A warning about making sure your bowels are clear before dryfasting.

Hi,

I just finished my dryfast—it was tweleve days— and I made a pretty big mistake in preparing for it and I wanted to warn anyone to make sure to take the proper preparation in regard to this mistake.

So, I did not reduce my diet down from ‘full diet’ hardly at all over the few days preceding my dryfast. This was a mistake. My body was carrying around the food-waste, in the form of excrement, of a whole day’s full diet—or even more than that—inside it over the course of my whole dry-fast. Though I tend to keep a healthy BMI I still tend to eat a lot in the day because I have a health condition which is very energetically demanding, So the waste I was carrying around was significant.

Because my body never ejected this waste after I began the fast it was sitting in my gut the whole time. I would feel very uncomfortable abdominal contractions during the fast and I think this must have been the reason. I would also have gas in my belly from time to time and I couldn’t figure out at the time why this was. I would feel pretty nauseous at times too. Towards the last couple of days of the fast I began to become very very weak and had to stop for long recuperation breaks to lean and breath if I tried to move or walk anywhere, and my body would sometimes try to vomit, but with only saliva to eject—I think the waste I was carrying was largely the cause of this.

I think it actually grew to be quite dangerous right towards the final hours of my fast as it so happened that my body just at this time was finally trying to get rid of the waste. But because I was dehydrated, there was no water for the body to eject the waste with. I knew that it was an emergency and that I needed to start drinking right away whether I was on the hour of completing the fast or not. Luckily I didn’t need excessive amounts of water to clear the gut in the end and the recommended rate of intake of water to take after breaking a dryfast was enough. But it was very uncomfortable. I think there probably a very serious danger as without water it felt like the strain to try and get rid of the waste was too much for my body’s cardiovascular system to manage, while at the same time it felt like my body urgently needed to get rid of it.

If you ever find yourself in this position, just remember that soaking the body, especially the mid-riff and torso, in warm water will help a lot to clear the problem.

So if I were you and when I do this fast again about a year from now I would just make sure to reduce my diet down in the few days preceding the fast and make sure my bowls are empty before proceeding. There must be some good advice about this matter which I missed.

A real noob’s mistake and one I’ll be careful not to make ever again! Now, another cup of veg broth for me—lovely!