Skinny Vegan Man

This is day three of my fast. Will a water-fast lower my blood pressure? I’m still not sure. My blood pressure readings have come down a little but not nearly enough. But this is just the third day.

• Day 1 180/105
• Day 2 173/94
• Day 3 171/91

So far this is an easy fast. I have a nearly-normal amount of energy. I have no hunger.

This is unusual for me. I’ve fasted many times in the past and have always felt both fatigued and hungry by the third day.

Fasting and the Brain

A lot of people feel increased mental energy during a fast. This may be because of the ketones produced during a fast. It may be due to lower toxicity.

This has been my experience in the past. I’m feeling it now as well. I’ feeling a tremendous surge in creativity and general mental energy. I’m starting to feel this right now.

This is mostly good. I have been able to write both more prolifically and better than when I’m eating.

(The only bad part is when you are hungry you may want to sleep through it. If your brain is awake, you may be smarter and more creative, but you will still be awake enough to feel the hunger or other discomfort you may experience during your fast.)

I’m hoping that this translates to writing computer code. A big part of what I do includes programming my websites. If I can write better code I can make more money.

I’m hoping that I can continue work through this fast. I work for myself and I also work from home, so I can create my own schedule. However, I still have bills to pay and if I take too much time off those bills don’t get paid.

Take Advantage of Your Increased Creativity

You may not find that your brain works better while fasting. Some may have the opposite experience. However if you do you will want to take advantage of it. Finding ways to motivate your brain to new heights of creativity is important in these poor economic times, you don’t want to lose your best ideas.

If you are experiencing increased mental energy, but lower physical energy during your fast, please write or record your ideas. You may be at your creative peak so don’t waste your great ideas. Carry 3 by 5 cars with you or a device that will record your spoken words (phone, tape recorder, digital recorder).

For many people fasting is a time of prayer and contemplation.  I’m doing both during this fast.  One of the things that I am contemplating is the many people who are unable to eat today as opposed to those like me who chose not to eat today.

Giving means that you can be the answer to someone else’s prayer.

This is day two. Things are going well so far. I have no hunger and I still have a normal amount of energy.

Hunger and Fasting

One of the things that may shock you is a lack of hunger during a fast. Some people will have a desire for food deep into their fast, but many will lose that desire within the first two days or so. (According to Herbert Shelton, before you run out of resources hunger will return to prevent you from using vital tissues for fuel.)

Why might you not experience hunger? A pound of fat has about 3500 calories. If you take things easy that can be over two days’ worth of energy. Even a skinny guy like me has many pounds of fat.

Most skinny people can fast for well over a month without doing any damage to their bodies. (But some can’t which is why I’m having my fast overseen by a physician trained in fasting supervision.)

Who were the most famous fasters of the twentieth century? I haven’t done a survey, but I think they were Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Dick Gregory. Both men make me look obese by comparison.

Dick Gregory is 79. He is still skinny, still alive and, I assume, still healthy. Gandhi died from an assassin’s bullet and not from starvation.

The reason we feel hungry when we have all this stored fuel in our bodies is probably based on many factors. I believe one of them is the inability to use this stored fate as fuel. When we fast our bodies quickly start generating the enzymes necessary to turn stored fat into usable fuel.

This may not be a long term solution to world hunger but I suggest:

When you fast you go without food because you choose to do so. Many people around the world are hungry and it isn’t their choice. Please consider donating the money you save on groceries during your fast to someone who needs it or to an organization that can do some good with it.

I don’t have a lot to report today. I feel about the same as I did before I stopped eating. It is very early in my fast. I’ll post again soon.

Today is the first day of what I hope to be a 22-day fast and I feel great! There really is no good medical reason for me to feel differently after just a dozen or so hours of abstaining from food, but I think I know why I feel differently.

I have taken this important first step towards a better life. Even if I don’t reach my goal of lowering my blood pressure, I will have made an important statement to myself.

Don’t Ask Your Doctor

(Please read this entire section before “taking inaction” or passing judgment on the writer.)

Chances are your doctor hasn’t been trained in fasting or other complementary therapies. He or she would probably be committing malpractice if they were to supervise your fast.

So if you ask your doctor about a complementary therapy what is he or she likely to do? Do you think your doctor is going to say “I don’t know anything about that, why don’t you go down the hall and see Dr. Smith. She’s much smarter than I am and knows about these things.” or do you think that your physician is more likely to tell you that any complementary therapy is a bad idea?

I’m all for working with a competent medical professional. I’m working with a physician who is supervising my fast. However, she has been specifically trained in this area. Naturopathic physicians learn about fasting as a standard part of their training.

To My Fellow Fasters:

When you fast you go without food because you choose to do so. Many people around the world are hungry and it isn’t their choice. Please consider donating the money you save on groceries during your fast to someone who needs it or to an organization that can do some good with it.

This is day one and not a lot has happened so far, but I feel strong mentally and feel I’m ready to do something really good for myself.

This is day zero of my fast. In other words, I’m still eating, today but will stop in a few hours.

Why am I fasting? I’m doing this for several reasons. I want to improve my spiritual health and my physical health. I also want to improve my physical performance.

Fasting allows me to better empathize with others less fortunate. However, it does not allow me to experience everything that a hungry impoverished person does, because I know that there is a full refrigerator and pantry in my home. Being hungry when it is your choice is fundamentally different than being hungry when it is not your choice.

To My Fellow Fasters:

When you fast you go without food because you choose to do so. Many people around the world are hungry and it isn’t their choice. Please consider donating the money you save on groceries during your fast to someone who needs it or to an organization that can do some good with it.

I must admit that my reason for fasting this time is more about my health than about my spirituality. I am a long-term vegan with high blood pressure. In fact I’m a skinny (5′ 11″ 155lbs or 70 kg 180cm), high raw, athletic, hypertensive vegan man.

Do all vegans have low blood pressure? Apparently that is not the case.

I always knew that hypertension ran in my family. Both of my parents were hypertensive. My father had several strokes before he passed away at 57.

But both of my parents were heavy. Neither ate anything close to a healthy diet. So I thought that my gym rat tendencies and my eating habits would protect me. Instead I just proved that although these lifestyle choices helped me in other ways, skinny vegans can be hypertensive.

Does Fasting Lower Blood Pressure?

According to what I’ve read, water-fasting is an effective intervention for high blood pressure. I don’t know if it will work for me however. Over the last six months I’ve all but eliminated added sodium from my diet; I’ve increased my running mileage; I’ve eaten more greens; I’ve eaten more sprouts; I’ve started taking supplements. My pressure has improved, but is still a long way from normal.

My wake-up call was on April 30th 2011. This was just before a man wearing a mask stabbed me in the shoulder. The surgeon took my blood pressure before my rotator cuff operation and told me that it was 230/170.

I shouldn’t have been preparing for surgery. With those numbers I should have been selecting hymns for my funeral.

I had been working almost around the clock in the days and weeks leading up to my rotator cuff surgery. I knew that I would be unable to be very productive for a period of time after the surgery so I wanted to do as much as I could before then. I averaged less than four hours of sleep in the days leading up to the surgery and since my surgery was scheduled for 7:00 am, I got even less sleep the night before the surgery.

I was pleased to find that my blood pressure went down considerably after getting four or five full nights of sleep. It went down to about 160/100. That isn’t a great measurement, but my wife took the undertaker’s phone number off her speed dial.

This quick reduction led me to believe that getting my blood pressure under control would be quick and easy. I thought that if I just eliminated salt and started exercising again I’d be normotensive in a few weeks. (I hadn’t worked out much in the previous five months because of the shoulder injury.)

Although I had a few normal readings in July and August. (I may have been getting more sunshine and therefore made more vitamin D during the summer.), my average blood pressure remained around 150/95 and actually inexplicably spiked to 208/113 a few weeks ago. My reading was much closer to my average the next day. Then I had another spike a few days later. So instead of buying a black suit and selecting a mahogany box, I decided to fast.

Pure vanity and a desire to improve my athletic performance are also part of my motivation for this fast. I want to look as good as I can. I want to continue playing basketball with young men and boys who are one third to half my age.

I also want to gain weight. That may seem like a strange reason to go without food for three weeks, but I believe that you have to scrape the paint off your house before you repaint it.

About this fast

My plan, goal and expectation is to fast for twenty-two days. I will only drink distilled water. I will only end my fast earlier if my naturopathic physician says that I should do so.

This will be my first fast of over seven days. It will, therefore, be my first supervised fast.

Although I think that fasting is a natural and that the risks are limited, there are some risks. Childbirth is natural also. Women have been having babies for as many millennia as people have been fasting. Apparently long before there was modern medicine, most women did fine. However, today I think that it would be foolish to have a baby without the watchful eye of a midwife or other professional. IMNSHO long fasts fall into the same natural, but risky category.

I’m working with a local (Stratford, Connecticut) naturopath named Susan Rzucidlo. Naturopaths go to school just as long as MDs do. I believe that they can do anything that an MD can do besides (I think) surgery. The big difference is their approach to healing. MDs are often more interested in managing a disease than actually helping you reverse it. Fasting supervision is part of their standard training. If you are lucky enough to live in a state where naturopaths work you may want to find one you like to be your primary care physician.

In a few hours I will move from day zero of my fast to the first day. I’ve never gone three weeks without food, but I’m determined to get better.

I’ve proven that vegans can be hypertensive. Now I’m set out to prove whether or not fasting lowers blood pressure (at least whether or not it will lower mine).

Wish me luck!