Prayer & Fasting

As forthcoming as I am about being a neurotic, substance-abusing homosexual, sometimes I get a little embarrassed writing about matters of faith. And that's a shame. Of course, being a neurotic, substance-abusing homosexual is fashionable. Being religious, not so much. Anyway, I personally believe that my feelings last night were a test of my mettle. A test of my committment to what I want to acheive. A test of my faith.

Today is the last day of my fast. I haven't been all that bothered by hunger for the past nine days. (At least not as much as you would think.) But I have been absolutely voracious today! Unfortunately, I can't just cut loose tomorrow, put on my eatin' clothes and inhale the refridgerator for a couple of reasons. First of all, I've lost a noticible amount of weight on this fast (which, along with cleansing my body, was the other half of the reason I did it in the first place). If I were to jump right back into an unhealthy eating pattern, the weight would simply come right back with reinforcements. My intention wasn't to crash diet but to jump start a healthy program of nutrition and exercise. I haven't had the energy to do any cardio while on this program, and I decided that strength training would be imprudent since I wasn't taking in any protein. On Friday, I'm planning to hit the gym running and attempt to replace the fat I've lost with muscle.

Second, when you fast, you're supposed to ease your body back into food so as not to shock your system. On Day 3 of the fast I was at the store looking for more maple syrup, and I started looking around for what I might start back eating. At the time, I told myself I was simply being prudent, but really I was damned excited at the prospect of food. The conventional wisdom for coming off the Master Cleanse was too slow for me. I mean I'm not going to spend ten day drinking nothing but lemonade only to drink nothing but orange juice on Day 11! Since I was trying to detoxify, I bought everything organic and came up with the following menu:

THURSDAY
Breakfast - Orange juice
Snack - Orange juice
Lunch - Vegetable broth
Snack - Orange
Dinner - Salad

FRIDAY
Breakfast - Orange juice + Protein powder
Snack - Yoghurt
Lunch - Vegetable soup with barley
Snack - Robek's (Creatine/Trimbek/Protein boosts)
Dinner - Whole wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce

SATURDAY
Breakfast - 1% Milk + Protein powder + Flax seed
Snack - Banana
Lunch - Cottage cheese
Snack - Serving of peanuts
Dinner - Chinese chicken salad

I wasn't able to get myself to perform my devotional last week, but so far I've managed to make it to church every morning this week. (At 7 a.m. Ugh!) And coincidentally, this morning's gospel and homily were about prayer and fasting. (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18) It's given me good opportunities for reflection, and I consider it part of the process with the fast.

A Word of Thanks

Thank you so much to my friends who took the time to write comments of encouragement on my entry from yesterday! I can't tell you how much it means to me.