A week ago today, I started the next phase in my cleanse, a juice fast.  This is something that I try to do, at least once a year, to help me break food addictions, enhance my self discipline, change dietary habits and maybe even clean out my body a bit.  This year I’ve been integrating frozen, antioxidant rich smoothies as well, as a way of transitioning to lower calorie diet more gradually.

Its going really well so far.  I’m feeling great and don’t miss the typical foods that much.  I’d like to keep it going for as long as it feels right, maybe another week.  Then I’d like to spend a few days water fasting.

I’m about a week into a pre-fast “detox” diet. So I’ve eliminated many of my relatively non-productive dietary vices like coffee, alcohol and for the most-part, processed sugar & flour. I’ve been eating mostly various vegetables, sprouts, microgreens, fruit, nuts,  raw cheeses and fermented food; this often includes really densely packed wraps full of sprouts, avocado, sauerkraut, etc and wrapped in a sprouted wrap.

This has me feeling pretty good. I think just getting away from the caffeine, alcohol and sugar has helped tremendously. I am more aware of my environment, the subtleties in things and I’m thinking more broadly, rather than the more constrained perspective, which many of these chemicals encourage.  I guess you could say, it helps the body to regulate itself, rather than forcing it with food-based chemicals.

Also of interest, I find that I still have plenty of energy and vitality even without the constant caffeine boosts I usually have, while I’m also able to wind down in the evening without the glass of wine, I still manage to stay motivated and feel great.

So I’m going to be eating the rest of this big cauldron of vegetable soup I cooked, which features some really tasty Japanese Sweet Potatoes and various peppers and other soup-friendly veggies. By the time that’s all gone and I’ve used up most of the cookable perishables, it will be time to switch to exclusively juice/smoothies for perhaps a week or so.  Maybe a water fast for a few days at the end.

Before and After Seven Days Fast

For the month of March, I am engaging in a truly transformative experience, a fast and a detox, phased in a week at a time and starting today.  

This experience is going to be a thorough cleanse of my entire body/mind/spirit through fasting, detoxification and meditation (Tai Chi, Yoga, Sitting Meditation, Breathing Exercises). I am using a phased approach, so I can gradually work my way into an eventual water-only fast, over the course of a a month; so the overall experience will produce the greatest benefits, in terms of bodily detoxification, spiritual development, and dietary improvement.

In past fasting and detoxification experiences, I’ve had profound revelations on many different levels of significance.  Since I am taking the time to go through preparatory pre-fasting stages, over several weeks, I expect the benefits to be far greater than in previous experiences, where I only pre-fasted for a few days prior to the fast.

In all of my 30 years, I have encountered few experiences that are as powerful and transformative, in such a short period of time, as these fasting experiences. I want to make this one the best fasting experience yet, so I can feel more alive, more aware and more in touch with my spiritual and experiential reality.

Here is the plan for this experience, as it stands right now:

• March 1 – March 8 – Begin a detox diet, eliminate meat, bread, (most) dairy and sweets.  Diet consisting mostly of stir fried veggies, sprouts and fresh raw vegetable juice.
• March 9 – March 16 – Similar diet to the first week; but more emphasis on vegetable juice.
• March 17 – March 22 – Juice only diluted 50% with filtered water, also coconut water at times.
• March 23 – ??? – Water only with some tea.

I’m leaving the duration of the water fast open ended, but the goal is to listen to my body and go for somewhere between 5 and 14 days.  I’ll be updating with future journals, possibly with videos, whenever time permits. I am looking forward to documenting this transformation as it progresses. I’d like to document this in a much more significant way than I have during past experiences. I really want to take the lessons learned during past experiences and apply them for this ordeal, so I can again be astonished by what may transpire.

For the last four years I’ve been exceedingly interested in diet and detoxification.  This started when I read a book about diet and trophology (the science of food combination); this book was derived from the readings of the legendary psychic, Edgar Cayce.

Cayce is famous for delivering thousands of psychic readings, which cured many people and continue to help the people who study these readings.

Once I took the plunge into detox, following the advice closely for a couple of weeks,  I felt a rich and even ecstatic feeling of well-being.  This was the sort of feeling that I hadn’t felt prior to then, because I didn’t realize just how important diet was to one’s overall sense of spiritual and physical well-being. Read the rest of this entry »

By Stephen Harrod Buhner
original source

Fasting is an exceptionally ancient, and powerful, approach to healing many common disease conditions. It allows the body to rest, detoxify, and to heal. During fasting the body moves into the same kind of detoxification cycle that it normally enters during sleep. It uses its energy during a fast, not for digesting food, but for cleansing the body of accumulated toxins and healing any parts of it that are ill. As a fast progresses the body consumes everything that it can that is not essential to bodily functioning. This includes bacteria, viruses, fibroid tumors, waste products in the blood, any build up around the joints, and stored fat. The historical record indicates that human beings are evolutionarily designed to fast. It is an incredibly safe approach to healing and the body knows how to do it very well. Read the rest of this entry »