Day 6

I've had temptations to eat over these first few days, but being at a party yesterday night was one of the tougher things I've done. I really wanted to reach in and grab a potato chip or make a chili dog. Instead, I was sipping on my vitamin water and then regular water refills. 

My legs are a LITTLE sore from yesterday, but nothing so great that I shouldn't be able to WALK on the treadmill today. Emphasis on the walk. I'm going to try really hard not to jog. 

This morning's weight. 239. I was curious to see what would happen this morning since I drank MUCH more water yesterday than I had in the past days. Mostly because I felt a little scratch in my throat that I wasn't sure was dehydration or a cold. I'm still not sure what it was, but it was gone by yesterday night and hasn't appeared this morning. 

I'm not sure that I trust the body fat percentage thing on the scale. Today, it said 26. Although, I think that might be closer to the mark. I guess we'll keep looking at the number and see what happens to it. 

I'm going to finish my book on fasting in a few minutes and start on Francis Schaeffer's The God Who Isn't There. A friend also recommended reciting the Psalms to myself as well during this fast. I think that's probably worth doing. 

Day 5 pt 3

I have a bad habit of overdoing things. I went for my half hour walk on the treadmill, but that turned into 45 minutes. 3.11 miles, 1% grade, 511 calories. I hope I don't feel too bad tomorrow. 

Day 5 part 2

I'm going to go do my walk in a few minutes, but I wanted to post a link to this sermon I just listened to. One of the reasons I'm doing this fast is because of Craig Gross. I don't know Craig Gross, I've never even MET Craig Gross (I've been in proximity to him), but Craig makes his presence known pretty visibly through his organization XXX Church. 

I don't know where I was first introduced to XXX Church, but they've always had a presence at Cornerstone, the music festival I volunteer at as a photographer and general web wrangler. In fact, here's a photo of the XXX Church Porn Bunny I shot this past year at a Family Force Five concert. (you can't see that there's a big stage in front of him with the band) 

(and my friend Jerry happened to take a photo of me at the same show)

anyway, enough about me, back to Craig. Pulpit Rock Church, the people that run the Real Men of Genius group I belong to, also do something called We Do Things. A few months ago, they decided to bring in Craig Gross and Ron Jeremy for their "Great Porn Debate" as one of the We Do Things events. So, being morbidly curious, and also knowing they didn't have anyone shooting publicity photos, Ang and I dragged some friends. 

There wasn't anything life changing about the event. You can see video clips over at You Tube... and I thought that Craig was a little bit too "Rock Star Pastor-ish", but it was an interesting event. 

Anyway, back to the point. Sorry. 

We've been talking about this fast for a couple of months now and I wasn't really sure that I could do it. I spent a lot of time thinking and praying trying to figure out if this was something that I could or should do. Two weeks ago at Real Men of Genius, we watched a documentary about Craig and one of the other XXX Church pastors going around the country on their Starving Jesus tour. Basically, the got in an RV and went around the country on a 40 Day Fast, petitioning the church to get out of the pew and into the world. That we're starving Jesus by hiding inside the church and refusing to change the world. It wasn't the greatest film but it was both inspiring from what their goal was and from being able to watch them go through this fast. 

Today, wandering around Facebook, I noticed my friend Nate had joined a XXX Church group on facebook. I took a look at it and their message boards and noticed a link to the Starving Jesus site. Their was a sermon linked there that summed up one of the major reasons I'm doing this. I'm not as fat as I could be. (Here's a particularly depressing photo from earlier this summer) 

In the sermon, which I'd encourage you to listen to, he talks about a pastor in Georgia that he'd been communicating with named Ollie. Ollie's doctor told him that if he didn't lose any weight he'd die. He also told Ollie that he was much too high a risk to qualify for gastric bypass surgery. One night, he stumbled on an mp3 of Craig preaching at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI (Rob Bell's church) about fasting. Kind of inspired, he decided that he was going to fast. He didn't do it for weight loss, and he didn't lose much wait, but he found that it connected him to God and taught him self control in ways that he'd never been able to learn before. 

I'm still working on the connecting to God part... I think I'll be working on that for the rest of my life, but I feel like over the past year, I've finally been able to build some better self control. I'm hoping that this fast will continue to help me with growing my self control. 

Take a listen to the sermon. If you want to know more about Starving Jesus visit the site. 

BTW, the end of Ollie's story finds him starting to walk for a mile a day at the end of his fast. That leads to walking five miles. That leads to him speed walking five miles. Eventually he runs his first 5k. He ends up dropping from over 430 to 250 pounds. None of that was part of the fast, but the fast showed him that he could do things he didn't think he could do. 

I've done an ironman. I've cycled 200 miles in a day. I know there are a lot of things that I CAN do. But there are still things that I need to know that I can do, and I'm hoping that this season will be training as I head towards that. 

More later.

Day 5

The rest of yesterday went fairly well, although I didn't manage to squeeze in my walk. I developed a scratchy throat mid-afternoon and after getting home from the library and work, read a while before heading to bed early.

Slept from around 10pm to just before 8 this morning when Ang had to get up and go to work.

Weight this morning? 240. I realized the body fat scale we use still had my information stored in it so I had to it calculate that as well. Current bodyfat percentage 31.5. I don't know that that's completely accurate, but I guess we'll see where it goes the next few days.

In response to a question in the comments yesterday, the fast shouldn't have any effect on my work performance. I work in communications (graphic and web design and some video work) and a good deal of what I have to do involves my brain and not physical labor.

Picked up a decent book on fasting at the library yesterday. I feel like I have a better concept of why i'm doing what I'm doing. (Not that it makes it that much easier).

I was talking to a coworker yesterday who starts his tomorrow and I brought up the idea of being in the zone. Whenever I've done long cycling sessions (Ironman Wisconsin 02, my first cycling double century, etc) there were chunks where I'd fall out of the zone and start thinking about every rotation of my pedal crank. It would almost seem like time slowed. I feel like that's where I am in this. I feel like I haven't been able to find the zone where I'm so busy thinking about life (work, prayer, etc) that the time goes faster. I'm hoping that I can get there.

I'm going to try to finish that book on fasting today and dive into Francis Schaefer's The God Who Is There. I've admired Schaefer for a long time but I've never gotten beyond How Should We Then Live which itself was a great book. It's been a while since I've dug into high level theology. 

More later.

Brian

Day 4 part 1

Starting weight 241.

Feel pretty good this morning. Have to head to work in a minute. Had some intestinal distress start yesterday. It's still there this morning. Hopefully it will go away.

Legs feel good after walking two miles each of the past two days. Feel like that might be something I might be able to continue.

Got my first bouts of stand up wooziness yesterday in the hot tub and this morning on my way to the bathroom. I'll need to start being more careful. Other than that, things seem to be going well.

More later.

Brian