Personal Experience: How Fasting Can Affect Your Health

Preparation

Fasting is a kind of diet: for seven weeks, you must eat according to certain rules. I knew that meat, eggs and dairy products would need to be eliminated from the diet. You can eat fish twice during the fast and caviar once. I am not a particular connoisseur of steaks and cutlets, so I can well give up all meat and fish for a longer period, but without kefir, cheese and eggs, my life will lose its former colors. So I thought until I found out that the post does not do just one product restriction. It turned out that on certain days one should eat a certain way.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday are dry days, when all thermally processed food is excluded.
Tuesday, Thursday are the days when you can eat cooked food without vegetable oil.
Saturday, Sunday - you can eat cooked food with vegetable oil. Grape wine is also allowed.

I decided that it was wrong to rely only on my feelings, and for the purity of the experiment I made a biochemical blood test, weighed myself and measured the volumes. According to the first test results, I already had a low level of protein in the blood, but this did not stop me, and I decided to check how it would change in a month. Apparently, she hoped that she would rise. The rest of the indicators were normal.

The weight at the start of the experiment was 58.3 kg. The parameters looked like this:

chest girth - 87.5 cm;
waist circumference - 70.5 cm;
girth of the lower abdomen - 86 cm;
hip girth - 92.5 cm.

First week

I ate a lot of vegetables and fruits. So many. As a result, due to the large amount of fiber entering the body, my intestines began to work much more actively, which led to some inconvenience. But my stomach is gone, and this is a huge plus.

Porridge "Friendship" with banana and nuts

Buckwheat porridge with cauliflower

Smoothies: banana, frozen strawberries, kiwi

Boiled potatoes with stewed eggplant

Oatmeal with banana and peanuts

Oatmeal with dried apricots and dates

Smoothies: banana, frozen blackberries

Pumpkin soup

Smoothies: banana, frozen blackberries, strawberries and kiwi

I didn't have a breakdown, headaches, and that's all. I feel good, maybe even better than before.

I don't rush to meat-eaters, but I pass by cheeses with slight sadness. To be honest, I ate a little wrong, after all, the schedule does not really allow me to steam up over cooking, I ate monotonously and more than necessary. I set myself a task for the next week - to discipline myself in terms of nutrition.

Second week

I must say right away that I did not rebuild the food. Although a couple of new recipes got into the piggy bank, mostly salads. In the middle of the week, I felt universal fatigue, but wrote it off for a large amount of work. There were no breakdowns.

As luck would have it, there are a series of birthdays at work, and everyone orders a holiday pizza. Colleagues persuade to eat a piece or two, assuring that they will not tell anyone. But I'm holding on, because this challenge is more for me.

The general condition is excellent (well, except for the day of universal fatigue), but I noticed that my hands and feet were constantly icy and freezing. Mom says it's because of the fast.

Third week

Something went wrong. I noticed that I began to eat more than usual. I can't eat ordinary bread, I only eat pita bread and I can grind this whole roll in a day. And the days when you only need to eat raw food go by better. I am not satiated with stewed and boiled food. I constantly want to chew something, all the time. I held on as best I could. But every now and then she grabbed another loaf.

An interest in animal food has awakened. My boyfriend made himself an omelet with sausages for breakfast. The smell made me drool immediately, and I quickly ran to work. And I don't want chicken or a piece of beef. I want whites, sausages, sausages. And so that everything is fried.

Physically I feel good. But she began to notice changes in her mood. And most importantly, colleagues began to notice this. I am a very emotional person, but I have surpassed myself this week. The mood changed every minute.

Fourth week

The fourth week was very busy. I was constantly hungry, could not cope with emotions and was very nervous. In the middle of the week I went on business to another city and caught a cold. Fell down with fever and barley on the eye. I decided to be treated with honey and raspberry jam. She was completely healed. As a result, she recovered, but got a scatter of acne all over her face. Another lesson to me: after abstinence, you need to be careful with sweets.

At the end of the week there was a nice moment - on April 1, you could eat fish. I decided that this moment should not be missed, and bought one already prepared in the store. Having eaten a piece, I realized that I did not feel at all and did not understand its taste. Upset again. I ate a carrot.

The post is coming to an end, so you can touch on the financial part. Honestly, my food budget hasn't changed much. I didn’t eat exotic foods, nor did I buy mangoes, quinoa, or soy milk. I ate my usual food, excluding the food that was forbidden during the fast. I bought more fresh vegetables, herbs, fruits. I know that I could save money if I ate pickles and preserves. But they affect the figure, and I didn't want that. As a result, the money that I spent on meat and milk before fasting, during the fast I spent on buying vegetables and nuts.

Fifth week

The last week of fasting, like the first, is considered one of the most stringent. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, only raw food could be eaten. Although I was used to it, it was not easy for me to endure it. But the cruelest days were ahead. It was necessary to starve on Friday and Saturday. I was not ready either physically or mentally to give up food completely, so I decided that I would spend these days only on water and bread. To say that it was difficult is to say nothing.

On Friday, the brain constantly reminded that it was hungry, and hinted that if we eat in secret, no one will know. But I tried to fill the whole day with work, and so I managed to defeat myself. On Saturday, I decided to try to starve. Naturally, from all the smells of food, I could not resist and ate a couple of loaves. It was at lunchtime, the rest of the time was floating on the water. All day I did something and went to bed early to wake up and finally end this whole nightmare.

Also at the end of the week I donated blood again for biochemical analysis. A therapist friend said the results were normal, apart from the serum urea. It is not dangerous and can be easily restored if meat is returned to the diet.

Test results before fasting

Test results after fasting

Easter

I ate.

How did fasting affect me?

I felt lightness. There was no eternal heaviness in my stomach, the headache disappeared somewhere, and in general I felt much more energetic and more comfortable than usual. She did not lose weight, but there were no such goals.
I realized that I could well give up dairy products. And the fact that there are no eggs in my diet, I practically did not notice. This month has made it clear to me that some delicious things are very easy to prepare. And there is no need to buy anchovies or moose meat for this.
Strengthened self-discipline. Lately, I have not been very much with her, and the post helped me. During these five weeks, I missed many holidays, including the birthdays of my mother and my boyfriend. I was present at them, but I could not fully tear myself away, read - eat. Many felt sorry for me, I pretended to be very sad. But in fact, I was proud of myself. I was proud that I could give up a crispy chicken thigh, a slice of pizza or a cake. Thanks to the post for that.

My parameters after a month of post looked like this:

chest girth - 87 cm (-0.5 cm);
waist circumference - 69 cm (-1, 5 cm);
girth of the lower abdomen - 82 cm (–4 cm);
hip girth - 92 cm (–0.5 cm).

The post was not easy for me. Last week I caught myself thinking that I was tired, that I wanted to eat normally. I had a goal - just to endure the fast. I survived, but I won't make up my mind anymore.