Wow, it’s been almost a year since I last posted.  For a while I didn’t feel anything interesting was happening.  I didn’t want this to turn into a diary of overcoming first world problems.  Then I spent some time in a great funk – who wants to read about that.  Then I just kept wondering what to write about and life did it’s think and the blog went on the back burner so to speak.  However, I have a possibly interesting thing coming up.  Or it might be very boring – not sure.

I guess I should get you caught up a little first.  About a year ago I was told I was pre-diabetic.  Knowing my history with sugar, I was not surprised.  It came after I had quit sugar for 3 months, but considering how much I had pumped into my system over the years, I figured 3 months wasn’t enough.  I also, thought, “I got this”, a little more exercise and eating well and it will change.  I did 4 months of a low carb diet and re-tested.  No change.  I feel lethargic a lot of the time.  I have trouble exercising.  All my joints hurt.  I was getting sick often.  I can start to understand why more people don’t seem to want to fight diabetes.  I’m not even full diabetic yet and it seems like a losing battle.  Maybe they started off fighting it and it just became too difficult.  Years ago we studied about different ways of eating – not diet in the sense of losing weight, but in in the sense of a change of lifestyle.  Part of that study included fasting.  I was excited about what I read, but could never imagine taking the time out of my busy life that it would take to do it right.  Studies have shown great results in reversing diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and a multitude of other health issues.  It was suggested to me that a fast might be just what I need now.  It just made sense.  It could possibly help with the pre-diabetes, uterine fibroids, allergies and frequent sinus problems.  I’ve been planning this since October and will go to a facility where I stay and they help monitor me to make sure I’m staying within the realm of fasting and not going into starvation.  Then I thought, this might be a fascinating journey to document.  So I decided to blog about it.  It could also be boring (“hungry today, this sucks, check back tomorrow”) or I could get to the point where my brain has stopped working and my blogs don’t make sense.  But, we will have to wait and see.

I have also learned much about the brain since I’ve been back from Thailand, much of it very exciting.  And I have been doing weekly sessions since October to work on my nervous system and learning so much about how ptsd affects our nervous system and that there is great hope for those with severe ptsd to heal.  I will write more about this journey in another blog as it’s monumental and deserves a more in depth summary.  I do feel that the fast will somehow tie into the nervous system work and they will compliment each other.  I haven’t seen any research to this effect, but it’s just a gut feeling.

I start the fast on May 4th.  How do you prepare for this?  First you give the retreat center an large amount of money to secure your space.  Then you freak out everyone at work by telling them you are leaving for a month and you don’t know if you’ll be able to work for 2 days or 3 weeks.  They suggest for two weeks before the fast eating nothing but fresh fruits and veggies.  That way you are not going through withdrawals from the foods that cause them while trying to fast.  I cut out sugar over a year ago minus two weeks in October.  Three weeks ago I cut out bread.  This sucked.  I still just want to eat a whole loaf of sourdough with butter.  Two weeks ago I quit caffeine.  I had two bad days in the beginning where I couldn’t handle it and drank coffee and iced tea anyway.  But, after 4 days, it was easy.  Today was my last day being able to eat anything that came from an animal.  Yesterday and today my diet was 90% cheese.  So, starting tomorrow, only fruit, veggies, oatmeal, beans and nuts until the fast.

So, here we go…….