David’s Fasting Adventure

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An outline of what I actually did over the 4 week period …

Days 1-7: Juice only

Over this period I juiced predominantly a CABALA juice – Carrots, Apple (yellow), Beetroot, Apple (green), Lemon and Apple (red). I’m not sure if my apples were yellow or just light greeny/yellow, but I did my best to get this combination.

I didn’t get any come down effects such as headaches or cravings for food and I put that down to the fact that I have completed a couple of short fasts (of 3-5 days) in the past and also realise that our bodies are extremely clever and the mind is even more powerful at directing our behaviour if we allow it to be.  I have to admit though, that writing the blog made it easier for me to be committed as I knew I’d have to tell you all!

Days 8-14: Water only

Over this period, I drank 1-3 litres of water per day and sometimes made a pot of herbal tea to enjoy at my desk.  One time I added a teaspoon of honey to the cup and another time I added maple syrup to see if I felt any different but didn’t note anything particular.  Initially I continued to use my juicer to try new recipes such as hummus, babaganoush (egg plant dip) and bliss balls (mixture of nuts, dates, goji berries and rolled in coconut,  sesame seeds and puffed brown rice) which I’d serve to friends and also put the tiniest bit in my mouth where I’d chew it and then spit it out so I could taste the creations.

Days 15-20: Water only

During this stage I had noticed that my weight was on a smooth descent and on day 19 I realised a 10kg drop in body weight.  I didn’t start this fast for that reason and seeing such a large weight loss (I went from 72.8kg to 62.7kg) I decided to finish day 20 and go on to juices.  Once I’d made that decision, there was a sense of relief that I was going to be tasting, creating and cooking again.  Apparently as humans, we make decisions for emotional reasons and justify with logic, and I would say that I was looking for a reason to stop the fast as I was SOOOO incredibly bored not being able to CREATE.  I also noticed this from day 6 during the 10 day silent meditation retreat I went to last year in northern New South Wales, on a rock-lined headland by the sea.  During that experience, I found little discomfort with sitting for hours at a time without even moving in some sittings; the food was delicious, plentiful and vegetarian; the rooms were simple and the facilities quite ample, but the BOREDEM I suffered from day 6-9 was excruciating. I could not help a soul, I could not smile at anyone (no eye contact), I could not draw, write or make something with my hands.  All I could do was work out ways I was going to value every moment of my life as time was drifting away.  There are  so many creations to make, people to inspire, experiences to bathe in, fun to be had and life to live.

Once you identify a pattern you do,
You no longer have any excuses.
Are you at Cause or Effect of your life?

I have a belief that once we identify a pattern in something we do, we no longer have the excuse not to deal with it.  This doesn’t mean anything has to change, it simply means that we have to take responsibility for the pattern and decide if anything can be learned or changed if required.  I’ve always been aware that Creating was not just a Like or Want of mine, it’s a Core Need – it’s the way I grow.  If I don’t feel as if I’m creating at some level, I really start to feel my purpose being challenged.  So I think it was the boredom, not the loss of weight which really got to me.

Note: On the topic of time, before delivering a Time Management Course the other day, I read some of my favourite authors’ perspective on Time and found the article below entitled Can you live on 24 hours per day? I think it holds a brilliant realisation.

Can you live on 24 hours per day?

Philosophers have explained space…

… they have not explained TIME.

It is the inexplicable raw material of everything.  With it, all is possible, without it, nothing.  The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.  You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life!  It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions.  A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself!

For Remark! No one can take it from you.  It is unstealable.  An no one receives either more or less than you receive.

Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of intellect.  Genius is never rewarded by even one extra hour a day. And there is no punishment.  Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you.  No mysterious power will say: “This man is a fool, if not a knave.  He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter.”  It is more certain than bonds, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays.

Moreover, you cannot draw on the future.

Impossible to get into debt!

You can only waste the passing moment.  You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you.  You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you.

(The text continues a bit more and then finishes with …)

… Which of us has been saying to himself all his life: “I shall alter that when I have a little more time?

We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.

By Arnold Bennett

Days 21-28: Juice then light vegetables then chocolate … then alcohol

Once I started eating again, I was very excited to be able to have whatever I wanted.  It was interesting watching my relationship with food change and then change again.  From being in a place where I didn’t even consider eating days before, I quickly started longing for food.  I started with juices and a lovely vegetable soup with barley and other old grains, but within a day, I was looking in the cupboards for nuts,  snacks, random chocolates, and other naughty things.  I think I was feeling a reaction to the the effect of sacrificing my choice to eat, and as a result, I wanted to eat … and then eat some more.  It didn’t leave me with a good feeling as I felt a slave to the delights I could find or create.  Don’t get me wrong, I did eat some chocolates and even ice-cream, but I have been generally still eating lots of fruits, pulses, nuts and vegetables but certainly more than I need.  I believe I’m just at the end of that feeling and can see that having a routine is what’s helping me.

Also, last night I went out to poker and afterwards had a few drinks at a local bar.  There was a special on some shots and I ended up having two of them with the people I was with.  Add this together with the beers I had, and then get me to ride through the city on my bicycle and that spells a recipe for disaster.  Suffice it to say I did not feel particularly healthy and bright when I arrived home.

Weights & Measures over 28 days

These charts show the progression over the 28 days.  The dotted red line is a trend line of a moving average.  It looks as if I’m balancing out again.

The stark contrasts in measurements I experienced after I began eating again may illustrate whether my body was full or empty.  This gives an indication as to how much food we hold in our stomachs and colons naturally.

I’m going to keep measuring for a while longer and am starting with my personal trainer tomorrow – this should affect things again and I’ll be interested to see the results.

What has changed for you?  Please complete my 6 question survey.

I have put together a short 6 question survey which I’d really appreciate your opinions on.  It should take about 4 mins to complete and if you add your email address, I’ll keep you updated on future challenges and ideas you may be interested in. Click here for the survey.

A few random observations I have had

• It is strange hearing people tell you you’ve lost weight when you have just put on 3.5kg
• Be aware that the pendulum swings in more than two ways.  If you don’t take the lesson and move the clock, you can end up back where you started, but with new habits.
• I drank less water when I moved off the juices/water fast and as a result it was a lot harder going to the toilet than previously.  It’s just getting back to normal now.

That’s it from me right now as it’s getting late again.  I will update with details of my weight in a week or so and if you have added your email in the survey, I’ll let you know when I have done so.

Remember, without health, nothing is possible – take a tiny step every day, and watch the difference unfold.

Take the Survey

Quote of Every day

One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite authors

Live this day as if it will be your last.  Remember that you will only find ‘tomorrow’ on the calendars of fools.
Forget yesterday’s defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow.

This is it. Doomsday. All you have.  Make it the best day of your year.  The saddest words you can ever utter are, ”If I had my life to live over again.  ”Take the baton, now.  Run with it!  This is your day!

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward.

Your life will never be the same again.”

Og Mandino 1923

By the way, Click Here to reserve tickets to Don Tolman’s evening event from May 25-29, 2009,  across Australia.

To save $89 use the code DAVIDW for Free tickets.

admin Fasting, Health 20 days fasting

I’ve been getting back to normal with my eating and drinking habits over the past few days.  My energy levels are still high, but I’d probably say that they’re a bit lower than they have been.  During the day I’m still juicing and not eating too much and one of the advantages has been that I’m now much more aware of the amounts of food I put in my mouth so am putting smaller amounts on my plate.

Eating late at night – not such a good thing

On the flip side, now that I have the freedom to eat what I like when I like, I’m eating more in the evenings than I know is good for me.  As I don’t have a specific plan for eating, it is much more difficult to determine the amounts and sometimes in the evening I’m picking at little things I have in the fridge when before I obviously wasn’t.

Have a plan with some guidelines or rules

My lesson here is to ensure that I have a specific plan of what to eat and with me starting with a personal trainer this week, that is certainly helping me identify the best plan for food and exercise.

Tomorrow will be the last day I blog and I’ll enter my final weights and measures for you to see what has happened.

admin Fasting, Health

A Happy Bunny update

A quick update of what’s been happening for me over the last 24 hours.

A True Break Fast

Today I broke my fast with a delicious home made soup.  I wanted to have something which would help ground me so I used a lot of vegetables grown in the ground.  If you split the body in to three floors – feet to navel = basement, navel to neck = main rooms, neck to top of head = attic, as a general guide, foods grown underground are good to ground you, foods grown on the ground are good for the main rooms of the house i.e. the middle segment, and foods grown in trees are good for the upper rooms.  My soup had:

• Potatoes (two types)
• Turnip/ Swede
• Carrots
• Yellow Squash
• Parsnip
• Sweet potato (two types)
• Barley
• Quinoa
• Buckwheat
• Fresh Oregano from my garden
• Himalayan Rock salt
• North Queensland pepper
• Braggs liquid aminos

It was the MOST delicious soup EVER!  … well I’m sure anything would have been, but I would have to say that it does taste absolutely delicious.  If you’re in Brisbane, come round soon as there is plenty to go round.

Also, my special home made cheese was made from unpasturised local organic milk (from happy cows!), garlic, oregano, salt and pepper and a few spoonfuls of organic yogurt.  You can see it on the plate on the tiny mountain bread pieces.

Hard Core Weight Watchers - Before and After

OK, so here are my before and after photos.  I took the first set a few days into my fast so it wasn’t quite the first day.  I think you can see that there’s less of me in the second photo and as a result it looks like I’m tougher!  Well I am!  GRRRRR… Well to be honest, my constitution is a lot tougher as I now know for a fact that if I’m in an air crash in the middle of some far away  jungle and having nothing to survive on but the blood of the occassional snake and rainwater, then I’ll be fine for weeks!

My plan now is to spend a reasonable amount of time in the gym and build on the frame I’ve created.  I spoke to a personal trainer today and she’s going to do a fat check as I think anything in the 20%+ range for me is actually quite high, so I’d like to see with the pincer test.

Body Building

Bella took these photos for me (thanks lovely), and I was very surprised to see the body building look I had in the tall shot.  I never thought I’d look like that and although I will certainly bulk up and round the edges (I don’t like the really muscle bound look), I am going to work to create a more defined frame.  Also, building good abs is always a winner as that protects my bank and gives me that core stability which is so important to avoid back issues in future.

Best before date

I hearby anounce that I have found my best before date.  It is 31st March 2076. This is a few days after my 102nd birthday.  I intend to stay fit and healthy till at least that date and as we all know, the best before date is just a guide and if I’m still having fun, that will be extended!  I’ve also used calculated that using my special Fibonacci Code using the 3, 13, 89 of the code.

Time management Training tomorrow

I’m training another new course tomorrow so better go to bed – it’s Time Management … don’t want to be late!

admin Fasting, Health, Vegetables Before and After, Finished Fasting, Healthy Vegetable soup

As I mentioned yesterday, I have decided that since I’ve achieved my outcome of clearing out the toxins and seeing what would happen to my body, I am no longer going to continue the full month of not eating as I’d like my weight to return to normal asap.  What I’m going to do is have juices for another day or two and then move on to soups and other gentle foods to allow my stomach to re-climatise.

Weights and Measures

Here’s my weight chart up to today for you to see - I had my clay and psyllium husk yesterday which is whyI think there’s a big change in the weight.  I weighed before I went to the toilet this morning and then forgot to do so afterwards.  Believe me, there would have been a big change in weight afterwards!

Means and Ends

Sometimes in life I think we can get caught up in the means of doing things or the activities themselves instead of realising that life is about Outcomes or Ends and our sights should be focused on these.  I made up the time frame for this fast and feel very congruent changing the period at this point.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

People think they want Money … They Don’t!

You can’t eat money.  You can’t dress yourself in money.  You can’t fly with money.  It’s simply a means to an end and as a tool, money can do all these things.

Unless you’re a Numismatist (someone who collects coins, notes and sometimes medals), money itself is simply a means to achieve something.  One of the most powerful global belief changes I made about money a number of years ago at a Tony Robbins event was that Money is the ultimate tool.  Believing this, as opposed to, money is evil, or money is hard to come by, I have created a much better relationship with those numbers, coins and notes.

• Similarly, people don’t want relationships, they want the emotions they enjoy whilst being in a relationship.
• People don’t want spirituality, they want the peace, connection or other emotions they associate to spirituality.

Remember, the human experience is simply a collection of emotions.

First juice

Today I had my first juice in a long time.  I made a delicious watermelon, apple, carrot and beetroot mix which was divine to drink and tasted amazing.  My taste buds didn’t know what hit them!  I made about one litre of it and couldn’t help myself consuming a few glasses outright as it tasted so good.

I’ve noticed today that I felt much more grounded from having the nutrition inside me and am very excited to be making food again.  I have loads of fruit and vegetables for more juices and I have to say I’m really looking forward to savoury soups – one of which I’ve started creating today.

Quinoa, Buckwheat, Barley and other old grains

After being empty for so long, I’m confident my insides are cleaner than they’ve been since … well since I was born really!  My understanding is that the next steps are to increase the good natural bacterias in my stomach (yoghurt is a good choice and I made some which is sitting over night so should be ready in the morning;  I used  some lovely unpasturised milk I bought at the markets.

I also made a soup which I’ll let sit for a day or two so that the flavours really come out.  I used the grains mentioned above as they’re awesome for our bodies and if you haven’t tried Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wa), I recommend you try it out as it is super-dooper food!  The quinoa seed is high in protein, calcium and iron, a relatively good source of vitamin E and several of the B vitamins.  It contains an almost perfect balance of all eight essential amino acids needed for tissue development in humans.  It is exceptionally high in lysine, cystine and methionine-amino acids typically low in other grains. By the way, you cook it just like rice and it looks like cous-cous with tails.

P.S. Opinions and views

As I’m sure you’re aware, this blog is my opportunity to give my opinions about the learnings and experiences I’ve had.  Please be aware that truth can be subjective and if you are to take my advice, do so whilst respecting your own beliefs and do your own research.  For example, I do believe that doctors and medicine serve a great purpose, for example in cases of trauma such as a broken arm or an accident, but there are some (which from what I’ve learned appears to be the case in the US), where a pill or a potion is prescribed for everything from pimples to cancer and I feel that the there are many ways to prevent us having to take these drugs and treat ourselves with our foods.

Photos of the changes – if you’d like to see what has happened to my body, check out tomorrow’s posting.

admin Fasting, Health, Vegetables beliefs about money, fruit juice, means and ends, Quinoa

Outcomes of this fasting experiment

If you cast your thoughts back to Day 5 of my blog, I had put down that two of my key reasons for doing this experiement were to:

1. Cleanse my body of any unwanted toxins which had built up over time
   
2. To see what was possible with my body and to see what would happen with no food.

I checked the scales this morning -10.1kg

This morning I weighed in at 62.7kg and I started at 72.8kg which is a loss of 10.1kg in 19 days.  My outcome for this experiment was not to lose lots of weight and I decided that I didn’t want to lose any more.  As a result, and with the peace of mind that I’ve achieved my outcome for this experience, I decided today would be my last day of water only.

So you haven’t eaten for nearly three weeks, what would you like first?

How about a Bentonite clay and Psyllium husk cocktail?

For my last day of water fasting, I had one final cleansing experiment to do.  Over a 6 hour period, I had a mixture of bentonite clay in water one hour, then on the next hour, a psyllium husk and slippery elm mixture, then the next hour the clay again and repeated this 6 times in total.  It felt as if there was a weight in my stomach, and I was a little concerned that I’d overdone the husk drink which can cause constipation!

Bentonite Clay is an effective detoxifier with substances that absorb toxins from our alimentary canal. Bentonite clay can never be absorbed by the body, so it’s not poisonous at all. When we take bentonite clay with psyllium Husk, the clay does the important duty of absorbing all toxic substances from our mucuous linings – it’s like a magnet that attracts toxins. Psyllium husk then finishes the job by pushing all these nasty substances such as mucoid plaque out of our body.

Bentonite Clay, it’s all negative

The reason bentonite clay is so effective in what it does is because it has a negative charge, and most toxins in our body have a positive charge. Since opposites attract it makes bentonite clay so useful in binding to toxins.  Bentonite clay can absorb any toxic substances imaginable including:

- impurities
- harmful bacteria
- poisons
- pesticides
- pathogens
- parasites etc.

It does this without posing any nasty side effects in us, because as mentioned before, it can’t be absorbed by us.

Back to Northey St, the organic markets

I was like a child in a candy store this morning at the markets and bought heaps of fruit and vegetables – I mean HEAPS!  This included oranges, lemons, limes, apples, 6kg carrots, a 9kg watermelon, beetroots, kale, 2 bags of guavas and a handful of other delicious items.  I can’t wait to get juicing tomorrow and watermelon is on the top of my list.  FYI, an organic watermelon that size only cost $18 which I thought was very reasonable.  Back to my friend Don Tolman, he apparently fasted for 90 days on watermelon and watermelon juice alone!  

P.S. that is definately not my intention right now – can’t wait to eat.

Decisions about the rest of this fast

Tomorrow I’ll explain about what I’ll be doing for the rest of the fast and also for those who are interested, the result of the clay and psyllium husk cocktail party!

admin Fasting, Health, Vegetables Bentonite clay, Fasting, losing 10kg in 19 days, Northey St, psyllium husk

Market Wander

Today I went to the markets at Eumundi (pronounced you-mundi) with a new friend I met the other day. It is about 120km north of Brisbane on the Sunshine coast and it was great. I bought lots of yummy condiments from Ken who is from the Seychelles such as the delicious coriander, ginger, chilli and lime dressing, as well as a new pineapple one and a bottle of pure cold pressed coconut oil – can’t wait till I can eat them!

I’m really bored of the fast now. There were so many delicious fruits, vegetables, sauces and other delicious delights I wanted to try but couldn’t today and that is such a shame. (.

Saying that, I’m off to the organic markets tomorrow morning and I’ll certainly be getting a heap of provisions to juice for next week. I have an unusual bentonite clay and psyllium husk mixture drink to start having tomorrow which will drag any parasites or anything else that is left in my colon through by the next day – then I’ll be juice man again.

10kg loss in 19 days – more than 1 kg every 2 days!

By tomorrow I think I will have lost 10kg and I really don’t want to lose any more so will be extremely happy to start getting some nutrition. I’m going to build up the contents of the juices over the days so I can get back to normal foods asap after I finish. I know this will probably be a week or so, but definitely worth it.

Off to bed now as I walked around the markets for about 3 hours as well as had a huge walk along the beach on Sunshine Beach.  

 

P.S. Still don’t feel hungry, just bored of not having the option of delicious meals.

admin Fasting, Health, Vegetables Bored of fast, Delicious condiments, Eumundi Markets, Sunshine Coast

I used an external microphone for my new video camera today and it didn’t work.  As a result, I ended up with a recording with visual only and no sound.  I couldn’t have you watching without hearing, so I dubbed my own words (I should have used a Chinese accent as I felt like I was in a kung fu movie!), and also now have my movie maker tool working so added a bit of Earth, Wind and Fire to the video (I gave a guided tour of my veges so thought that was appropriate).  If I have more time I’ll start creating other funky videos.

Lemons – one of the wonder fruits

Lemons are an amazing fruit.  They are great for energy, for killing intestinal parasites such as roundworms and for dissolving gallstones.  In addition, they are the only fruit in the world which contain ionic fluid which is also found in the liver.  As a result, when you consume lemons, you are helping clean and repair your liver.  In fact, you can apparently regrow your whole liver by consuming a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice ever day for 90 days.  If you have liver problems, I recommend giving this a go as you have nothing to lose and a new liver to gain!

Another thing about lemons is that they are yellow, and curiously the liver produces bile which is … yellow.  All yellow fruits and vegetables are good for your liver.

Papaya or Paw Paw

Seeing as I have them in my garden, a little about the wonderful papaya.

It is another amazing fruit full of vitamin A and C as well ac calcium, iron, potassium and beta carotene amongst others.  It has great digestive properties and when consumed, it helps with your immune system as well as with colon health.  If you rub the fruit (just the flesh in the skin when you’ve eaten the rest) and leave it for a short while before washing off, it digests impurities on the skin and leaves you with healthy soft skin.  It helps prevent rheumatoid arthritis due to all the Vitamin C as well as protects against emphysema.  It tastes delicious with lime and the seeds are very hot and spicy (like pepper) if you eat them and crunching and eating a few is a good thing.

Organic or non-organic?

By now you probably know that eating organic is a better way to go, but if you don’t buy organic, it’s important to wash your fruit and veg in apple cider vinegar (see an earlier post with the apple cider vinegar bottle.)  I just found this website which has the Clean 15 – Foods you don’t have to Buy Organic, and the Dirty Dozen, 12 Foods to Buy Organic.  You may find it worth a glance so you know for future reference and explanations of what to look for is also given.  I was surprised to see carrots in the dirty dozen!

For Quick Reference, here are the lists:  The Clean 15 – foods you dont have to buy organic:

1. Onions
2. Avocados
3. Corn on the cob
4. Pineapples
5. Mangoes
6. Asparagus
7. Sweet Peas (in pods)
8. Kiwi fruit
9. Cabbage
10. Egg plant / Aubergine
11. Papaya
12. Watermelon
13. Broccoli
14. Tomatoes
15. Sweet Potatoes

The Dirty Dozen, 12 foods to buy organic – there are actually 15:

1. Meats & Milk
   
2. Coffee beans
3. Peaches
4. Apples
5. Peppers / Capsicums
6. Celery
7. Nectarines
8. Strawberries
9. Cherries
10. Kale
11. Leafy greens
12. Grapes
13. Carrots
14. Pears
15. Potatoes

Time for bed.  Have a great weekend!

Stop Press – can you believe this!?  The first Depressant Drug for people who are too happy!!!!!

By the way, it’s apparently not for real (TheOnion apparently makes things like this up) … be careful what you believe!

admin Fasting, Health, Vegetables Fasting, in the garden, Lemons, Liver, Papaya, Paw Paw

Check out the video for a brief update of how I’m feeling and what’s going on for today – basically still pumped and feeling great.

 

The Sun – just use your brain.

Is the sun bad for you … yeah, not likely!  The sun is one of the highest sources of complete nutrition.  Don’t take my word for it, just think about it.  Plants which provide almost everything we need (wood for houses, fires, food, dyes, materials etc) come from the nutrients from the soil, water and the sun.  

How could it possibly be that the sun is therefore bad for us?  It has also been shown that skin cancer is actually caused by sunscreens.  Again, think about it logically – if you were a fish and you smeared a toxic substance full of metals and chemicals all over the outside of your body, don’t you think that would have an effect on your health.  Here’s an article I found about skin cancer and sunscreens which was written for the Daily Mail in the UK 6 years ago and covers information about a 13 year study on this concept: Suntan lotion ‘raises risk of cancer’.  You won’t hear too much about this though as sunscreen is multi-million dollar industry, so to say that it’s bad for us just wouldn’t be a financially viable thing to do 

Now I’m not saying go out and get fried in the sun, what I’m saying is be careful in the sun, but make sure you get it on your body every day if you can.  A recommended amount is 20 mins each side.  Also, when the sun is within 10 degrees of the horizon (i.e. just risen or just setting), it is apparently actually good to look directly at it as it stimulates parts of our being which absolutely loves it.  A simple way to determine how far this is, is one fist from the horizon if you hold your hand at arms length – above all though, use your common sense – if it looks to bright, don’t look at it.  If you want to know more about this, just let me know.  Burning obviously isn’t good, and the more toxic your system, the easier you will burn.

 

Also be careful of Sunglasses

Although wearing sunglasses can be really cool, it’s important to make sure that sunlight makes it directly through your eyes.  This allows the healing benefits to affect instead of getting filtered out.  Obviously if you’re driving and the sun is in your eyes, then wear them, but as a general guide, let your eyes feel the sun and not get tricked in to opening the pupils too wide and exposing your eyes to too much sun radiation.

 

 

This may shock, but sunlight can apparently prevent and completely put some extreme illnesses into remission.

Quoting Don Toman’s Farmacist Desk Reference: “On the Vitamin D issue, deficiencies in this vitamin are widespread.  As a result, perhaps tens of millions of men each year are killed by a completely avoidable disease, prostate cancer.  With sufficient Vitamin D from natural sunlight, very few men ever experience prostate cancer.  With women, its breast cancer and osteoporosis  both diseases are entirely preventable, and sunlight is one of the major and most critical keys to its prevention.  Whether you believe this or not, I’m sure you can’t deny that getting 20 mins of sun per day (especially if you live in Australia) is not a big ask, and just remember how good you feel when you’ve been in the sun.

 

A note for the women – Breast Cancer prevention

Other than sunlight, one of the most simple ways to avoid breast cancer is to ensure that the breasts get to move.  Breasts are naturally slightly lumpy and were designed to move around to stimulate the lymph like you see the Africans in National Geographic.  Now I’m not recommending not wearing bras at all (around the house in the evening would be a great time), however if a bra is too tight on the top straps, this can cause tumors around the top of the breast and if it is too tight round the side, then this can cause tumors around the sides.  Again, just think about it – if you wear really tight socks for even one day, notice the indentations on your legs – it makes sense that over time that would cause a problem as a block in the flow of blood and lymph has to have an effect just like in a river which has been trees and debris in it.  The same happens for breasts.  I’m sure if you looked up figures of breast cancer after the bra was introduced, you’ll see a stark rise from that time.

This is also a very good excuse for your partners to massage them for you on a regular basis – now that I am recommending!

All these ideas I have gathered since going along to Don Tolman’s events and books, so make sure you do your own research, but before believing studies and documentation which is often paid for by pharmaceutical companies and the medical industry, ask yourself what makes sense to you as a human being.  Ask questions like:

 

• Is it really logical that the sun is good for all plants and living things, but bad for humans (you don’t see many animals with skin cancer!)
• Do you think our bodies were designed imperfectly so that we could create clothing to ‘fix’ ourselves?
• Our skin is our largest organ and a primary method of getting toxins out of our bodies – does it make sense to suffocate it with chemicals, toxins and other poisons which we can’t even pronounce?  (By the way, as a rule of thumb,  if you wouldn’t feel safe eating it, don’t put it on your skin.)

That’s enough from me today, high horse dismounted – I’m off to bed.

admin Health breasts, cancer, prostate, Sun, sunglasses, sunlight, sunscreen

When you don’t eat, you have a lot more time on your hands

One of the key things I’ve noticed is that I’m not only saving money not eating, I’m saving a lot of time.  In the mornings I simply jump out of bed and start getting ready for work – once I’ve done that, I’m ready to go… simple!  I probably save about 90 mins per day as I don’t shop, cook or clean up.

No change in how I feel – still full of energy, sleeping around 6-7 hours per night and not sleepy at all during the day.   I had a massage and steam to stimulate my body today and  played poker this evening – did pretty well again too and down to the top 24 out of about 90+ people.  Lost to three 2s when I had two pairs and an ace ;o(.

Grow your own and feed your family FOR EVER

Apparently if you have a 2m cube of space (i.e. a 2 metre square and also build it up to multi levels) and also use a few window boxes around your house, you can grow enough food to feed a family of 4 … FOR EVER!   Quite incredible really and it keeps reproducing using the seeds you create.

In fact, apparently if you took just one block in the centre of an American city, you could grow enough food on that plot alone to feed 50,000 people on an ongoing basis.

And another fact about food.  At one university in the US, they took a single tomato and took all the seeds out of it and planted them.  After either two or three harvests of those tomatoes and doing the same thing, they were able to produce enough tomatoes to feed 200,000 people tomatoes three times per day … FOR EVER.  Ok, not such an exciting diet, but when you think about it that way, there really shouldn’t be a food shortage anywhere.

As a result of this last fact, I decided to throw a slice of tomato in a pot I had in the garden and I am pleased to say that within only a few days, there are already three sprouting tomato plants!  Really quite incredible how quickly it is happening.  I have also decided to grow a few other vegetables and have  spring onions, spinach, baby carrots, (try hard) lettuces, oregano, lemon balm, a large basil plant, aloe vera plant (filleted and through my juicer produces 100% pure aloe for my skin or to consume) and now tomatoes.  In  addition, I have a gorgeous paw paw (papaya) which I’ve been growing since I arrived in Australia which I think has a few more years before it fruits.  It’s  such a pleasure watching them grow and I can’t wait till they’re all fruiting.  

 Just a short entry today – I’ve a book to read.  Have a lovely day.

)

admin Fasting, Health, Vegetables Home Vegetable garden, Tomatoes

Weights and measures after 14 days fasting – 7 days juice, 7 days water

 

As you can see from the graphs above, there appears to have been a couple of plateaus in my body changes.  The first was when I swapped from juice to water and my body was probably waiting to see what the trend would be.  I’m not sure about the second one, however I feel that due to walking to work today (1 hour in total there and back) my weight will continue on the downward trend.  Still, that’s a drop of around 7kg in 14 days, or 1kg every two days.  We shall see.

 

Sleeping and Muscle recovery Observations

I’ve noticed another thing – it’s taking me a lot longer to fall asleep.  I feel full of energy when I go to bed, and not fatigued at all, so my mind keeps working for perhaps 15 mins which is about 14 mins longer than it normally takes me to fall asleep.  In addition to that, my muscles from doing sit ups and press ups the other day are still aching.  I put this down to my body not being used to it and also not having all the resources to fix the muscles.

 

I don’t have any training scheduled over the next week or so, and I’ve decided to take this time to reflect and spend some quiet time, ideally in nature.  I have a few exciting things to do, however I feel that I won’t have this chance again for a while so will get more in to my body and clear out any other issues that remain there.  I’m looking forward to this very much.

 

Are you a Completion or a Process person?

When you start something, do you feel compelled to complete it, or do you just enjoy the process of doing it?  Another way of looking at this is: when you serve yourself something from the fridge and you’ve put enough on your plate but a tiny bit remains, would you re-wrap it and put it back in the fridge or just put it on your plate anyway?  your answer to this helps determine your tendancy either towards completion, or process – process people would put the small bit back in the fridge.  Knowing what you are here is worthwhile as it helps you understand your behaviour so you can choose how to react as opposed to just living in reaction.  I have a tendency towards completion … which means that finishing this fast is very easy, especially now that I’m past half way – the only problem I have is that the 28th is so near the 30ththat I’m going to have to extend a couple of extra days till then.  I want to be able to know that I missed eating for a  whole month!

Vipassana – 10 days of meditation for about 12 hours per day

To react or not to react?  Last year I drove down south of Byron Bay to participate in the Vipassana meditation for 10 days.  This is a an ancient technique rediscovered by Gotama Buddha over 2,500 years ago and considered a universal remedy for all illnesses.  After arriving and being briefed about the process, the following day consisted of rising at 6am and taking part in meditation sittings of 1-1 1/2 hours at a time till around 7pm daily if I remember correctly.  Having not really spent much time meditating in the past ( I tripled my amount in the first day alone!) I thought this would be a wise idea as I obviously like challenges.  I have to admit that once I’d found a comfortable position, I didn’t really get any pain whilst sitting and the concept of observe but don’t react was taught intrinsically throughout the course.  It is this concept which has really helped me lead a happier life since then as I now find it very difficult to react to people, events or situations as I know that this too shall pass.

It may shock some of you, and I do realise that there are potentially disease implications, however I no longer react to mosquitoes biting me.  They used to be the bane of my life when out in the bush or rainforests and I had a rule that if they were on my turf I could kill them, but if I was on their turf, then I could only brush them away  (I’ve since extended their turf over mine but minimise their presence with incense and closing shutters.)  What I’ve found is that by not reacting to them, my body reacts accordingly and seldom do I come up in red itchy welts. 

But why do you do that you nutter? 

When we react to something in life, we get the pain of that moment, plus an internal knot is created within us.  One of the key benefits of not reacting to something is that not only are you saving yourself the pain of that moment, you are actually untying a knot of something else completely unrelated.  Remember the truism, How we do one thing, is how we do anything.  If you live in reaction, you are constantly at the mercy of the life going on around you.  If you have internal peace, you can take that anywhere.  Hey, I’m no Buddha, but I do have so much joy in every day of my life and I seldom feel down or in negative emotions for more than a few seconds as I know they are simply messages indicating to me how I can behave in future.

All thinking is Questions and Answers … think about that

If you feel some truth in what I’ve just written about non-reaction, then learning these questions by heart and using them frequently for yourself and others could prove very useful:

• What do you want instead?- great if someone is complaining about how life or someone treated them.
• How is that a problem for you? - great if someone is moaning about someone else’s behaviour
• Who else do you expect to do it? – this is one I like and use on myself regularly.  We all love it when someone does our work for us, so if something needs doing, just do it.  My parents showed me this when they used to illustrate that the time I spent complaining and crying about doing the dishes (again) far outweighed the time it took to do them.

Be careful asking the question Why?  If someone has done something they shouldn’t have and you want them to realise the implications of what they’ve done, asking Why? will get them to explain reasons which support their action.  A better question which inherently creates ownership of our actions could be something like: Why did you choose to do that?  followed swiftly by, What do you want instead?  This gets people to focus on solutions instead of problems.  (By the way, for fun try this with the cat photo and notice the difference in the way you and the cat would feel.)

 

 

 

 

Don’t use High Resolution videos to upload to Youtube unless you have a lot of time on your hands!

I’ve been sitting here all this time waiting for my video for today to upload and I think I chose too high a resolution.  It’s only a few minutes long, but I still have about 100Mb to go!

I’m off to bed now and it looks like the video won’t be added till tomorrow when I get up – sorry for that, you’ll have to check back tomorrow.

 

 

 

admin Fasting, Health 14 day fast, graph updates, Mosquitoes, Non Reaction, Vipassana