Day Five 5:50 AM

Day Five is beginning as uneventful as any other day of my life. The fact that I have not eaten for four complete days is nowhere to be perceived of in my mind. I feel a slight sense of accomplishment by having succeeded in depriving my mouth of its fun 'n games for this long, so that's one kind of positive thing.

This whole thing of fasting appears, to me, to be a mind game. Just like running doesn't have much to do with the physical part of it and recovering from alcoholism doesn't have much to do with not drinking, fasting does not have a whole lot to do with not eating. To me, in MY perception of it, the whole thing revolves around how your mind handles the ordeal.

I decided, at the onset, that I was not going to "try" to fast, I was GOING to fast and I erased any possible snippets of thought that might endanger my success. Every time a thought pops into my head of eating (which happens frequently), I change the channel. I just force myself to think about something spiritual, I pray, I read, I walk outside, I start a fire in the fireplace, I pet the dogs, ANTHING but continue that thought about eating. And it works, for me.

So now I am beginning my fifth day and I am confident that I can make it through the day without eating. That's another technique I use . . . a day at a time. I do not think about tomorrow. If I had thought of going five days when I started this thing, I would not have survived even day one. So each day I decide it I can go this one day without food and lay down the law for the day: NO FOOD just for this one day. Then I play the same trick on myself the next day. It works!