Monday, October 02, 2006

Lessons Learned

Now that I am all atoned and repented, I can share a bit of wisdom with you that I managed to stumble upon during my time of reflection and starvation.

1) Clothes fit a lot better after a fast. I am, however, in no way advocating this as an effective weight loss technique because frankly, and not surprisingly, it sucks big time. Breaking the fast most certainly makes up for all the calories denied the day prior leaving you (me) back at the start.

2) I spend an inordinate amount of time during each of my days thinking about food. When I wasn't eating and was trying desperately not to think about food, I was totally bored! There was nothing to fill all of my empty time. Food = intellectual stimulation.

3) When preparing to embark on a 24 hour fast, the choice of reading material is absolutely crucial. For example, I chose My Life in France, Julia Child's autobiography. I don't know why the problem with this choice wasn't obvious to me until the day of the fast. The book is wonderful, Julia Child's voice is inviting and lacking in pretense and she is generally a whole lot of fun (none of these are novel observations, I realize). It's so much fun to read, especially since each sentence is dripping with her joy and enjoyment of every moment of her life (or of the life she chooses to present, anyway). BUT she talks a lot about food. Duh. She talks about food in gorgeous detail, about both her failures and unmitigated successes. I highly recommend it, but only when you are not at all hungry.

That's as far as I got. I try not to dig too deep.

6 comments:

JC said...

Yeah, the Julia Child book probably wasn't the best thing to read during a fast. Maybe some Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King would've curbed the 'ol appetite?

Anonymous said...

Or Porn.

Anna said...

I'm with Ben on this one.

JC said...

Hmm, it always seems to just make me hungrier.

Kidding!

Maybe you could write a book called The Porn Diet.

Anonymous said...

Would it be a graphic novel? (In both sense of the word.) Fasting does suck, but being on a liquid diet would have to be a close second. Smoothies that come in a box are not smoothies.

Anonymous said...

Me rikey porn too! Sank you velly much!