Fasting Whilst All a’Sniffle

So, I started feeling The Ick about a week ago, but I’ve been really good about hitting the neti pot every day since I first felt the telltale scritch of Ick in the back of my sinuses.  Thanks to this, I never got sick-sick with what was probably the Evil Respiratory Infection that my mom’s been talking about as stalking her work recently.  (Mom’s work is a hospital, so they don’t get the sniffles stalking them; they get the 3v1l!)

However, even the neti pot can’t put the smack down totally on common virii, so I did eventually get The Sniffles.  The only thing wrong with me is apparently a) sniffles, and b) a tendency to sneeze amusingly loudly and several times in row, just in case someone missed how funny it was the first time.  I was also getting that irritating Og-Jeebus-I-Feel-Like-I-Need-To-Sneeze-Constantly feeling yesterday evening, but it turns out that a dose of neti kills that on contact.  (And why not?  It’s sinus irritation.  What else can you do to "itch" that area besides flush it with a little saltwater?  Gaaaaah it felt good, though, which is weird since I’m used to neti feeling-horrid-but-working.  That time it felt great.)

I thought I might have a touch of fatigue as well, but it was probably just work — by the time I relaxed a bit and took my nap yesterday afternoon, I felt fine and worked on origami stuff until 1 a.m.  (Origami is one of my woohoo-no-schoolwork-this-week activities.  Yay!)  Feel fine this morning too, unless you count the sniffling.

Well, needless to say, I was highly dubious about fasting today, even though most of what I’m reading suggests that fasting is perfectly appropriate, even helpful, during most illnesses.  (Exceptions are if you’re weak or consumptive, pregnant, etc.)  And they make a good point:  Animals fast when sick, as do most children.  To stop burning calories on digestion and re-route that energy to the immune system makes sense, if you’re in good enough shape physically to subsist off stored nutrients for a while.

Sadly, I’m pretty sure I’m not a good enough faster to really make much of a difference in the positive, but after whiffling (while sniffling) for a while, I decided to go ahead with the fast today, even though I don’t feel like it particularly.  I want comfort food, darnit…but hey, that’s exactly the kind of habit I’m trying to blunt with this whole fasting experiment. 

Plus, something else I’ve learned (embarrassingly recently):  The core of discipline is doing something all the time, especially when there’s a non-urgent reason to skip it.  And discipline, though it gets a bad rap from misuses like the military, has value in itself.  I wish I had more of it.  ;)

So, I am doing fast #6, as planned, on schedule, whilst sniffly.  I’ve modified my "juice" intake to reflect being sniffly:  Hot (homemade) echinacea tea, hot chicken & veggie broth (the former has protein and the latter doesn’t, so I decided to mix them), a small vegetable/fruit juice drink and a small protein drink (about 1/4 of what I’d thought I needed last time, but I ended up not drinking all that anyway). 

Soon now, maybe after 8 successful one-day fasts, I want to try two days per week and see if I can hang with that.  According to my reading, fasting two days per week is part of some people’s regular diet, and it doesn’t seem to have any detrimental medical effects.  (Not that I wouldn’t watch out for those.  Nutritional issues are almost impossible to ignore in my case anyway — I have a ton of hair and it’s very picky stuff; if I’m healthy I need nothing but a hairbrush, but the second I develop some deficiency my hair goes waaaaaugh.)

You know what surprises me?  Fasting, at least for a day, seems to mess with my sleeping not at all.  I wonder if that’s normal, but as I have yet to meet anyone crazy enough to be both polyphasic and fasting, I may have to wait a while to find out.

And on that note, if I don’t see ya, everyone have a pleasant Thanksgiving-or-the-equivalent-or-just-a-nice-Thursday!