What I learned by 7 days Liquid fasting

I personally believe that only way to self-improve is “Attempt to do things you never thought you could ever do.”

Since last year I found myself taking food for granted, over-eating and just shoving it down my mouth like nothing. I used it as a way to cure boredom. Never really spent time appreciating what I was eating and just how lucky I was to be in the age and living in the places where food was so accessible.

The little self-improvement bell started ringing, what I was going through was an opportunity for growth. What can I do to resolve this unhealthy habit and take control of my mind?

I got motivation for this when Twitter founder Jack Dorsey shared his 3.5 days fasting update over twitter as new year resolution.

I was a bit hesitant at first to go for 7 days without food, but I started to think about the hunter/gatherer age.

As humans, our ancestors have been around for about 6 million years (modern form of humans, about 200,000), while agriculture has only been around for 12,000 years.

Surely there were times when a human had to go days without nothing but water?

We are now far from that and live in a world where food is widely accessible. Soon we became conditioned to think we need to eat every so often. The whole idea of breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner (dessert if you have sweet tooth ).

Not only has our relationship with food been conditioned this way, but our body as well.

Sometimes when we miss one of our meals of the day, we feel crappy and empty. Nothing bad is really going on, its just that our body has been conditioned to expect some food at that point in time. Now it’s freaking out because you’ve failed to provide it.

I wanted to break this conditioning, so challenged my mind and attempted 7 days liquid fast.

Below are my intakes and benefits which I observed during this fasting.

My Last 7 days intake:

1. 5 to 7 litre water daily

2. 1 glass protein milk

3. 1 small bowl curd or 1 glass buttermilk

Benefits

1. Having minimum calories in your system soon results in your body using your fat stores for energy, this not only results in fat loss but boosts the process of losing fat if you’re working out.

2. Increases insulin sensitivity due to less fluctuation in blood sugar levels.

3. Improves body repair, recovery and healing from decreased inflammation.

4. Lowers your stress levels, decreases blood pressure and rejuvenates the body.

5. Increases immunity due to better cell resistance.

6. Enables reduction in cancer cell proliferation.

7. Slows down aging and cognitive decline.

8. Lowers the risk of heart disease (reference).

9. Solves digestive problems such as gastritis, irritable bowels, constipation, diarrhea, gas, dyspepsia, and loss of appetite.

10. Also an opportunity for emotional and spiritual introspection. I have found that I have greater control over my thoughts and diet after completing the fast.

Conclusion

A benefit of the longer fast was that you have greater control over your thoughts and this was something I definitely experienced. I had recently been losing my sense of presence and wanted to gain that back. This fast helped.

I plan to take advantage of the fact that my body has been completely cleaned out and detoxified by being much more conscious of what I eat and how much I eat. I plan to cut out as much processed food as possible and substitute it with whole foods.

I know people will definitely ask about my weight loss. I lost 3.5kg of weight, which is insane for 7 days. Initially, most of the weight loss is water loss and therefore we did notice quite a physical difference. However, the purpose of this fast wasn’t for me to lose weight, this was just a bonus.

Hope you enjoyed, happy eating!