11-Day Water Only Fast - Day 11

I am Dillon Holmes, and I recently stayed at the True North Health Center for two weeks for my first prolonged water fast. I fasted 7 days! I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Alan Goldhamer to talk about fasting. In this video we cover the following: -What is the ideal human diet? -What happens if we don't eat that diet? -What is water fasting and when did it come about? -Who is best for water fasting? -For what ailments is water fasting best suited? -Should we fast when we get sick? -What is the difference between TrueNorth and the McDougall Program? -Are there benefits from doing a short 3-5 day fast? -What is ketosis and how have we misused this critical body process? -Is it too late to get healthy if I have already had an extreme surgery? -Environmental toxins and fasting. -The ideal health care system.

Day 11, another good start to my day. I woke up well rested and feeling good. No tiredness, weakness, or any other negative symptoms. I actually feel better than when I'm not fasting because my joints and muscles hurt less upon waking. All my recent days on the fast seem to be quite similar recently. 

Because I went for a good couple of walks yesterday, and the temp dropped significantly outside today, I decided today was a no-walk day. I'm sticking with moving and stretching my body throughout the day, along with my favorite table pushups and deep squats. It's been quite a journey, and I'm enjoying my last day of water. 

I ate my last meal at 6:15pm 11 days ago, so, I decided that was a great time to end my fast. I had my first bite at 7pm.I would have liked to go a few more days longer, but my resting heart-rate was getting very low, and I knew eating would help me regulate that better. It dropped to 38 beats/min while sleeping and 44 resting heart-rate during the day, and had been dropping almost every other day. 

I broke the fast with a fasting soup recipe by Buchinger Wilhelmi clinic, so technically it's not really breaking it, but I wanted to ease in very slowly. So I made the batch of soup, and had about 10oz of it at 6:30pm and another 10 oz at 8:30pm. It was delicious!                                                                          

The recipe for this soup:

1 red onion, 20 baby carrots (sauteed in water), then added 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 inch of ginger, onion powder, garlic powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbs apple cider vinegar (to aid in digestion) and 4 cups of low sodium veggie broth. 

I had half of it, this evening which came to about 60 calories. 

Because the soup was the first thing my belly experienced, and it wasn't very filling, I noticed that I was pretty hungry trying to sleep, a feeling I hadn't felt for the past 11 days. This might have been a factor in not being able to sleep. I was very restless and basically just not tired enough to fall asleep! I did eventually fall asleep for about an hour and a half, then woke up at 2:30am and ended up lying in bed trying to sleep from then until 6:30am when I got out of bed. Although I basically had no sleep, I was feeling just fine in the morning. I was actually really looking forward to getting the day started to put more in my belly!