The most frequently heard complaints of fasters are headaches, dry,
cracked lips, dizziness, blurred vision with black spots that float,
skin rashes, and weakness in the first few days plus what they think
is intense hunger. The dizziness and weakness are really real, and
are due to increased levels of toxins circulating in the blood and
from unavoidably low blood sugar which is a natural consequence of
the cessation of eating. The blood sugar does reestablish a new
equilibrium in the second and third week of the fast and then, the
dizziness may cease, but still, it is important to expect dizziness
at the beginning.
It always takes more time for the blood to reach the head on a fast
because everything has slowed down, including the rate of the heart
beat, so blood pressure probably has dropped as well. If you stand
up very quickly you may faint. I repetitively instruct all of my
clients to stand up very slowly, moving from a lying to a sitting
position, pausing there for ten or twenty seconds, and then rising
slowly from a sitting to a standing position. They are told that at
the first sign of dizziness they must immediately put their head
between their knees so that the head is lower than the heart, or
squat/sit down on the floor, I once had a faster who forgot to obey
my frequent warnings. About two weeks into a long fast, she got up
rapidly from the toilet and felt dizzy. The obvious thing to do was
to sit back down on the toilet or lie down on the bath rug on the
floor, but no, she decided that because she was dizzy she should
rush back to her bed in the adjoining room. She made it as far as
the bathroom door and fainted, out cold, putting a deep grove into
the drywall with her pretty nose on the way down. We then had to
make an unscheduled visit to a nose specialist, who calmly put a
tape-wrapped spoon inside her bent-over nose and pried it back to
dead center. This was not much fun for either of us; it is well
worthwhile preventing such complications.
Other common complaints during the fast include coldness, due to low
blood sugar as well as a consequence of weight loss and slowed
circulation due to lessened physical activity. People also dislike
inactivity which seems excruciatingly boring, and some are upset by
weight loss itself. Coldness is best handled with lots of clothes,
bedding, hot water bottles or hot pads, and warm baths. Great Oaks
School of Health was in Oregon, where the endlessly rainy winters
are chilly and the concrete building never seemed to get really
warm. I used to dream of moving my fasters to a tropical climate
where I could also get the best, ripest fruits to wean them back on
to food.
If the fast goes on for more than a week or ten days, many people
complain of back discomfort, usually caused by over-worked kidneys.
This passes. Hot baths or hot water bottles provide some relief.
Drinking more fluids may also help a bit. Nausea is fairly common
too, due to toxic discharges from the gall bladder. Drinking lots of
water or herbal tea dilutes toxic bile in the stomach and makes it
more tolerable.
Very few fasters sleep well and for some reason they expect to,
certainly fasters hope to, because they think that if they sleep all
night they will better survive one more deadly dull day in a state
of relative unconsciousness. They find out much to their displeasure
that very little sleep is required on a fast because the body is at
rest already. Many fasters sleep only two to four hours but doze
frequently and require a great deal of rest. Being mentally prepared
for this change of habit is the best handling. Generalized low-grade
aches and pains in the area of the diseased organs or body parts are
common and can often be alleviated with hot water bottles, warm but
not hot bath water and massage. If this type of discomfort exists,
it usually lessens with each passing day until it disappears
altogether.
Many fasters complain that their vision is blurred, and that they
are unable to concentrate. These are really major inconveniences
because then fasters can't read or even pay close attention to
video-taped movies, and if they can't divert themselves some fasters
think they will go stir crazy. They are so addicted to a hectic
schedule of doingness, and/or being entertained that they just can't
stand just being with themselves, forced to confront and deal with
the sensations of their own body, forced to face their own thoughts,
to confront their own emotions, many of which are negative. People
who are fasting release a lot of mental/emotional garbage at the
same time as they let go of old physical garbage. Usually the
psychological stuff contributed greatly to their illness and just
like the physical garbage and degenerated organs, it all needs to be
processed.
One of the most distressing experiences that happen occasionally is
hair loss. Deprived of adequate nutrition, the follicles can not
keep growing hair, and the existing hair dies. However, the
follicles themselves do not die and once the fast has ended and
sufficient nutrition is forthcoming, hair will regrow as well or
better than before.
There are also complaints that occur after the fast has been broken.
Post-fast cravings, even after only two weeks of deprivation, are to
be expected. These may take the form of desires for sweet, sour,
salt, or a specific food dreamed of while fasting, like chocolate
fudge sundays or just plain toast. Food cravings must be controlled
at all costs because if acted upon, each indulgence chips away the
health gains of the previous weeks. A single indulgence can be
remedied by a day of restricting the diet to juice or raw food.
After the repair, the person feels as good as they did when the fast
ended. Repeated indulgences will require another extended bout of
fasting to repair. It is far better to learn self-control.