Stacia’s First 48-Hour Fast

I figured a 48-hour fast was what I could do to start. I am not a foodie, thinking about it wasn't even hard. The decision to do it was just a split-second decision. My friends will tell you that from Kelly who was doing this with me (his being a 36-hour fast) to Corry, who was cheering me on and making sure to ask me a ton of questions, Nick who's cheering me on, all know that I'm not a foodie.

Fasting is not a big issue in my brain. It wasn’t really hard. I told myself I could eat again on Thursday night and that was sort of it in my brain. It would be hard for other people – especially those who have trained their bodies to eat every few hours during the day. You have to get your brain set around it. You have to plan it you have to let your household know you're doing it.

This was nowhere near like a competitor diet that I used to do way back when, and I get hangry mid-afternoon, or you want to gnaw your arm off. Or the top of the desk. If you’ve competed, you know exactly what feeling I’m talking about.

This time around this time, it was a medical mindset. And I think it gave me the ability to power through it.

How

There are a lot of different ways to do it. There are a lot of different theories on how to do it the best way.

I decided that the best way for me to approach this fast was to start on Tuesday night after dinner. We had dinner at 6pm, and then I stopped eating and switched over water. (Also, do this during the WORK week, it’s easier to keep yourself occupied, see later in the post.)

My water routine:

• Water with half a fresh squeezed lemon & a dash of cayenne pepper
• Green tea – usually warm
• Spindrift Lime - You have to watch what Spindrift you get because some of them have natural flavors on the label. You don't want those ~ you want those that have the sparkling water and the actual fruit juice. READ the labels.
• Rotate!

I could have had coffee with nothing in it, but I am only recently a coffee drinker, and it has to have something in it. I just skipped out on the coffee.   

The only time that I really wanted food was dinnertime. And it was a brain want, not a stomach one if that makes sense? I wanted something in my system. It was just because it was that time to eat.   

On Wednesday night, at dinnertime, I sidetracked myself with a household project. I started tiling the floor of the guestrooms closet, one of them (there are three closets in there for some reason). I've been wanting to do it anyway, and it was a little mosaic piece. That took me about an hour and it got me through dinnertime.

Anytime I was craving food during the evening after that, I switched to the Spindrift.

Sleep & Daily Stress

Some people may experience insomnia. I found an eight-hour meditation on YouTube, and let it run all night long.

The other thing that I did that one of the doctors recommended was, and I highly recommend it, is when you are feeling headachey or cranky or hungry to do something that raises your oxytocin levels. What's happening is you're stressing yourself out.

What are some ways to raise your oxytocin levels?

• Hug your kid (careful, they get annoyed if you do it too often LOL)
• Walk the dog
• Meditate
• Do some artwork or projects
• Whatever helps you unwind and let the stress go

On Being Cold

Thursday, I was FREEZING all day. A byproduct of fasting, your metabolism kicks in and you are freezing. Kelly & Nick both got to hear me whine about that. I think it was whining about that more than was whining about anything else. I had a next of blankets on the couch both Wed and Thurs nights. The cats loved it.

Zero App

One trick to keeping myself entertained, the ZERO app. There's a pro version. I didn't pay for it. I just used the free version. It counts down or counts up how many hours you are into your fast, and you can pick you a custom setting. I just set mine for the time that I wanted, which was the 48. On Thursday, I kept watching the clock more because I was ready to (and at the same time not ready to) break my fast.

Breaking the Fast

It was really kind of nice not having to eat. My stomach was actually happy with me for two days straight which is unheard of ~ another reason for doing this and figuring out what the issues were with my system. I was a bit nervous about breaking the fast and how was my stomach going to react to food again.   

Nick was watching the time with me so waited until till I could eat dinner to eat with me. He had gone out and gotten me gluten free organic chicken and beef bone broth so I could decide which one I was going to use to break my fast. At 6:06pm, I was sipping on the warm bone broth!

Gluten Free shopping is no joke!

And you're supposed to sip on that (the bone broth) and let your body adjust to having calories and food. It was only a couple calories. Of course, when I have chicken soup or chicken bone broth, I wanted to put in our Greek Rosemarina because that's what we do with it in our house, especially when I put in a lot of lemon juice.

Then, I made my salmon avocado bites, which the recipe is probably on here on the site. You're supposed to have a lean protein afterwards. So, you could also grab chicken or turkey. I decided I wanted good fats and protein and it worked out well.

Post Fast

All in all, I have been sticking to an 18-hour daily fast, and eating more on a Keto, and definitely a gluten free plan. (If you want to chat Keto, go follow Kelly for it. He's got it down to a science!) No more grains, for me, at least no more wheat, and all the others that trigger the inflammation in my system. My energy levels are up. I’m down 9lbs in 7 days. I am sleeping really well. I went and had my bloodwork done yesterday for the doctor's orders.

I don't recommend you do this without a partner, accountability partner, coach, your Doctor, somebody keeping track with you. It is not to be taken lightly. It is all about willpower. You have to be in the right mindset, you have to be determined to do it. And you have to tell your household!

If you’re going to try a fast, I would recommend:

• Get your Doctor’s approval. I’m a health coach and have a PhD in Holistic Health, even I talked with my doctor about it all first.
• Setup an accountability partner or get a coach who’s done fasting programs before.
• Get the Zero app ~ use it to help you get through a 16 hour fast to try it. And when you're consistent with that, then go for an 18 hour and work your way up.

Kelly will tell you; he couldn’t believe that I just jumped right into a 48 hour fast. But I tend to almost do that on our show days anyway, on Friday and Saturday. You have to remember to drink on those days I forget to do it.   

My next one will be October 16 and 17th for 48-hour fast. Then I'll do another one on our show weekend in November, the 13th and 14th. And then we're going to do work our way up to doing the medical, the true medical one, which is a 72-hour one in December right after Christmas to do a complete immune reset.

If you'd like to join me on it and do your 16-hour, 18-hour, 24-hour, whatever-hour when you want to do it, you can join us here. Again, you should not do it without some sort of supervision, and I would highly recommend that you talk to your doctor about it before trying it. I have done in the past, so I knew what to expect.

I hope this has helped some! It was a definite learning experience for myself and learning even more of my body’s processes.