First Fast Completed!

Yesterday Ryan and I easily and successfully completed our first fast (but not Colson, the 8 year old eating machine). In a nutshell we:

1. Ate dinner the night before (it was paleo)

2. Drank nothing but water for 18 hours

3. Ate a small snack and then normal dinner later

That was it. My understanding is that we brought our insulin levels down and promoted human growth hormone (HGH) production. Apparently the peak benefits of fasting occur at around 16 hours. If a person goes for more than about 28 hours, cortisol production elevates, which we want to avoid.

Here are a couple of additional findings:

1. Ryan and I tried juice fasting five years ago before we learned about the Weston A. Price Society. We were sort of healthy eaters then. It was super hard, as we were weak, shaky and sweaty, and we did it too long. This time around, though, we were a little hungry around hour 16 and easily could have kept on going after hour 18. Scheduling demands and exceeding our peak benefit at about 16 hours caused us to pull the plug.

2. Even though we felt solid and fine during this fast, I don’t recommend fasting when you are going to the Farmers Market or Whole Foods. Whole Foods was a little tough, but the blueberries at the Farmers Market about put me over the top. Clearly I have blueberry issues: The Blues and Blacks are Here!

3. How did I break our fast? With those sweet and delicious, local, pesticide-free blueberries! We had a small snack when we broke the fast and then ate a normal dinner about 3 hours later.

Are Ryan and I going to do it again? Absolutely! Every week. Here’s to jumpstarting our healthy middle age bodies and going to the next level. You really can feel better the older you get, and, as my Oriental medicine doc says, “If you aren’t feeling better every year, you are doing something wrong.” We’ve lived it and hope you will too.