Challenges

I have to have community it seems to be a success with Intermittent Fasting (IF). It's so easy to get off track.

I just finished a two week intermittent fasting challenge on youtube. That kind of thing really helps me to keep going. I keep looking for more challenges to have someone to follow. I'm a follower more than a leader -- which can be tricky -- followers have to be very sure their leaders are taking them in the right direction. That IF challenge was the right path.

But, since that challenge, I've fallen off once again. I had quit eating sugar almost completely since last September!! I had reduced drinking my daily deadly bad habit of Diet Soda Pop down to allowing it only one day/week.

Then, I had a whopping big birthday -- my 60th. This one was quite depressing for me. I'm really getting old and there are plenty to remind me of this fact. ahem

My dad passed away six weeks before my birthday, just before Christmas and two days after he and my mother had celebrated their 66th anniversary. I realized when he died that I'd lost my best friend.

Then, a good thing happened. When I went back to have my A1C checked -- you can't fake that -- it and all those other health numbers had improved so well, that the doctor said that I needed no medication at all. Yay! I never got those prescriptions anyway. I think I sort of also wanted to break loose after such good news.

I allowed these events to slowly swallow me back down into the sinkhole of bad habits from which I was doing so well to climb out.

So, I think I need continual challenges. This new one is another 14-day challenge, but it doesn't involve IF. But, it doesn't allow snacking. That alone is a daily fasting challenge. I begin Monday. (Today is Saturday)

Do well. Get well. Fast daily.

Time to get rid of that poison!

Forty-nine years ago today, on April 9, 1967, a diamond back rattlesnake bit my leg in the Texas panhandle near Sudan. I was nine years old. A month later, my leg had to be amputated. Daddy wouldn't let the doctor take my knee, who said he'd have to later if he didn't now, but later never came, so I still have my knee 49 years later. Thank you Lord for such a wise father.

When I woke up this morning, I remembered that day. I remember, after all was said and done, Mother and Daddy telling me that the doctor told them the snake poison would always be in my blood. I suppose like all those childhood diseases will always be in your blood.

After learning about detoxing, I've often wondered if that snake poison could be drawn out and I could be rid of that snake forever. What I've read about detoxing, the most recent toxins come out first, followed by the next most recent, then the next until at last, those childhood toxins are at last released.

So, upon the coming 50th anniversary of my rattlesnake bite, I think I will begin a serious year-long detoxing. Perhaps any future complications from that slithering poison will be long gone at last.

I asked my alternative doctor about the symptoms of the snake poison making it's exit. Would it potentially make me so sick that releasing it could do more harm than good? I mean, I nearly died in 1967, they said. Could the poison coming out from hiding finish it's intended job? The doctor reassured me it would not do that much harm.

So with that reassurance, I'm devoted to doing this. I've began (again) the fast-five already, so I'll just start my detoxing with this and plant-based eating, then perhaps 100% raw vegan, water fasting, colon cleansing, dry brushing, etc. Even if the doctor was wrong, and there is no longer snake poison there, detoxing is a good thing.

I remember that Daddy had his own remedy for taking the poison out of my blood, and that was to eat plenty of raw honey. I'm not sure where he got that, if it's even correct, but he did what he could. So, perhaps that did the trick, or at least started it back then.

I wish I knew where the old pictures of me at that time had gotten to. Maybe I'll find them. If I do, I will share them here as soon as I can.

Sacrifice

This morning is especially hard. I am so hungry and thinking of cravings! Earlier this morning, I came close to making a spin through Hardee's drive-through while I was out doing errands.

But, I turned the wheel to the left instead of the right. I almost caved in. In the book, "As A Man Thinketh" by James Allen, he emphasized that to have good results, you must sacrifice but to have the best results, you must sacrifice much.

I am choosing good results for now. Raw vegan during the five to eight hour time is best results. I'm not there yet. It's just too much for now, but I do want to eventually get there.

Still, sacrifice is pain either way. You must give up what you love in order to have or to do what is right and good.

I have an hour and a quarter to go before I can break today's fast. I'll be doing cleaning until then.

How I'm Doing

Fighting that morning hunger is the worst part of daily fasting. However, you get over it with just a few days' time. Have you had a hard time with this? Did you overcome that hunger during the fast part?

I had a chiropractor's appointment yesterday, and mentioned my knee when he asked what problems I am having. I didn't think it had anything to do with alignment, but he helped my knee pain. It's not gone completely, but it was better all day. In the hip joint, the femur - thigh bone - was out of the socket just slightly, causing the muscle to be weak and the knee to be wrong, and all the way down to my foot. When he got that back in its place, I had more strength in the muscle and felt much better. I think the way I sleep pulled it back out or something, because the pain came back during the night.

I'm still going to keep to my plan of raw vegan 'til the pain is gone, though, because I KNOW the weight has something to do with the pain, not to mention all other things wrong with me: Diabetes II, high cholesterol, high blood pressure (only slightly high), upcoming early death. hm 

So far, I'm loving daily fasting.

Knee Pain and Diet

In addition to eating Fast-Five-to-Eight (heh), I am going to try an experiment.

I'm going to eat raw vegan until my severe left knee pain goes away. The last time I went to my medical doctor, he said that I have arthritis and when it gets so bad that I can't stand it, he'll do something about it.

Well, it's to that point, and being one who will do nearly anything to avoid any more surgeries, I am going to see how long it takes to take away the pain, thus reversing whatever's wrong under the skin, of my painful knee.

I'll be doing this by eating a raw vegan diet. I've done this before on Alissa Cohen's 100-day challenge. Here is her web site. (I don't think she does the challenge now, though.) I lasted all raw for four days. However, in those four days, all joint pain went away except the worst one, which was my left elbow.

I have big hopes that this will happen again. I'll be letting you know!

G-R-E-A-T Video about Intermittent Fasting

Oh - Look what I found! This is one of the best and easiest to understand videos about intermittent fasting I've seen. I've never heard of the Bulletproof Coffee recipe before. But, since I'm not a coffee drinker, it's not for me anyway. But you may be interested to see what he says about this near the end of the video in the question and answer section here.

Fasting and Exercising

Daily fasting is so very difficult for me to keep at.

I've been looking at a lot of youtube videos of intermittent fasting lately. I've learned something new: exercising and hunger go together like a hand and glove. It's a good thing to do your strenuous, or even moderate exercise after a few hours - say, over a half a day - of not eating. I don't know the scientific reasons, but I heard it from several alternative doctors, that it made sense to me.

The ideal suggestion was to do your walking, running, aerobics, about mid-morning, THEN after cooling off and shower, go eat your break-fast about noon. This kind of hunger-exercising is apparently good for the brain.

I think this scripture also tells us, if we can see it, that fasting is good for the brain:

Isaiah 58:8 (speaking of the fasting that the Lord chooses):

"Then your light shall break forth like the morning,
Your healing shall spring forth speedily,
And your righteousness shall go before you;
The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard."

That first line, I'm now convinced can refer to clear thinking, because when you fast you can think more clearly, and it is like a light has broken forth. You just have to experience it.

Go to youtube and find videos on intermittent fasting and exercise. There are many I couldn't see them all, but this one is the one that introduced this concept to me at first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyNTTY2zyrw