9 am--Disappointment. After 33 hours of fasting, my weight this morning is 151, a loss of one pound. My hunger continues after a restless night, sleep for an hour or two, awake for an hour or two. Feeling limber, slightly light headed. A cold is complicating my condition...sneezing, sniffling. Maybe this is poor timing for a fast. Also I am 77, Hendricks' account of his 19-day fast dodged the problem of people of my age (77) undergoing this, although there is some evidence in rat studies that fasting in old age has minor benefits at best.
As I awakened this morning, images from Steve McQueen's film Hunger (2008) emerged in my reverie. Michael Fassbinder played Irish republican Bobby Sands in a hunger strike in Northern Irish prison. Details of hiss physical deterioration are riveting. Fassbinder starved himself during the making of the film.
A friend of LaVona's said fasting is dangerous after hearing about my plan, which reminded me of my parents' belief that one would die after 10 days without nourishment.
BP 136/74
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Day I of my fast
Friday, Feb. 17
Starving Your Way to Vigor: The benefits of an empty stomach
by Steve Hendricks
3 p.m.--“Two weeks after the Fourth of July at the end of reconstruction, a doctor in Minneapolis named Henry S. Tanner resolved to end his life.” With that opening sentence, Hendricks begins an account of his fasting experiment published in the March issue of “Harpers.” Now a third of my way through the 10-page piece, I have decided to fast for several days in a row, not sure how long, but probably not as as long as Hendricks’ 19 days.
At day one, 16 hours after my last food:
152 lbs @ 5’ 6” height
Blood pressure
152/82 63 pulse
145/82 60
138/24 59
Walked 5 miles @ 4 mph at midmorning.
18 hours--LaVona just fixed herself a fried egg on toast while I described to her how I was feeling...hungry but clear-headed and not prepared to back out of the fast. Reminded of quitting smoking some 25 years ago: The physical sensations of both were not painful, but the need to be control of my desire for a cigarette (now food) was annoying, knowing that the frustration of keeping in control would go away if I merely lit up.
Starving Your Way to Vigor: The benefits of an empty stomach
by Steve Hendricks
3 p.m.--“Two weeks after the Fourth of July at the end of reconstruction, a doctor in Minneapolis named Henry S. Tanner resolved to end his life.” With that opening sentence, Hendricks begins an account of his fasting experiment published in the March issue of “Harpers.” Now a third of my way through the 10-page piece, I have decided to fast for several days in a row, not sure how long, but probably not as as long as Hendricks’ 19 days.
At day one, 16 hours after my last food:
152 lbs @ 5’ 6” height
Blood pressure
152/82 63 pulse
145/82 60
138/24 59
Walked 5 miles @ 4 mph at midmorning.
18 hours--LaVona just fixed herself a fried egg on toast while I described to her how I was feeling...hungry but clear-headed and not prepared to back out of the fast. Reminded of quitting smoking some 25 years ago: The physical sensations of both were not painful, but the need to be control of my desire for a cigarette (now food) was annoying, knowing that the frustration of keeping in control would go away if I merely lit up.
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Dec. 28, 2007
In the waning years of WW II, we were living in Rockville Center, Long Island, I was about 12 and dad was dying of a brain tumor. Mom said NYC was no place for a widow to bring up a child, so she packed us up and we took a train to her childhood home in Detroit Lakes Minnesota. That's where she met and married this widower. He was a clothing salesman and outdoorsman.
Dec. 27, 2007
Hamburger at Petes Place