Try Fasting

Increase Your Energy by Fasting! 

....Or possibly not.

I started fasting almost a year ago as a way to get my disturbingly gross psoriasis under control. (I was willing to wear long pants and long sleeve shirts for the rest of my life, but needing oversize dark glasses and a scarf in order to avoid scaring people on the subway was a bit much)

Apparently, the fasting worked better than I could have hoped. After three 5 day fasts, I was 100% clear and not testing as auto immune. Perhaps it was something else, or a combination of many things, or purely psychosomatic...but the clearing of my skin always happened a couple of days after the fast, so there's that to consider.

While the psoriasis is still gone, I have some other mild health concerns...and the lingering question of why I became psoriatic in the first place. So I have continued fasting every once in a while to bring down inflammation and to annoy my family.

And while my first fast was pretty apocalyptic- my immediate family may have been convinced that I was going to die- it has a bit gotten easier every time.

That is not to say easy. While I hear and read about people who claim to have amazing mental focus and physical energy while fasting, that has definitely not been my experience. 
About 22 hours after my last meal, I always am suddenly cold and tired and so, so, so completely unmotivated. Like the frozen asylum patients in Dr. Oliver Sacks' "Awakenings," I can respond briskly to stimulus- "Got to take the kids to school? Ok!"- but otherwise, I am prone to total mental and physical torpor. And floppiness. And I'm cold. Very cold.

But strangely enough, today, almost 6 days in on my 6th fast, I am suddenly feeling better. Maybe even good.

I am still looking forward to eating some dinner tonight. 
Even though, now, ironically, I am completely not hungry.