It is now "the morning after" my first fast day and I cannot believe that I actually did it and it wasn't nearly as hard as I had imagined it to be. My first meal was 300 calories and consisted of a Healthy Choice meal (250 cal) plus a package of steamable asparagus spears for the rest of my 50 calories. In the morning I drank Diet Coke then I moved to bottled water, then to Iced Tea with Splenda and lemon. The iced tea definitely tasted the best but I did enjoy the variety of drinks throughout the day rather than simply drinking water all the time. I'm sure drinking water would be ideal, but I think it is important that I have a system that I am comfortable with and can stick with. For dinner I had another Healthy Choice meal (280 cal) and a large tomato from our garden sliced up. I think in the future I will make sure I have some more frozen veggies on hand. The tomato was not quite as filling and maybe not the best choice before bedtime (with acid reflux). My first meal was at 11am and the last one was at 7pm. The only time I really struggled was about an hour and a half before dinner. I tried to make sure I was busy doing something and away from my t.v. so I wouldn't have to watch food commercials. The last hour and a half was a struggle but not unbearable. My goal is to gradually increase the time between meals so that I am eventually doing the 7am and 7pm meals on fast day. I will probably eat my first meal at 10am next time...or I might wait until next week to bump the time. I find that this plan that I have devised causes me less anxiety than just jumping in head first into the 7am/7pm plan.
I would have thought that this morning I would have jumped out of bed at 4am wanting to cram my face with everything in the house. That was not the case at all. I woke up at my usual time and ate at my usual time. I was really no hungrier in the morning than I normally am. I did, however, eat my planned upon waffle with syrup and one piece of sausage. This is not out of range with what I normally would eat.
I weighed myself at about 4:30pm yesterday (because that's the first time I thought about doing it) and then I weighed myself this morning....a 7 pound difference (likely water weight). It was still nice to see the scale move even though I'm sure the difference is water weight.
I had hoped that my husband would join in on my fasting, but that hasn't happened yet. The hardest part of this all has been feeding my kids during the fast. Yesterday there was birthday cake in the refrigerator and they kept asking for cake which drove me nuts. I found myself also resisting "picking" at leftover potato chips from my kids lunch. It made me realize just how much I graze during the day.
I have to say that all-in-all this was a positive and empowering experience. I believe this is something that I could continue to do. My only worry is fasting during school as far as my mental clarity and concentration. It worries me to be fasting on a test day given the difficulty of the nursing tests and material.
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