The day two was really bad, I was feeling worse than ever in my life. The food cravings were damn high. I was dreaming of food the whole day. Everything from pizzas to burgers or regional foods, were dancing in front of my eyes. Just the smell of food was feeling so satisfactory. I probably smelled food five times a day

I kept myself very busy most of the day as that was my only way to fight against hunger. The good thing was I became very productive. I did so much work on that day, that I can easily call it my best working day in last one year. I kept on doing work without thinking of food. In the evening I read novel and kept myself busy.

Moreover, my family had a feast planned for our relatives and hence there was all amazing food in the house. Hence, It became a bit difficult for me keep the fast, but I managed it somehow.

I had a blackout once in the afternoon. Everything around my eyes turned back for probably 10 seconds. I believe it happened because the shift of my body from digesting food to fats was not done and hence my body was getting no energy. I started feeling weakness too. One thing to note here is never move fast when you’re on a fast. Any type of jerks or fast movements can cause blackouts or even fainting. And always take a deep breathe before you stand or before doing any movement, it helps you body get the sufficient energy.

My bowel movements were almost negligible. I think the highest self-discipline to maintain water fast is on the second day. Though I am quite enjoying the experience.

Water Fasting – This post is a part of Water Fasting series.

Water Fasting – DAY 1

I was very busy on the first day, hence I rarely had any food cravings till late in the evening. The cravings were not much intense. The feeling was like I am missing something, but nothing intense. I had a weight loss on the end of first day around 1 KG – 2 Pounds. Bowel movements were normal.

Staying busy is my motto for rest of the days too as I feel the more you concentrate on food, more cravings are felt. Ignoring food or any food related topic and keeping yourself busy with work or some good books is the best way to tackle food cravings. I am planning to start reading ‘Power of Now’ from tomorrow.Its advisable not to make your day hectic, but definitely keep your mind preoccupied.

The body on the first day simply uses the existing food available, its said that from the second day as it has no food available, it starts breaking fats for digestion process. This phase happens during the second and third day and these days also have major food cravings. The highest food cravings of fasting period are faced during this time. Once this phase is passed, there is almost no desire for any type of food.

Wish me luck!

Water Fasting – This post is a part of Water Fasting series.

What is water fasting?

Water fasting includes drinking only water and no food, neither any solid or liquid is consumed. The most amazing function of our body is to heal itself. A human body has the capacity to heal the body on its own. Water fasting helps your body to save its energy from digesting food and use the energy to heal the body itself. Its like a prolonged period of rest for the digestive system, so it can direct the energy towards cleansing your body.

Why water fasting?

Water fasting helps immensely in healing your body. We consume lots of junk food in our diet. Most of these junk food contains very injurious toxic. It might be unbelievable, but true that most of the junk food have Carcogenic substance in them (Carcogenic substance are those which cause cancer) These toxics are stored in your body as fats.  When water fasting is done, the body stops receiving food. So it starts breaking down the fats in your body. This leads to release of toxic waste from the body. It not only cleanse your body but also have a reverse effect on various diseases. Release of toxic from body guarantees a healthy and long life including more focus and energy once your body is cleaned.

Major benefits of Water Fasting include

Mental clarity is improved and brain fog is lifted.

Rapid, safe weight loss is achieved without flabbiness

The nervous system is balanced

Energy level and sensory perception is increased. The longer the fast, the bigger increase in energy and vitality. You normally need less sleep.

Organs are revitalized

Cellular biochemistry is harmonized

The skin becomes silky, soft, and sensitive

There is greater ease of movement

Breathing becomes fuller, freer and deeper

The digestive system is rejuvenated and becomes more effective; the peristaltic action of the intestines (the cause of a natural bowel movement) is stronger after fasting.

Fasting retrains your tasting sense back to more healthy food as acute sensitivity is restored.

Fasting can increase confidence in our ability to have control over our lives and our appetite, and that our body is self-regulating and a self-healing organism capable or establishing balance when given the possibility to do so.

Normal metabolic and cell oxygenation are restored.

Detoxification – as soon as the body realizes that it’s fasting it will begin to eliminate those things that cause disease, such as fat cells, arterial cholesterol plaques, mucus, tumors, stored up worries and emotions.

My 8-Day Water Fasting Experiment:

I have planned 8 day water fasting for myself and I’ll be sharing my daily experience on the blog. So any other person who wants to do the same can benefit from it. I have never done anything of this kind. So not much sure how I’ll pull it off. Anyway writing the experiment on the blog has helped me commit myself.

Background Info:

Weight: 76Kg – 152 Pounds.

Slow Metabolism

Body Mas Index: 23.1 (Considered Normal)

You can use this link to calculate your bmi.

For additional reference :

Water Fasting Article

Water fasting

More Water Fasting

The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. . . . The ordinary objects of human endeavour — property, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.

Albert Einstein

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

Benjamin Disraeli

Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails

Clarence Darrow

The intuition of free will gives us the truth.
Corliss Lamont

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.

Dorothy Thompson

Inspired from Mahatma Gandhiji’s Autobiography ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’, I decided to speak nothing but truth for a month and here is my experience.

I was highly inspired by Gandhiji’s autobiography. I didn’t know how the experiment would be, but I said ‘Heck, It would be fun to try it and see how far I can go.” I liked the part where I read it gives you immense power and accelerates your growth. What I was going to experience was something I never imagined.

What I decided to do?

I decide to be 100% honest; I actually mean 100% honesty! It may look easy but it’s not that easy. In this experience I found it very difficult to be completely honest, but somehow I did it. Anything that you honestly feel should be spoken. Any review or any part of your life is asked, you should honestly answer them. It also includes speaking about your most embarrassing movement’s or any truth even about your darkest life experience to be shared openly. Even when it’s asked in front of one or ten’s of people. No exceptions!

My Experience

It was one heck of an experience; my friends actually felt I finally went overboard with this experiment. Here’s how it started. Many of us have the habit of sharing one part of your life with one person and sharing the other part of your life with the other. The first feeling I had was being vulnerable. It’s strange that when we keep a certain piece of information with you or with very closed ones you have a sense of shield with you. It’s a shield which we create to protect us from other people’s judgment. We all have our good and bad deed’s, we also have reasons to justify our actions. Sometime’s it maybe a clear instance of our emotions taking our logic and we do things we don’t want to do. But no matter what, most of them hide to keep the social rep. I started feeling that my shield is going down, I am becoming more open and it’s definitely going to struck hard this time. I felt this experiment is definitely not as easy as I thought. I started being very honest about my opinions, this always lead to questions about my personal life and when I started saying them openly, the shield’s went down and I became open to the critics.

Here’s a small example. I have a belief that there is no such thing as being patriotic. I believe all humans whether they are from my country or not, all are humans. They all are equal. I believe in humanity more than the national border’s. I love my country and very proud of it. But I am proud about humanity as a whole than anything else. I know this belief contrast with many people out there. I was not able to understand, that if our soldier’s kill other soldier’s they are heroes and If other soldier’s kill our soldiers then they are enemies. I agree we need defense forces to protect us from terrorists and many other countries who may try to attack us. My belief is not just about my country but every country in the world. The concept of patriotism and national border’s has in many ways stopped us from being united all across the world. When we say ‘my country is greatest in the world’ we completely ignore the good in other countries. Thanks to the internet and globalization, the world is coming together. Now on the topic, I have friends who are very patriotic. When one of my opinions was asked, I completely pressed my opinion I believed in. Some were open for discussion while some were just ignorant. They told me stories about great heroes who died so we could live a better life. I genuinely agreed with them and salute those great heroes, but my point was about how the whole ‘my country’ & ‘your country’ concept were flawed. There are good and bad people in every country. There were many who didn’t like my view and many who told me they thought the same. I felt connected to those who shared my view and felt completely detached from those who didn’t. I got a feeling of ‘I care a damn’.

There were hundred’s of such controversial talks about personal views, relationships, achievements etc.

The second part of the experiment started here. The sense of being powerful and carefree. When you say things honestly, you polarize people. Some will come near and some go far. Those who you feel connected, the bond gets stronger. The good part about the experiment is that you eliminate most of the social fluff; you become more confident because you’re following nothing but truth. It makes you feel very connected to people. When you’re 100% honest to someone, even they become honest to you about their feelings and opinions. The shield’s go down! This builds great connections. It’s like once we had a class and when the professor explained a difficult calculus problem, the whole class was saying ‘yes, we understood’ after the class I said to a guy, ‘I didn’t understood anything’ and he said ‘Neither, do I. I just said ‘yes’ because everyone did!’ I remember that making connection with people become so easy, like its just 10 minutes you met someone and you start talking about the deepest issues like love, vision, purpose of life etc. Builds strong connections with people on the level of soul. It’s a wonderful experience. The other benefit is criticism; the more people criticize you about your habits or views, the more you think over them and improve. You started growing very fast, because now you cannot hide them, you have to improve or face criticism. The only easy option is growth. It’s a strange feeling like you had one set of parents earlier who teach you what is good and bad but now you have everyone out there giving hundred’s of opinion or offering criticism. If taken positively, it’s accelerated growth experience. It’s amazing how in this process we come face to face with exact fears we are not ready to face. Like say I give an opinion on improving finance, one would ask me where I am on financial level currently. I would answer honestly and it quickly turns my mind on improving my finance. Not to show someone, but for me to understand whether I am on the right path to gain financial abundance.

The best part is you feel complete freedom of thoughts; you don’t have anything to hide, so nothing worries you. The great connections you build and the accelerated growth are amazing.

It was wonderful, but I stopped the experiment. Here’s why?

There is a bad part about the experiment I found. You stop caring about people completely. You are so attached to the principle of truth that you don’t care about opinions of other. You stay open to new ideas and humbly accept your mistake, if there is one. But if you get no justification, you completely discard the person as ignorant or dishonest. The bad part surfaces when you get completely blunt, you may say some truth which hurt others. Say a friend comes to you in a bad mood and say’s he hates his life because his finance is not good. And you bluntly say to him it’s only his laziness and he’s a real looser because he has no motivation in life, or a purpose in life. You may even tell him that he completely emulates his dad and that’s the exact reason he is like that’ Boom! You spoke the truth, but what affect did the statement have on him? If he’s a person who take the statement positively, it’s a wonderful growth opportunity. But this rarely happens because people may either get defensive or depressed depending on their personality. Your statements may completely discourage them. It’s a feeling which takes you away from love. You feel completely disconnected to those who cannot take truth as it is.

The solution is to experiment truth with love. Always speak the truth; you will help the other person. But say it with a genuine attitude of helping the person and not just utter bluntness. Truth can be used for the good or the bad; it depends on how you say it, your intentions and in what conditions.

Just a small example:

A girl asks “Am I fat?”

Truth with bluntness: “You are a pig!”

Truth with love: “You’re a bit overweight, go for gym and read this book on healthy diet.”

Both the statement says the same, but has different intentions and effects.

Humans are not robots, they have feelings and words have deep impact either positively or negatively. This would also make you 99% honest, rather than 100% honest. But it’s a good place.

I finally stopped the experiment in a month, but would definitely try it sometimes with Truth and Love induced!

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

Blaise Pascal

Hi, this is my first post at DhavalRaja.com, In this blog “Success for Everyone” I’ll be blogging about Increasing productivity, Goal Management, Deep Relationships, Spiritual growth and everything related to concious growth to the highest level possible.

Have Fun Reading!

Dhaval