17 days remain in 2010. I have fasted 289 meals and have 11 to go.
I can do the fast two meals for a few days, but then I am feeling deprived. I am doing it again today, but didn’t want to. Looking forward to finishing this.
I will probably always do some consistent fasting. I like it and it is so much easier than dieting. I have lost a few pounds this year and for the most part have maintained beautifully. This has been done without obsessing about food or limiting the variety of foods I can eat. The freedom to eat anything has felt really good. Learning to be sensitive to the hungry and full sensation again is wonderful as well. I don’t claim to have it mastered completely. Sometimes I slip back into my old bad habits, but with morning prayer and mindful eating, I know when I am full and have had enough.
Eating less feels great. There were times in the past when I felt like a stuffed sausage and needed to drink a bicarbonate of soda or something to relieve the pressure. I can no longer over eat like that. Eating less is about freedom. Eating less is about trusting myself, and loving myself. Eating less is knowing there will be another meal later, and even if I am fasting and the meal later is 17 hours away, it is OK.
I am fasting the noon and evening meals today.
December 16
16 days remain in 2010. I have fasted 291 meals so far and have nine to go.
Less than 10 meals left to fast. At the beginning of the year when I decided to fast 300 meals, it seemed nearly impossible. You could not do them consecutively as you would starve to death. Doing them consistently day after day and one small step at a time has been quite an adventure.
This week is more intense as I have wanted to get some of the fasting complete before Christmas. I had planned back in January to be done by now. I am going to fast two meals again today. It is snowing here in Colorado. I wanted some hot food for breakfast so I stopped at a taco stand and got a egg, potato and bacon breakfast burrito. The place I stop makes giant burritos. I estimate they are about 1200 calories each. If you put four large bananas all together, that is about the physical size of one.
In the past, I would have come to work and eaten the whole thing. Before fasting this year, if one piece of anything tasted good, then I needed two or three more and I don’t know why. There never seemed to be enough satisfaction with food. Eating less made me sad and angry. I came in today and my friend Chrissy was here early as well. I asked if she wanted half of this giant burrito, she did, and we split it. We both had a nice hot breakfast and I am “well nourished”. I am not over filled or stuffed.
Proverbs 23:20 – “Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine or gluttonous eaters of meat.”
Proverbs 25:16 – “Have you found honey, eat only what you need…”
Have you ever felt you needed a very large steak? Have you ever said dessert, sugar or flour was “bad food”? Notice the verse doesn’t say to refrain from eating meat. It is referring to gluttonous or over eating of that food. The same with honey. Scripture has been an eating guideline for me this year.
My whole attitude about food has changed over the course of fasting 291 meals. There is more than enough, even if it is a half of a burrito instead of the entire thing. A four ounce steak is enough. Eating less now represents freedom. Eating less makes me happy. My jeans are loose. I feel better than I have in 10 years. I feel younger eating less.
Fasting Two more meals today. I have work to keep me busy and I can see reaching this goal. It has not been by my will power, it has been by the grace of GOD!