water fast day eight: exhaustion

Salvador Dali's "Mirage".  He had a great cameo in the movie last night

Today was probably my worst day yet.  I did got to see Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" last night which was entertaining but nothing fantastic, in the pouring rain.  Today I just could not get out of bed.  I finally forced myself to rise at 9 to open the dog door and feed Mad and Chloe.  Madison was eyeing me warily as I wobbled around.  I got some more water and went back to bed, until about 2:30 when Colin stopped by with my seedless watermelon from Whole Foods so I have something to break the fast with. He took one look at me and told me I should not even attempt to go to the lavish Bar Mitzvah tonight for Jackie's boyfriends' son, but I really wanted to go so I told him I was going to rally.

 I am open to the idea of breaking the fast before Tuesday morning if I felt there were health risks to continuing, but really the symptoms I am experiencing are nothing that I was not forewarned against by reading Fuhrman's book.  His patients spend their entire fast in his clinic resting.  And if my gut is undergoing the maximum healing that Fuhrman claims occurs from days 7-10 then my attitude is I made is this far, how can I quit now?  I'm not planning on repeating this experiment anytime soon!

I could call a doctor and see if he will write me a prescription for a blood test to check my electrolyte levels, but they are so anti-fasting that most would not want to write me a script for fear of liability.  Which is kind of silly since I'm already at the end and I just want a blood test to see if I should safely continue.  I did pull out a package of Hammer Nutrition Enduro-Lytes, the pills I add to my water on really hot days when I am racing or training, but they contain maltodextrin which is essentially glucose, so that was not happening.  I am sick of drinking water at this point; it has a metallic taste and when it enters my stomach it feels like I am pouring water into an empty vessel and it is sloshing around and making me more hungry.  However if I don't keep sipping it I get this annoying dry cough, which sometimes produces a drop of phlegm.

I did manage to force myself out to the park with the dogs.  I was walking really slowly and stumbling over rocks and leaning against trees whenever I could, but the girls got the hour of sprinting they needed. We got back and my every intention was to feed the pups and head into the shower to get ready for the party but after cleaning their feet and feeding them it was all I could do to collapse on the couch and stare off into space.  This is difficult.  I guess that's why more people don't do it.  Of course I've been borderline hypoglycemic since I was a kid so I knew this was going to be especially tough for me.

I actually stopped her for a minute trying to figure out which route
would be easier going.  I chose poorly.

So I called Sabrina and my mom and told them I would not be going.  After resting some more I showered and now I am in bed at 7pm with a big stack of books and my laptop.  I've had very slight detox symptoms: faint headache sometimes, slight clogging of one ear at one point, my tongue is slightly coated white but not much, but that's about it.  I still have the almost omnipresent gnawing, empty feeling in my gut that makes me want to eat a couple of almonds.  Just to make it stop.  And of course my back is a mess from spending so much time in bed or with a poor posture.

So that's about it, more tomorrow if I'm coherent.

stats: weight in am = 116.2  saliva PH = 6.75  urine PH = 6.5