[MightySunTzu]

After fasting 30 days, i enjoyed some highly anticipated live juice and cooked broth from freshly juiced vegetables, namely tomatos and onions... after enduring 8 hours of genuine hunger to reach the full 30 day goal. Immediately upon waking in the morning, i had 3 very nice bms.... presumably the final contents of my colon. The juice, as if by magic, seemed to prompt my body to let it go.

On to the following days...

Generally in previous fasts i have been very disciplined in doing things a certain way... in particular breaking the fast with a day of juice for every 4 days of water and a day of juice + fruits & vegetables for every 4 days of water+juice. This has always worked out for me exceedingly well. With this in mind, my plan was to go about 7.5 days of juice and broth, then about 9 days of fruits and vegetables before anything else.

However, I believe that somehow, "Fasting to Completion" is a whole different animal than any fast i had undertaken before. I was still being digestively cautious, but quickly felt that my body was "DEMANDING" more than just juice. I felt i kept returning to "genuine hunger" all over again 20 minutes to an hour after i had some juice.

I decided i had to have whole fruits at least, to start there cautiously feeling my stomach and paying attention to it... as well as paying attention to how well the bowels seemed to be moving. This was at about 1.5 days of breaking the fast. In listening to my body, i felt very strong signals that this is what i "HAD TO DO" to escape a genuine hunger that was continually nipping at my heels or to say it another way, a genuine hunger that was "heckling" me . I began to feel i was in a race against it and i had to out-run it, lest some nutrient that i was extremely low in manifest itself in an unhealthy way.

Foremost, i wanted to do what i believed to be the most healthy given my situation and i felt i had to improvise as my normal caution in gently and very gradually breaking the fast did not in this case seem to be the healthiest way to proceed.

The whole fruit i started with was Watermelon. It is perhaps the most easily digested fruit of all, so it makes for an exceptionally gradual transition from juice to whole fruits. The watermelon meal was so juicy and delicious... i enjoyed it immensely after 30 days of eating nothing. Without exaggeration, it honestly felt as satisfying as Thanksgiving dinner .

The many other fruits i moved into over the next several days include: pineapple smoothies, cherries, mangos, grapefruit smoothies, blueberries, grapes, peaches, nectarines, papayas, apple, strawberry/banana smoothies.

Also, at this point, upon taking whole fruit and still not feeling satisfied, i very quickly began to feel a fantastic demand for the juice and cooked broth of the green leafy vegetables that had gone bad in my fridge and so with the utmost of urgency as if still driven by genuine hunger (which indeed i was), i raced down the mountain to satisfy this high intensity demand for spinach, green leafy lettuce, kale, beet greens, collards and other such super-foods.

Initially upon breaking the fast, i knew i did not want to be without the very best of everything so soon after a fast to completion, but since it is not close, i was going to give it a few days and make it work with the many other exceedingly healthy foods i had before making another trip. The DEMAND i was feeling, however, convinced me that it simply could not wait.

So instead of my plan to have only juice and fresh veg broth for 7 days, in listening to my bodys special needs unlike any i had ever experienced before, i limited myself to only juice for just 1.5 days then had whole fruits. By 2.33 days, i was having both whole fruits (chewed or smoothied) and also whole vegetable smoothies (spinach for one, leafy lettuce, and red, yellow or green bell peppers to round out the dance card). Additionally, i was having the fresh, live juice of carrots/beets/celery/parsley and the cooked broths of fresh juiced kale, beet greens, asparagas, broccoli, as well as brown, yellow, white, red and green onions and garlic. Fresh tomato "puree", i have been enjoying both live and cooked.

Something still seemed to be missing so by day 4 i cautiously stepped into some almonds as well as fish oil. Day 5 i thawed some sushi grade salmon that i had purchased a couple weeks ago for this occasion and enjoyed some salmon sashimi that melted in my mouth. I don't believe i began to feel i was "beyond teetering on the brink of genuine hunger" until i had this all too satisfying salmon. Perhaps my body was needy for a fair portion of protein... or who knows... all i am doing here is speculating, walking in something (genuine hunger) i had never experienced before.

Each time i was eating a new food, i would do so carefully, feeling my stomach (not to be confused with the large intestines) after a little bit and each time my stomach has felt fine. When the almonds didn't create an unwanted challenge, i felt confident by the next day that i could have some raw salmon.

As well, after eliminating the 3 initial bms, my colon felt strange and gassy for about 2 days, but it was moving fine right from the start. (the strangeness could have been from a complete absense of intestinal flora perhaps, as both bad and good are said to be wiped clean after about 10 days of water fasting). After the first 2 days of feeling odd and gassy (perhaps also the colon was reacting this way in response to its emergence from long hibernation) my colon seemed to be basically back to normal. I am pretty sure i was "eliminating" the first whole fruits i ate within 6-8 hours or so of eating them and have been enjoying excellent regularity ever since.

So i am at 7 days right now and basically enjoying the following each day: Live Juices, cooked broths of freshly juiced vegetables, fruits and fruit smoothies, vegetable smoothies (not chewing whole vegetables as yet, nor having any that are cooked), salmon sashimi, yellowtail sashimi, almonds and other nuts and sometimes protein powder,

I feel astonishingly good, not unlike a man walking on clouds.

On day 6 i decided to test the waters by easing back into both cardio and isometric muscle workouts, not expecting much. For cardio, i was amazed to find that my body carried me up the hill at 80% of my max heart rate for a steady 7 minute climb (I was anticipating a transitioning 70% climb but the 80% came quite effortlessly). This was my first workout in 36 days of anything remotely intense and it felt amazingly good and easy. I expected to work gently towards this and be at this point in 2 more weeks, but what a great surprise. And this 80% was me taking it easy, being very careful not to over do it. I specifically slowed myself down a little bit to keep it under 81%.

Today i made the same climb and was prepared to move to the next level... still easy going, but a little bit more of a challenge than i provided to myself 24 hours earlier. So i took the 7 minute hill with a steady state pace of 85% of max with a final peak of 87%. Again this was easy, i could have pushed considerably harder, but want to be patient and ease back gradually into the highest intensity levels.

I definately feel an amazing "lightness" that seems to make the climb noticibly easier than it had been pre-fast (having lost 20 pounds of fat and countless toxic elements within). Another exciting development is that my lungs feel newly rejuvenated like i am 18 years old. Taking exceedingly deep, comfortable easy breaths is something i haven't enjoyed for quite some time... not that my lungs had it particularly bad before, nor did i notice them being in any way below normal... but now that they are feeling this amazing, i can compare the difference and it becomes clear that my lungs were not in the same league 36 days ago. I would say that my lungs had been ever so slightly my weakest link where cardio was concerned, my heart and legs both being in better shape. It will be interesting to see now, if my lungs are no longer the weakest link how much harder i will be able to push.

On both days of quick cardio "ease in workouts", i followed with about 45 minutes to an hour of isometrics, straining half of the muscles each day as a prelude to getting back to some weight training within the next few days.

At the fasts end, i weighed 154 pounds. I have been stating all along that i believed 18 pounds of my 38 pound loss to be temporary and would be back within 2-3 weeks of breaking the fast. At the 6.5 day mark, fully 8.5 of this 18 pounds is already back on my body, so this morning upon awakening, I tipped the scales at 162.5. Within 2 additional weeks or less, i expect to be at about 172, the point at which the tempory loss will all have returned.