Ok, so I need to report that during the fast there were challenges and even now there are challenges, but nothing that I wouldn’t do time and time again. The health benefits far out way the discomfort or the want to eat solid foods. When fasting, the toxins are released into your system and excreted and cleaned out in several ways; sweating, kidneys, liver, pee, poop, and so on. Juice fasting allows the detox to be slower than just water fasting.
When the toxins get released and your body is trying to rid them you can be uncomfortable. This is normal and happens usually more in the beginning of a fast vs the end. I however had a scenario this morning that usually occurs when toxins are released too quickly into the system. It was a pretty painful and a bit scary experience, but I sit in awe at how miraculous the human body is. Here we go – there will be some personal info here that might make some squeamish.
It’s important when fasting to be sure your pooping. The last thing you want is for a heavy dose of toxins to be sitting in your Colon. Some fasts recommend doing enemas other’s recommend using an herbal tea laxative when needed.
I had used the tea about the 3rd day in and it worked well, no problems, nothing out of the ordinary. At about 8 last night I realized that I hadn’t gone #2 in 1.5 days and my eyes bugged. So I made my self some tea and hopped things would be taken care of before going to work. On that note, even though I’ve broken the fast, very little has changed even though I’m eating small bites of fruit and veges, so I’m still detoxing. OK, morning comes.
I get up to shower and I’m feeling a little off. My body feels a little sick all over but I was prepared for a little something with the tea I had drank. During my shower my entire belly region has the rumbly tumbly growling going on and I can feel things moving all through my intestines. I’m starting to feel worse and hope once I go to the bathroom, I’ll be off to work. WRONG.
I get ready for work and head downstairs to do some juicing for breakfast. I pop 2 blueberries in my mouth and really enjoy their delicious flavor. I finish juicing and by now I’m sort of leaning on the counter breathing out loud, slow breaths as I’m having waves of nausea. I decide its time to hit the bathroom. I do my business, but still feel awful, so I lay down in bed to rest.
Within no time I realize that I’m sweating but shivering and really nauseous. I then start to feel just pain all over my body and I’m starting to get a pretty bad headache. I realize that my heart is racing and its hard to not concentrate on it, as I feel like its going to fly out of my chest. My vision is a bit blurry, but I don’t have my eyes open much any way, as I’m curled into my fetal position under the blankets.
I feel like I need to throw up so I quickly get to the bathroom and dry heave a bunch and finally a few pieces of blueberry stare at me from the pool. At this point, it’s time for more #2. I was sitting there resting my head in my hands and thinking OMG, when is this going to end. I laid back down and covered myself as the heart pounding, sweating, chills, and pain running all over was continuing.
I was a little scared but had read about what happens if too many toxins are released into your bloodstream too quickly. It was happening, I also remember reading multiple saying, “you just have to ride it out.” So I kept telling myself, you’re fine, ride it out. I had the phone close by in case I felt like I needed to call 911 if I thought it was getting too out of hand.
I made a few more trips to the toilet and eventually passed out after about 2.5 hours of this ordeal. I woke up, no more pain, very dull headache, no nausea, no sweating or chills, and I couldn’t feel my heartbeat (good thing, you usually don’t). I sat up in bed and reflected on what the heck I just went through. Here’s my analysis.
I probably had a good amount of toxins stored loose in my digestive track and Colon since I hadn’t gone to the bathroom at that point is was over 2 days. As I was getting ready for work the laxative had done its job and my body was getting ready to get rid of all that waste. I think as all that stuff was moving around and jostling in my intestines, the toxins were stirred up and reintroduced into my bloodstream in a very high amount. My blood basically became toxic. This is the very cool part.
Every organ and system in my body in a very quick amount of time was trying to expel the toxins that were poisonous at this level. My heart was pumping very quickly so that my kidneys and liver could clean my blood. I was sweating to release it through my pours. My stomach was making me throw up and of course it was coming out the other end too. Amazing, isn’t it?
I know some of you might be thinking I’m crazy to be excited about this, but let’s look at the entire picture. I was fasting to detox. At this point, I wasn’t sure how many toxins I had actually released because I never felt to crummy. This was clear to me that my body did have a bunch of crap in it, the fast did work, but by being ‘backed up’ they weren’t releasing the last 2 days efficiently. Once the toxins got a little out of hand, my body quickly went into overdrive to rid myself of them! In just a short time I was feeling better and the toxins gone, no longer lingering in my fat cells to give me disease 5,10,20 years down the road.
So this whole experience has just been amazing. I’m also ok, with having to go through pain and sickness like that to reap the benefits, no pain, no gain – right Dad? He used to say that a lot, but it’s true. There usually is a rainbow at the end of the thunderstorm, and I only had to wait 2.5 hours.
I hope this bit doesn’t discourage anyone from fasting. However, if you’re not in great health or have medical conditions, you should be careful and talk to a healer before doing it on your own. If I hadn’t had healthy kidneys I might have been in trouble. Oh, and during all this my puppas came to lay down right next to the bed. I’ve only witness this with them a handful of times, but they knew there was some crazy stuff going on inside of me. I was great having them there.
I got up, grabbed my juice and some fruit and headed to work. Yup, no problems the rest of the day and I feel fine tonight. I’m not great like I was yesterday and the day before, but that’s normal when you start introducing whole foods too. They scrape the intestinal walls and remove so the toxins that have made there way there. Tomorrow evening I’m going to try a little rice and see how that goes :)
Here’s to good health and our amazing bodies!!