I’ve been pushing myself to the limit a lot recently, finding new limits and pushing further and then retreating and surrendering. My yoga teacher training was a lot of that. Realising I can wake up at 5am every day and do 4 hours of yoga, 3 hours of lectures, 2 hours of meditation and chanting and study and laugh and cry and get up the next day and do it all again. I’ve never been someone who can sleep during the day but during that process I found myself just passing out for naps without deciding to have them.

As a society we are obsessed with food, we talk about it, think about it, take pictures of it and are ruled by it despite for most of us fortunately there being an abundance of it. I have written before about the benefits of intermittent fasting and fasting for longer periods before, but I found a new challenge. The dry fast.

You have your last meal in the evening, wake up the next morning have a glass of water at 5am before the sunrises then have no food or water until the next morning at 5.45am. When you break your fast you get to enjoy a warm salty lemon water than detoxifies your whole system (it tastes really rather bad and the effects of which caused meditation to end quite a lot earlier than planned).

This post I started writing while I was on my fast but I was too tired to actually finish it which may make you lower the rose tinted glasses. The next day my skin was clearer and I had a lot of energy. But I was also very hungry and made up for a lot of missed out eating. Doing a fast while doing a lot of yoga and learning was probably a bad idea.  The dry fast also happened to be the first day I was teaching a yoga class. Yikes. Dry mouth and a complete confusion about where I even was. That sort of cleanse is probably best tackled when you have a day to retreat and lay around  (because that’s what I tried to do for most of the day, despite my engaging surroundings).

Why dry fast you insane person? (You might be wondering). During my course we were told its to do with the moon, 3 days before a full moon or a new moon you do a dry fast and your body gets out all of its toxins and your water level drops. So that when full or new moon arrives and everyone else feels crazy due to the water level rising around the world and in their system you’re ahead of the game. On full moon I felt great. Is it because of the fast? I don’t know. I also don’t really think doing a dry fast is a safe thing to recommend to people and I think it should only be done supervised and for a good reason (If your mad enough to consider it please research and read all the different opinions on it beforehand). Supposedly doing a fast without water means that your body goes into enhanced extra healing mode. But for my purposes a water fast feels like enough of a cleanse.

That said the next time for fasting came around and I was in Zagreb in a café called Amelie (based on the film) eating the best apple hazelnut cake I could of dreamed of. It’s all about balance.

 

Namaste,

Helen – WAP