustain a clear mind, as I was running out the door to run errands before picking the kids up from school.
Shortly after 1pm I was out the door stopping at the Soap Dispensary to refill my liquid dish soap containers and got a great tip to try out a solid house soap for cleaning my pots – this soap will get it’s own post one day because it is remarkable. Photo below.
Then to the sewing machine store, followed by the butcher to pick up stewing beef (in my Life Without Plastic stainless steel container) for my family’s Irish Beef Stew dinner, which I modified from this recipe, using the already prepared homemade beef stock. By 3pm I had picked up Dot from school then 3:30pm had picked up my son. Just before 4pm I was back in the kitchen preparing the stew and of course my timing was off so had to prepare something else for the kids’ dinner. UGH. Silver lining…we could have it for breakfast…which we did, and it was worth the wait!
By 5pm I sipped another 8oz glass of hot beef stock. It was good. My husband and I had to go out to a school parent social organized for our daughter’s grade. There was a lot of beautiful food and drink laid out. I should have taken a photo to show you. I drank two glasses of sparkling water while I was there.
The only negative effects I felt, was by about 8:30pm I started to get chilled, and started talking faster than normal. By the time we got home I began my wind-down-for-the-evening routine, including my “before bed stretches” then was in bed reading by 9:30pm and lights out before 10pm.
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
-Archilochus
I was wondering how I was able to get through the day the way I had. With zero cravings or near slip ups. The answer is simple. I have been re-training my mind over these last few years. I don’t nibble or nosh randomly or with abandon. And with yesterdays fasting experience, I have now discovered that I have actually learned something worthwhile from the years of this self-discipline around being selective with food. Because I have been methodically eliminating suspicious foods from my diet for fixed periods of time (over the last few years), I have learned how to go without. I have trained myself to make choices; I choose to eat with my mind and with intention for the nutrition of my cells, rather than for taste alone, instant gratification or because of a demanding gut or weak mind. I don’t mindlessly slip food in my mouth while I make the kids their meals, partly because I don’t usually eat what they eat. I don’t nibble at socials just to be polite or because I can’t resist temptation. There is no marketing which subliminally controls me.
I know that I am on a different level than most, because most people tell me that they couldn’t do what I do. But, I counter, ‘of course you can, anyone can, humans have amazing minds, we are capable of so much’…”we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” ‘
Be careful how you train. You reap what you sow.
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