I decided to continue dry fasting until around noon for 90 days like I did last year. I had really good results from it last year and I'm curious to see what healing will take place over the next 90 days. Also, it's easier for me to dry fast until noon, eat fruit until about 7:00 when I eat a salad, and stop eating by 8:00. This works better with my schedule.

I'm on day 4 of dry fasting and feel great. Yesterday I had 2 thick smoothies and a huge green salad. Tonight I'm going to make a salad with mint which will be somewhat like a tabouli(sp?) but without grains. I use chayote instead and 1/4 the oil.

Peace,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

When I change the way I look at things, the things I look at change.

Wisdom is knowing the right path to take.  Integrity is taking it.

Hi Everyone,

I'm on my 9th day of dry fasting. I can feel a change in my stomach/colon area. I checked my alkaline level and I'm at 7, so I'm doing well there.

My wheat grass is growing really well, so I can harvest some today and drink it. Yeah! I'm looking forward to that. I'm still drinking smoothies and eating salads for dinner.

Today I walked-jog for a half hour. I also did some stretching. Yesterday I practiced yoga for an hour along with other exercises. I also got fresh water yesterday. The water at my house has a terrible flavor. Therefor, I go to the old Canal Zone and get water from there. The water has a great flavor which reminds me of the water I grew up with.

Well that's it for today. Blessings to all.

Mona
[padremickey.blogspot.com]

God speaks to us all a little differently, hoping we'll tell each other.

Have patience with all things, but first with yourself.

Mona, I think the things I am doing may help you with your detoxification. My posting is Raw Food Victory.

One thing I am sure would help you is cleansing shakes like the ones I do with the Arise and Shine program yearly. This program removes mucoid plaque from the alimentary canal and detoxifies the body. The cleansing shakes absorb toxins because of the bentonite portion. I don't feel nearly as much of the detox because the bentonite gets it. I found out the hard way that fasting is easier when I am using the cleansing shakes and herbs from Arise and Shine. I also believe I get more detoxification when I am doing that program. The raw foods diet also detoxifies, at least when done vegan it does. I don't use the animal products so I wouldn't know if you can detox while consuming them.

I understand your thinking it can take ten years to detox. I have felt like that at times but now I know detoxification is an ongoing process because the body has to detoxify just from its own processes. Detoxification is a thing that happens in degrees. The body detoxifies for a while and then it stops because it needs to do something else. We can hurry it along with diet and programs like Arise and Shine and fasting, but the body can only do as much as it can do.

Best of success to you in quest for superior health and vitality. Mys Benson

Hi Mona,
I did the Arise and Shine cleanse 2 or 3 times; always loved it for the ease and the good results. Even the most so-called 'advanced' of his cleanse protocols was a breeze. I think I did all of these cleanses in the 1990s; haven't done anything like that in recent years. Maybe I should!

All the best!--

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

I'm on day 24 of morning dry fasting. I think it's going really well. I did blackslide and ate some cooked food yesterday at a cook-out fund raiser for the Girl's Home for which I work. I have a weekness for West Indian cooking, I must admit. The best thing for me to do is just not be around it. Other than that, I'm doing well. Some days I dry fast for 14 hours and other days for 16-18 hours. It's not that I try to fast as long as possible, it just depends on my schedule and when I get home from work.

I'm around cooked food all the time and the temptation is strong at times. My husband cooks every night. Sometimes it takes a lot of strength not to give in. Most of the time it's easy.

I was reading that when I feel like binging which is what I do in the afternoon, that perhaps instead of saying to myself "I'm hungry" say "My stomache is healing" then drink some water. The idea is to create a different mental habit that leads to healing. I wonder if it will work? Anyone besides me want to try it?

Peace,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Humility is not a station we arrive at; it's a way of traveling.

Time is going by really fast. I'm on day 34 already of my morning dry fasts. I don't have an ending date like I did last time. Just want to see how long I can do this. I'm looking for specific healings.

Changes I notice: My stomach is not sticking out. No matter how thin I am, my stomach tends to be somewhat extended and it's flat now. I also noticed my tongue is really pink again. It hasn't been this pink in years. I'm sleeping well and deeply. I feel more relaxed and centered. I'm back into my spiritual readings, meditations, and exercises. That's what I notice.


That's it for now...

Much love and serenity to all.

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

While it isn't always easy, if I keep it simple, it works.

I'm on day 42 of my morning dry fasting. I had a really bad migraine on Thurs and Friday and a bit of a sore throat yesterday. Feels like detox-time is here. I hope I don't get too sick because I teach every day and hate to miss classes. Been still eating lots of papaya/banana/pinapple smoothies and really good salads. I'm into red seedless grapes right now and eat them regularly. Yumm.

I do tend to have my first meal around 1:00 most of the time making it 17-18 hours of fasting rather than my prefered 14-16. Most of it has to do with my schedule. I teach between 10:10 and 12:40 and don't eat before going to the school. Therefore, depending on the day, I don't get home until 1:00 or later. Maybe this is really a blessing because I'm detoxing more quickly.

Blessings,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

If I have the courage to begin, I have the courage to succeed.

H O W = Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness.

Mona--
Blessings to you for your perseverence! What an inspiration you are. I'm continuing on my liqudarian adventure! :-)

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

I'm reading along also, and I didn't or really don't know what 'dry fasting' is though.

Love,
Prism

A dry fast is not eating or drinking anything within a given period of time, usually around 16 hours. I do it anywhere between 14-17 hours depending on my schedule. It's highly recommended by Tonya Zavasta, who wrote the book "Beautiful on Raw." "Quantum Eating" and several other books. However, she recommends to start the dry fast after your last meal which would be in the early afternoon, say around 2:00 or so. Then you can eat first thing in the morning. This doesn't work with my schedule at this time.

I first heard of it about 5 years ago when one person on this forum was always talking about how great it was. He dry fasted in the morning and ate around noon, which is what I'm doing. I was so new to raw food at the time I didn't see the advantage of it. Now I'm on day 82. My goal is to see how I feel by the end of the year which will be around 140 days dry fasting. The last time I did this I went about 100 days. I really liked a lot of aspects of it. My only concern is my need to overeat. I think I'm trying to make sure I get enough calories in because I have a tendency to be thinner than I like. I drink tons of water during my eating period, so dehydration is not a concern like it was for me my first time.

Hope that helps.

Love,

Mona
Come to Padre Mickey's Dance Party for the fun of it!
padremickey.blogspot.com

Change is a process, not an event.

Don't give up before the miracle happens.

***never mind***



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2009 04:13AM by kwan.

haha-- (In the above post) I was about to enumerate some of the mistakes I'd made since my recent 12 day fast, but then I thought better of it! Wasn't really that bad anyway, just a few slip-ups.

Mona, you're such an inspiration. I'll take your advice: 'Don't give up before the miracle happens.' :-)

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

Hi Kwan,

I like that advice, too. I think there's lots more miracles on the way.

I'm on day 90 of my morning dry fasts. Wednesday, I had a really bad sore throat. It felt like I had strep. But it only lasted 1 day and then took 2 days to completely leave. I don't know if it was due to eating too many spices, like I do with my salad dressings, or if it had to do with detox from the fasting. At any rate, it left without meds, just lots of water and rest, I am back to feeling more healthy and energetic.

I made a faux spinach lasagna on Saturday. Wow! Was it ever good and beautiful. I ate the rest of it last night. Sometimes I get really into raw gourmet and sometimes I think it's better to eat as simply as possible with no added spices or complex recipes. I'm so confused in this area. I see raw food chefs and think, they're healthy and look at the spices and complex food they eat. Then I eat that way for a while and get sick. Then I go back to being strict and start feeling hungry and wanting something more fulfilling. Seems like it's time to do some more studying in this area. What probably doesn't help is I watch Iron Chef with my hubby, who loves to cook, and I want to make beautiful fancy raw dishes.

Have a wonderful day!

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Faith is our greatest gift; its sharing with others our greatest responsibility.

I'd love to eat some of the complex dishes too, but my body won't let me. Even when I eat simple raw, I'm still some 30 lb. overweight. I always thought that going raw would change my metabolism, but I can honestly say after some 25 years of raw, my body type hasn't changed much. and I still have a bit of a 'Pillsbury dough girl' look. ;-p So for me, recipes with a lot of nuts and/or fats are just not an option. And I don't feel good when I eat them. It can get a bit boring staying with simple fruits and vegetables and juices; that's the biggest challenge.

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

thats ok Sharrhan im still a bit of squishy too

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Squishy is cuddly and adorable. Yay for us squishies! We get extra hugs. ;-)

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

Thanks for you input, Sharrhan. I can't eat dishes heavy in nuts and oils either. They're just too much for me. I seem to have cravings for the idea of such food, cuz then when I read the recipes and see what they all entail, I loose my appetite for them. The recipes I tend to use are higher in veggies then nuts. The amount is important, too. I made a really wonderful and rich salad dressing with only half the oil called for. When I use only a tablespoon on my salad I'm good. When I use more than that, it's too spicy for me, I can barely eat it and then I get a tummy ache afterwards.


Blessings,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com
I'm on facebook. Look for me under Mona Dresbach.


Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself

Day 94 of my morning dry fasts: Today I feel so emotional. Not sure what's going on. I seem to remember how when we cleanse, we cleanse out old emotions, too. I sure hope that's the case. I'd been doing really well; living one day at a time, feeling joyful, enjoying my life, then WAM! I'm sure it will pass.

Foodwise, I started going through the recipes on Gone Raw looking for middle eastern food. I've got a craving for falafals, baba ganouj and the like. Right now I'm just looking but not doing anything else...

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

It’s hard to be hateful when you’re being grateful.

Iron Chef is entertaining, but haven't seen it for over a year or more. I don't even like gourmet foods cooked or raw.

I like things like guacamole, or the raw lemon or lime pudding with just avo, lemon or lime juice, and dates. It's so creamy..but I hardly ever make it.

I remember some time back I did read some of your diary and I think I asked what dry fasting was.

Love,
Prism

Hi Prism,

I agree, Iron Chef is entertaining. I used to watch the original all the time about 12 years ago long before I became raw. My husband speaks Japanese so we used to watch the Japanese station a lot when we lived in the Bay Area. Now that we have cable my husband watches the food channel regularly.

I had a huge craving for gourmet raw for the past week or two but I think that is over. I even went to Going Raw and got a bunch of recipes for middle eastern food, by favorite. So, for dinner I've been eating grape leave salad (it's the filling with chopped grape leaves). I think the craving ended when I made the baba ganoush last night. The flavors seem so strong. I couldn't even enjoy my regular salad. Now I'm looking into something else. More simple foods. I haven't tried mono meals. That's a thought. Maybe I'll do one mono meal a day for a while and see what happens. Gee, from one extreme to the other.

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

The difference between pride and humility:
Pride is who is right.
Humility is what is right.

>Gee, from one extreme to the other.< LOL, glad I'm not the only one Mona!

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

Hi Mona,

I think met you and your husband back in the late 70s in the bay area. I had a guitarist friend named Tim whose brother Thom knew and perhaps even played in a band with your husband. His name was Michael and his wife was Mona. If that's you, then its a small world indeed.

That's us, Bryan. Small world. Michael's facebook friends with Thom now. I haven't seen Timmy in ages. Did you play in Prolog or A Cruel Hoax for a while? Is your last name Morasaki or something like that? Come to think about it, Prolog was in the 70's and A Cruel Hoax was Michael's band in the 80's.

Anyway, I came on to talk about my 30 day trial with 80-10-10. My first 3 days was trying to settle into eliminating my nut intake which is excessive. But today, I've learned a lot more and succeeded in being 89-6-5, with fat being 6% and protein being 5%. I'm still not sure which comes first. That's so much better than yesterday's 72-23-5. My first day on fitday was mostly to see where I was on the fat content: 68-26-6.

I also learned that it's important to eat more greens, so I'll try that tomorrow.

I went back to Fitday.com and started calculating everything a few days ago. I'm trying to keep my calorie count to around 2000 because when it's lower I get soooo skinny. I'm not interested in getting down to 110 or 105 again.

I'll let you know how it goes..

Love,

Mona
padreymickey.blogspot.com

It isn't the load that weighs us down------it's the way we carry it.

I'm still on my first few days of 80-10-10 and still learning. These are my results so far:

Nov. 20: This is how I ate all the time. I know sometimes my fat content was much higher though. I knew I was eating too much fat and so I think I was a little more aware of how much I was taking in.
Carbs, Fat, Protein: 68-26-6
Cal: 1,886

Nov 21: I tried eating more carbs and less fat, but still trying to figure out the diet.
Carbs, Fat, Protein: 72-22-6
Cal: 2,056

Nov 22, 2009: Again, still trying to figure out how to do this and aware of how much fat I took in.
Carbs, Fat, Protein: 72-23-5
Cal: 1,751

Nov. 23: Got some help and this worked out well.
Carbs, Fat, Protein: 89-6-5
Cal: 2,231

Nov, 24: Oops. Didn't have a chance to eat much that day and ended up eating more fat than I wanted and less fruit than I wanted.
Carbs,Fat,Protein: 74-20-6
Cal: 1,347

Nov, 25: Looks like I'm back on track, but would like more calories. I really want to eat at minimum 2000 a day.
Carbs, fat, protein: 88-7-5
Cal: 1,850

So far I'm learning that I will be wanting to eat more fruit during the day and more greens. So today, I'm off to the store to buy more fruit.

The hard thing for me so far is replacing my afternoon nut snack with a fruit snack. Grapes and OJ are a good choice for me right now.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Faith without works is dead.

Faith is spelled ...............a-c-t-i-o-n

So, I'm still dry fasting in the morning and still eating 80-10-10. I don't have the book, so I'm starting to look into archives to do this. I learned Graham talks about carbs, protein and fat, in that order, so I'm changing my order, too.

This week I had really bad headaches. I know I was eating too much fat and spices before; could be a detox from that. I also am getting really tired and therefore taking naps again in the afternoon.

Here's how I did:

Thurs. 11/26 -- 1759 Calories, 87-5-8
Fri. 11/27 -- 2128 calories, 87-4-9
Sat. 11/28 -- 1768 calories, 85-4-10
Sun. 11/29 -- 1768 calories, 87-5-8 (yep, what are the odds I would eat the exact amount of calories 2 days in a row?)
Mon. 11/30 -- 2197 calories, 89-5-6
Tue. 12/1 -- 1996 calories, 87-5-9

What I find hardest is trying to keep around 2000 calories a day and to get my protein up to at least 5%. I miss my nuts...

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Meditation is our step out into the sun.

Since Bryan brought it up, you now know my hubson was in a band oh so many years ago. Here's the video of the band he formed in the 80's called The Wonders of Science. [padremickey.blogspot.com]

As for my diet, I'm still going strong.

I ate a little more fat yesterday than I intended. I think it was more because I also didn't have as much fruit as I usually do and I really wanted a bit more than 4% protein.

I find it hard to eat that much during the day.

Thurs, 12/4: 1,588 cal, 83-6-11
I still weigh 120. Yeah! Loosing weight is not my goal, health is.

If any 811er's read this please feel free to let me know it your calorie intake went down because of the bulk of the food.


Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Surrendering means you don't have to fight any more.

Glad to see we're back online. I missed you guys.

I'm still doing 811. My numbers seem to go around 82-86--4-7--8-11. Not bad. I have another week and a half to go then decide if I want to continue or not. I've been getting really bad headaches lately which is either related to detox or the stress I'm feeling lately.

I started practicing metta last week and it seems like all of a sudden I'm having more trouble practicing loving-kindness throughout the day. Sarcasm and other negative emotions and thoughts are popping up. Not very loving-kindness of me. At least I know this is transient. My mentor says to just keep steadfast and sit with the feelings knowing they will go away eventually.

Back to food: I'm eating lots more fruit than before. I'm having a hard time eating salads right now. The greens don't taste good and are unappealing. My salad dressing is made with cucumber, pine nuts, celery and fresh orange juice. It tastes good, but there's something missing in the salad. I really liked the garlic, lemon juice and olive oil dressing I used to make. I'm still mourning some of my fattier foods.

Love,

Mona

Just for today I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole life problems at once. I can do something for 12 hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a LIFETIME.

Live in the NOW.

So I dropped the ball on being 811 over the weekend. I'm thinking about trying it again. What I would like to include is juicing. I don't juice very often because I have a black and decker juicer which is a pain to use and clean. It has a small feeder so everything has to be cut into thin pieces and it takes forever just to prepare the veggies. Enough complaining. If I really want it, I can do it, right?

All the problems I was referring to on my last post have vanished. Everything is transient. My grandmother used to say: "this, too, shall pass."

I'm going to work 811 again today, one moment at a time if necessary.

Take care and have a blessed christmas.

love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com


When your head begins to swell your mind stops growing.

While it isn't always easy, if I keep it simple, it works.

Being a missionary and all, I tend to follow the liturgical calendar. Feast days of Christmas just ended Wed with Epiphany and it's time to get my mind off the feasting food and back into regular time. I have a plan for Lent and hope to carry it out, so am preparing myself mentally to take on my lenten discipline. Therefore, I'm making plans then going back to one day at a time in order to carry out those plans, God willing.

I got some wheat grass growing and hope to drink more diluted wheat grass juice. It's diluted because my juicer is not meant for grass, so I chop it and put it in the blender with some water. Then I strain it. Usually this makes about 1/2 cup of juice. It's worth it. Yesterdays juice was sweet. It's not always sweet to me.

I'm still dry fasting. Whenever I think about stopping, I think of the improvements I have received during the last 149 days and am curious to see what else it could do for me.

This is getting long, so I'll stop. Take care and may you all be peaceful and happy.

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

I have since been brought into a new way of living infinitely more satisfying
and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived before.--Bill W.

New ideals and new attitudes bring a new life.

My goodness. Tuesday night I went to bed feeling fine, then all of a sudden I was a throw-uppy puppy. My whole body emptied itself. I thought I had food poisoning. However, I've been weak ever since. I slept all day Wednesday and rested yesterday; I could barely raise my head. I just drank sips of water and sugar cane juice on Wed. Yesterday I made a juicy smoothy with 2 bananas and 2 cups papaya and a bunch of water. It tasted good and even though I took my time eating it, it felt like lead in my stomach. When that digested I tried watermelon. Now I understand watermelon digests really easily and quickly. I'm telling you, for me yesterday, it also felt like lead in my stomach and took more than the 20 minutes I heard it takes to digest. Hopefully, I'll feel better today. I got a meeting to go to and company is coming over tonight.

Take care and stay healthy.

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

We surrender to win; we give away to keep; we suffer to get well; we die to live.