The Ultimate Detox: My Journey Through a 10 Day Water Fast
Fresh food from the morning market in Luang Namtha, Laos (2014).
Meat from the morning market (Laos, 2014).
Disclaimer (to protect my ass): The contents of the The Living Standard Site, such as text, graphics, images, and other material contained on the The Living Standard Site (“Content”) are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on The Living Standard Site!
A Little Background Information: How Did I Get to this Point?
Is anyone else feeling like they’re at a place in their life where cycles are wrapping up and coming to a close? Lately, I’ve had some strong urges to clear out space and get rid of anything I no longer needed in order to lighten my load and make room for the new changes that I feel approaching. One thing that I know is that I’m going to be moving. Where? I don’t know. When? No clue. But I’m in my Saturn Return and I can just feel it on the horizon. I’ve been selling items on Craigslist, clearing out old clothes from my closet and drawers, throwing away expired food in the refrigerator and pantries, as well as sifting through all the junk I have stored in the garage. On one hand, I was getting rid of things around the house, but on the other, my body was communicating to me that I needed to clear out the junk inside of it, as well; It was time to go on a fast. Despite this inclination, I kept putting the idea off, pushing the start date further and further back. My reasoning was because I figured I was already healthy. I exercise daily, I eat a pretty decent plant based diet and I generally feel good and have a lot of energy. And so I ignored this idea until my body forced me to take some action.
I’m learning to stop trying to think my way through things and to just let go and trust my intuition more, however, sometimes I’ll get a message, but I’ll still feel like I need even more proof before acting on it. So after ignoring this “knowing” in my body telling me it was time to fast, I started feeling these sharp pains in my upper left abdomen, right below my rib cage. This pain just came out of no where. Now around this time, I was going hard at the gym and I had started implementing a lot of abdominal exercises, so this could have been a muscle strain or something. However, days passed and the symptom never really improved. Naturally, my first reaction was to do a Google search to figure out what this could be and of course the search pointed toward every possible disease being the underlying cause.
I will be honest here, I’m no longer one to run quickly to the doctor at the first sign of an issue. While I do believe in science and research, through personal experience and observations of what people around me have experienced, I’ve lost some faith in the medical system in the United States. Especially in recent years with healthcare changing, on multiple occasions, I’ve received lackluster care, doctors doing half ass jobs, rushing through my appointment and just prescribing me something based on their guess, even before the lab results came back and the root issue was identified. This is just negligence and a lack of due diligence for my health and well-being. During those times, I was naive and just trusted the doctors because they were the professionals and it resulted in me being over-prescribed antibiotics and anabolic steroids that didn’t even cure me and ultimately, destroyed the balance of my gastrointestinal microbiota, or gut bacteria, which lead to stomach issues that took about a year to restore. Generally speaking, I’ve come to the conclusion that apart from broken bones and surgery, western medicine seems to be solely focused on alleviating symptoms through prescribed medication rather than addressing the root of the problem because at the end of the day, sickness is a business and the pharmaceutical market is a multi-billion dollar industry. This realization has lead me to open up to more alternative and altruistic approaches to health and healing. I came to realize that it was my responsibility to take more preventative measures by reprogramming the way that I think about food and what I put into my body, as well as what chemicals and products I put on my body (because the skin is an organ too) in order to ensure that my body is always functioning at a high level. As a result of beginning to learn more about food and how it pertains to health, I also began to learn a lot about the body, itself. This was how I was introduced to fasting.
Benefits of Fasting
So to tie this back into my stomach issues previously mentioned, through my pursuit of information about eating, I learned about the health benefits of fasting and how our bodies have the natural ability to heal and repair itself through the practice of not eating. Many people who don’t understand fasting wrongly assume that it’s unhealthy, self inflicted torture and you will starve to death if you go a few days without eating, but that’s far from the truth. In essence, once eating has ceased, our bodies, being the highly intellectual machines that they are, will start to provide itself with energy from muscle mass and fat stores. Things like environmental pollutants and toxins that are stored in our fatty tissue then become released and eliminated from the body through this process. Undesirable bacteria will starve out and die because they rely on the glucose from sugars we consume. Chronic inflammation is also reduced. The body knows what belongs and what doesn’t, so things that are unnecessary, like dead cells, cysts, tumors, etc. will all begin to be broken down and used for energy.
Digestion, itself, requires so much energy from our bodies, so giving your digestive system and organs an opportunity to rest during a fast allows your blood supply to focus on other areas, such as your brain, lungs, kidneys and skin, which further promotes detoxification. There are many more benefits to fasting, such as weight loss, increased metabolism speed, boost in brain function, decreased insulin resistance, enhanced heart health and delayed aging. In short, fasting helps your body reset itself back to its original settings, which is its most optimal way of functioning.
The longer the duration of a fast and the condition of ones health prior to fasting are all determining factors when it comes to the results experienced. For this reason, I decided I would fast for 10 days. From what I learned, it takes at least three to four days for your body to get into the detox phase, so 10 days felt like a sufficient duration to really clean myself out and experience some benefits. In the past, I’ve completed two or three day fasts, but this time, I wanted to not only detox, but to challenge myself mentally and push past my threshold.
Parameters For My Fast
Tea time in Marrakech, Morocco (2016).
Organic apple juice from Whole Foods.
Because there are many different ways you can fast, including intermittent fasting, juice fasting, etc. I decided to set personal guidelines for myself. I did not allow myself to consume anything that required chewing for the duration of the fast. I only drink the following:
-Water. I purchased several jugs of natural alkaline water to support my body’s re-balancing of its pH level and more importantly, to keep me hydrated. Our bodies get a lot of water from the foods we consume so it is extra important to drink sufficient amounts of water while fasting.
-Ginger Tea. For this, I simply chopped up pieces of raw ginger and boiled them in water for about 15-20 minutes, strained out the ginger chunks and adding in a little agave nectar. I had about one or two cups of ginger tea per day. It helped soothe the hunger pangs and nausea when I felt really weak.
-Organic Apple Juice (only ingredient was organic apples). Now I know this isn’t traditional, especially when claiming to do a water fast, but I received a lot of guidance for how to go about my fast through online lectures and discussions from Dr. Sebi. If you are unfamiliar with the name, Dr. Sebi was a man who was known for aiding people in their healing from diseases such as cancer, herpes and HIV, just to name a few. These are diseases that doctors tell us are incurable. Dr. Sebi was tried for such claims and won his case in the supreme court. He was a huge proponent of fasting for healing and in one of his lectures, he mentioned that it was alright to consume tamarind or apple juice during a fast. The juice wasn’t going to nourish you or cause any detriment to the fasting process, it simply served to keep you from going crazy while fasting. So for 5 of the 10 days, I had a glass of apple juice in the morning and a glass of apple juice in the evening (I drank apple juice for only five days because that’s how long the jug lasted).
Recap
I took notes in my journal everyday to provide a brief recap of what I experienced during my 10 day fast. I will mention here that I’m a bike courier and I worked everyday during my fast. A lot of resources say that you should rest during a fast, but I couldn’t just put my life on hold for this. I definitely biked at a pace that required exerting as little energy as possible, but I say this to make the point that I was able to push myself through the 10 day fast doing physical work.
Preparation: Day 0
The night before my fast, I feasted. I had some friends in town for a bartender convention and they invited me to attend. This event was catered: free food, buffet style. Because it was free, I gave my best effort to take full advantage of the opportunity, but the pain in my abdomen was really getting to me and starting to make me nervous. That night, I made the decision that I was going to start my fast the very next morning. I didn’t give myself any time to prepare. I just knew that my body was communicating to me and I had to do something about it. Most guides advise easing your body into transitioning for a fast by slowly eliminating food groups or consuming only smoothies days prior, but I went cold turkey. Enough was enough.
Day 1
I will say that day 1 was the easiest day. I was dealing with a bit of a cold, so I was feeling some head congestion, brain fog and a slight headache. I had some hunger pangs throughout the day, but it was nothing too serious. I took a nap and I woke up feeling energized like I could of went to the gym and did a full workout. I got through the day without many food thoughts or difficulties. I found it rather easy to not eat for one day. The big meal I had the night before probably also helped.
Day 2
I woke up without hunger pangs. I could still feel pain in my abdomen, but because I hadn’t had anything to eat, it didn’t really bother me like it usually did. As the day progressed, I did begin to feel weak and hungry. I felt depleted, but the hunger cravings eventually disappeared. I made sure to drink a lot of water. Overall, this day was much more difficult than Day 1. There wasn’t really much to report other than my body beginning to feel weak.
Day 3
As soon as I woke up in the morning, I felt so weak. It was really difficult to get out of bed. I was only able to sleep for three and a half hours. I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and just couldn’t fall asleep again. This was the beginning of many sleepless nights. My body didn’t really need a full eight hours of rest because there was no digestion taking place. I wasn’t tired, I just didn’t have a lot of energy. Eventually, I mustered up the strength to go take a shower and that helped bring me back to life for a few hours.
I also began to notice that the discomfort in my abdomen had moved to a different location. I felt it more in my lower left side now. Hopefully, this was a sign that whatever was bothering me was traveling through my digestive system and making its way out of my body.
Honestly, for the whole 10 days, when I wasn’t at work, I was at home, in my bed. I laid down for so long that my body was sore. I did have a moment when I got out of bed to turn my light off and I stood up too fast. I momentarily blacked out and fell down. Here I learned that I had to be extra cautious when standing up because my blood pressure was lower than normal. This was the last time I had an incident like this.
Day 4
I had a dream that I ate an entire bag of chips and dip. I woke up hoping to still have the sour cream & onion taste in my mouth, but to no avail. Mornings really never got any easier. I had a very difficult time getting out of bed on Day 4. This was the first day that I started implementing apple juice into my fast. I had a glass in the morning and a glass when I got home from work in the evening and it tasted so divine. I savored it, taking my time and making sure to be present for every moment of the sweet taste.
I will say that I noticed that my mind was beginning to be a bit more quiet. Normally, it’s constantly going, but the voice was settling down a bit.
I had an acupuncture appointment on this day. I didn’t experience any difference between acupuncture while on a fast and acupuncture while on my normal diet.
I began to feel slightly irritated as the day progressed. One thing I noticed was that although I was weak, I wasn’t really craving food or even hungry, but at the same time, I couldn’t wait to eat again. To me, this highlighted my addiction to food. I wanted food because I use it for comfort. Many times, I keep eating after I’m full or when I’m not even hungry at all. This feeling of longing for food was a moment of self reflection for me.
When I got home, I was exhausted. I made some ginger tea and went to bed early.
Day 5
This day was mentally tough for me. Many times throughout the day, I thought about quitting. I daydreamed about food and what I was going to eat once I broke my fast. I even tried to make excuses and convince myself to just end the fast early, but deep down, I knew how disappointed I would be if I quit. So, I kept pushing forward.
The pain in my abdomen was subsiding. There was no discomfort while I drank my apple juice, which was a very encouraging sign. I was still very exhausted and irritated throughout the day, though. I saved all the energy I had and used it to deal with people and get through the work day. Outside of that, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, let alone see anyone. I just wanted to lay in bed and not be bothered.
Day 6
Day 6 was a day full of many milestones. First off, I had officially reached beyond the midway point. I was more than half way finished with my fast. That was exciting and gave me some motivation to keep going.
I actually slept the full night, only waking up once to use the bathroom. I appreciated getting all that sleep because sleeping allowed for the time to pass. When I would wake up in the middle of the night and not fall back asleep, my days were longer because I had to be present for more of the exhaustion and discomfort. I remember I had a dream that I broke my fast eating two chili flavored corn chips. In the dream, I felt so much pain and discomfort because not only did I let myself down and break the fast, I broke it eating GMO junk food, which is a huge no no when your body hasn’t consumed anything and isn’t used to eating that type of food. I woke up so happy and relieved when I realized it was just a dream. All of my dreams during the fast were about food.
My second milestone of the day was that I passed my first stool since Day 1. This was major because I hadn’t ate anything in six days so everything that was coming out of my body had to be toxins and all the other things that my body was getting rid of while detoxing. I felt so much relief getting this stuff out of my body.
I want to take a moment here to highlight some of the other detoxing effects that I noticed throughout the 10 days. First off, my breath had no smell at all and I had this neutral taste in my mouth. It didn’t even feel necessary to brush my teeth, but I had this white coating on my tongue (apparently this is a detox symptom) that I just had to brush away. Second, my armpits had this weird smell that I couldn’t get rid of no matter how much I washed or put deodorant on. This is also apart of the detoxing process. My body was removing toxins from multiple areas.
I went to get some energy work done on Day 6 with a reiki appointment. If you are unfamiliar with reiki, it is a form of alternative energy therapy which aims to aid in the flow of energy and clear blocks in the body. I didn’t know what the cause of the abdomen pain was, so I made the effort to try to deal with it in as many forms as possible. At the end of my session, the practitioner noted that she saw lots of deep rooted anger in me, which is something that I’ve been dealing with lately. Learning this was reaffirming because it highlighted an area that needs healing in order to release the trapped emotion from my body.
Day 7
I had another food dream. This time I dreamt that I was in a grocery store looking for peanut butter, but couldn’t find it anywhere. I was going crazy searching for it, but never found it. Peanut butter is something that I normally eat everyday. I was definitely missing it during the fast.
In all honesty, it never got any easier. Each day was its own struggle. My legs were so fatigued by Day 7 that walking even felt like a chore. The thoughts about quitting came back, but I found a way to dig even deeper and push myself to keep going.
I had another acupuncture appointment that afternoon and I left out of there feeling like I had enough energy to get through the rest of the day.
Day 8
You guessed it, yet another food dream. In this dream, I absolutely devoured a slice of pizza. The dream was so vivid. I woke up remembering the smell and the taste of the garlic on the crust from the dream. I love pizza, but even more, I consume more bread than I probably should. I’m noticing that these dreams are all of foods that I’m addicted to.
The energy I had from yesterday’s acupuncture appointment was completely gone. I was again exhausted, but kept pushing through.
Day 9
This was another restlessness night. I kept waking up and going back to sleep, but I had an easy time getting out of bed in the morning. I felt so happy about making it this far in the fast and I totally felt like I could have extended it past 10 days if I wanted to. The pain in my upper abdomen was gone, and quite honestly, it had been gone for a few days now. I did, however, feel some discomfort in my back, near my left kidney. I after doing some research online, this appeared to be common among people fasting.
I was probably the most exhausted that I’ve ever been on this day, but the thought of only having one more day left gave me all the motivation I needed to keep going.
Day 10
Since this was the last day, nothing mattered. Not the exhaustion, not the fatigue, not even the pain in my legs. Nothing. I was on the final day of my fast and knew that tomorrow this would all be over. It gave me the final energy needed to push through the day. With every minute passing, I knew I was closer to completing my fast.
Breaking the Fast
Street food in Marrakech, Morocco (2016)
One of the most important things to note is that breaking a fast is equally as important as the fast, itself. When you fast for an extended amount of time, your stomach shrinks and you have to be really cautious in how you reintroduce foods to your body. You can’t break a fast with a big, greasy meal. It will upset your stomach big time, give you diarrhea and can even send your body into shock and cause death. You have to be very gentle. I was honestly a bit nervous to break my fast because I found so much conflicting information online. Some people say not to eat fruit, others say bone broth is a bad idea. I couldn’t really find any clear cut generally consensus, so I came to the conclusion that a green smoothie was the safest solution.
Green Smoothie Recipe:
-2 kale leaves
-1 kiwi
-1 avocado
-a handful of dates (I placed the dates in a container filled with water and allowed them to soak overnight. This helped soften them and make it easier to blend them up and digest)
-water
-agave nectar (1-2 tablespoons)
I blended the ingredients all up and poured the smoothie into a mason jar. I then rationed out the smoothie into a smaller mason jar and drank that amount once every two hours for the rest of the day. When I ran out, I made another smoothie. Prepare to use the bathroom after you break your fast.
Before consuming the smoothie, I stopped and took a moment to give thanks and share with myself just how proud I was for completing this task. This was a major accomplishment. I proved that I could push myself further than I thought and this deserved recognition and praise. I shared gratitude with myself because I deserved it.
Kale, kiwi, avocado & date green smoothie to break my fast
Rationed out portion of the smoothie.
I savored every moment of that smoothie. From the taste and smell, to the texture and feel. It was like my senses were reset during the fast and food became a new sensation that I was experiencing for the very first time. I was nearly brought to tears as I quivered like I was having a full body orgasm from the sweet and tangy flavor of the smoothie. I wish I could always appreciate food like this.
It takes several days for your body to readjust to eating again, so it is recommended that you be gentle and take your time reintroducing food. The first day of breaking my fast, I only drink the green smoothie.
Day 2, I made more smoothies, but introduced different fruit, like bananas, raspberries and blackberries. I also tested out eating dates and my stomach was able to handle it. I brought back solid foods on day 3 and by the end of the day, I was eating a normal plant based diet again. Many people advise being more cautious and strict with the food reintroduction process so I suggest you do your own research and make sure to listen to your body.
Tips For Fasting
Here are a few things that helped me get through the fast
1). Use the fast as an opportunity to monitor your thought patterns.
I will make the argument that getting through the fast was more of a mental challenge than physical. Yeah I was hungry and weak, but what really made those moments worse was what was going on in my head while I was feeling those sensations. My mind would be complaining, stuck in a negative loop, repeatedly telling myself the story of how exhausted I was and how I should just quit and how this sucked and so on. A turning point for me was once I realized this pattern, I made sure to bring more awareness to my thoughts. So when I was in that negative loop, all I had to do was become aware of it and then consciously replace those thought patterns with positive affirmations. Just telling myself things like “you’re doing such a good job.” “You can do this.” “Keep going, you’re amazing,” gave me encouragement and motivation, helping any time I was in need. Negative thought patterns silently drain you of energy by feeding into the idea that you are experiencing discomfort and should quit. Do yourself a favor and simply let those patterns go.
2). Give yourself something to look forward to every day.
Another thing that really helped me was to give myself a task or event to look forward to every day. This could be anything, from my haircut or acupuncture appointment, to a new episode of the Joe Budden Podcast dropping. Whatever it was, just having that thing to look forward to gave me a little extra drive every day and helped me to realize how far I’d come. The thing about the fast is that you are present for the full duration of it. Time seems to go so slow. This was the longest 10 day span of my life so having things to look forward to created some excitement and helped take my mind off of my struggles.
3). Don’t torture yourself looking at food.
It really helped that I needed to go grocery shopping and had nothing to eat in my house during the fast. Having food and snacks can lead to temptation and moments of being vulnerable. However, I did find myself spending a lot of time looking up recipes and things I wanted to cook once my fast was over. This was just unnecessary torture. Don’t do it yourself.
Going Forward
With the fast behind me, I feel really inspired to continue to treat my body with care and to be conscious of how I eat. I have been making an effort to eat an alkaline diet and to also stay on course with a daily intermittent fasting regime. In the new year, one of my intentions is to start implementing a monthly two or three day fast that coincides with the new moon cycle.
Let me know your experiences with fasting or if you have other tips, feel free to share them.
Peace & thanks.