Yesterday (day 3) was a break through day. I was again dealing with hunger and struggled with staying focused, but the headache was gone. The morning walk helped wake me up. By the evening my concentration was returning, and I was able to get two hours of audio mixing in on the computer. We watched a documentary yesterday about San Francisco mariachi musicians in the Mission District. It's called "Romantico". One of the musicians in the film talks about as a child going to school hungry. He completed the first grade, after which he left school to help the family earn money for food. Fasting helps me understand the physical part of hunger, but even now I can walk into the kitchen and prepare a small feast. I have no idea how terrifying it must be to be hungry and not know when I might eat again. The hunger these past couple days really wrecked havoc on my ability to focus. I can't imagine how scary it would be to add desperation to the physical hunger of these past few days.
Breakfast on the morning of day three was a pineapple, banana, orange smoothie; lunch was a strawberry, banana, orange smoothie; dinner was a strawberry, mango, orange smoothie. We had tea in the afternoon, and Aimee made some frozen juice popsicles that we enjoyed in the evening.
Day four began after a good night's sleep. This is the best sleep I've had since I got off the coffee-juice. I've been waking up with a bit of a low back ache since day three. I haven't done anything stressful to my back, so I'm guessing that it has to do with the fast. I know a lot of nerves come off of the spine in the lower back to service the intestines (you learn a few things as a chiropractor's son). Today was pretty easy. I'm feeling much less hungry. I did some music work this morning then went looking for affordable retaining wall blocks at the local Menard's... a mostly fruitless effort. We enjoyed a walk around the neighborhood in the early evening. The crab apple trees are in full bloom and the sweet scent of their blossoms are on every block. Speaking of scents, I really stink. One of the things that always happens when we fast is that our B.O. reaches a whole new level of skunk-atude. I don't remember why this is, but when you fast your body starts dumping all of the toxins you've been building up. Those toxins tend to come out in your sweat, breath... well, most places... so I really stink. It's time to implement a "as many showers as needed per day" rule. Not that there has ever been a rule against multiple showers. The first time we fasted my hands got what I can only describe as a gunky film that would return within an hour no matter how much I washed them. It made guitar playing really difficult. Bet this makes you really want to fast too, huh!
Breakfast was fresh orange and grapefruit juice. Lunch was a spicy V8 with lemon and onion salt. Dinner was Cranberry juice. The evening activity was the 9:50 screening of the new Star Trek movie at our local multi-plex which still cost us $19 without the soda and popcorn... live long and prosper!
