Fasting day 7 and 8

My build up days have been going fantastic. My stomach isn't giving me problems at all. The only downside is, now that I am eating again, I am constantly hungry and feel the need to eat. Well tomorrow after my photo shoot in Paris I will have a nice dinner with Raquel! Gotta get the last few things together before I have to leave, sorry for the tiny post :)

Fasting day 6

This morning I felt fine. None the less, I did have applesauce for breakfast because I want to be able to eat normally in two days. I probably could've gotten through today without a problem but Paris is calling ;) In the end I will have fasted for 8 days, 5 complete fasting days and 3 build up days.

My stomach is kind of upset that he needs to work again, even after just self made applesauce from one apple. He will have to get used to it! After two hours of lecture and 2.5 hours of biochemistry seminar, I am excited to make my soup!

Fasting day 5

I was honestly about to give up this morning. I had a stomach ache, head ache, felt noxious and just blah. I dragged myself to lecture. By the end of the two hour lecture I was feeling better. But I have changed my game plan. Since I want to eat a nice meal in Paris on Friday and I can't just switch from 0 to 100, I am starting the "build-up" days tomorrow. This is when my intestines have to get used to processing food again. For breakfast I'll have an apple, for lunch I will make myself potato soup and for dinner I haven't decided what I will make yet, the website gives some options. 

The rest of the day was absolutely fine but I am sick of this weakness feeling which according to the people who have done it before reported being a great feeling on and after the 4th day.

Fasting day 4

Almost half way done. I woke up feeling great this morning. Last night, lying in bed, I had a bit of a stomach ache and just wanted to fall asleep. Thankfully, any sign of discomfort was gone once I did wake up. The first half of my day was fine. Wasn't hungry but what is killing me is the thoughts about all the yummy food there is, how I could be baking chunky chocolate chip cookies and eating the dough or the three cans of salt and vinegar chips standing in my kitchen. The appetite for food is what is really getting me every time and I have to tell myself every time that it is all in my head and that a craving passes. I am not about to stop half way although my friends tease me with sayings such as that they are about to go and enjoy some ice cream. I don't let that bother me though. Tonight I will be half way through and the rest of the week is busy as always and I have to start packing for Paris!

The second half of my day, during our lab, I was a bit cranky. The experiments didn't really go as planned (which probably bothered me the least), there was a lot of sitting around from the others and talk about food and the Lab TA was always on my back about things although I was following the exact protocol. So I became a little bit cranky. Now I am home, enjoying a short break before I continue with biochemistry.

Fasting day 3

Honestly, this morning has been the worst so far. I woke up feeling totally weak, couldn't concentrate and hardly wanted to get out of bed or even drink water! I did sum up the energy to drag myself into the living room with a glass of water and tea and pulled up the fasting website and started researching a bit. Turns out I am allowed to drink fruit juice during fasting. It has to be held in moderation but especially in the first few days it is important so that the blood sugar level doesn't drop harshly. As I was reading the description, it basically all applied to what I was feeling. Translated from the German website:

"In the first 1-3 days of fasting, it can occur that your blood sugar level drops off- especially when you also workout (I was running two days ago and yesterday I had a party/dance marathon with 3 parties to attend)."

"A too low blood sugar level can show symptoms such as fast heart beat (check), dizziness (check), sweating (check), chills (check), fatigue (check), muscle weakness (check), pale (check) , food cravings (check), nausea (check), restlessness (check), confusion, nightmares, communication difficulties, loss of concentration (check), impaired vision or speech disorder."

So you can see from all the "check"s, my blood glucose level was definitely too low. Luckily, I still had a bottle of fruit juice. The website recommends a 1:3 mix of fruit juice to water. I made it a 1:1 because I wanted to get out of that state. I laid on the couch and watched a little TV until I started to feel a little better. I will stick with drinking 250-400ml fresh (not from concentrate!) juice a day because I do have a rather busy schedule and if I don't I might become under sugared again.

In my current state I really don't have an appetite for anything. The thought of broth makes me want to gag and I'm not to hot on drinking tea or water either. Of course I will force myself to drink water and tea atleast because I don't want to become dehydrated and I hope that later on I will be able to drink some broth so that I get some salts in my body. 

I hope this was just a minor incident and with the gained knowledge I now have from the website, I will be able to forgo such states.

Fasting day 2

This is a lot easier than I thought it would be! I woke up this morning and wasn't hungry! Throughout the day there were two times where I was a bit hungry but I think it was more of appetite than really hunger. I could have eaten a bar of chocolate this morning when I was so upset about my neighbors. They feel the need to BLAST, not just a little loud but BLAST!!!! their music at 8:45 in the morning and do that for 3 hours....break and 2 more hours of heavy metal rock and their accompanying screaming. They can't sing and are annoying, I wish they would move out. I tried to get them to turn it down but every attempt failed because, well the music was so loud that I couldn't get their attention. I wrote them a letter and taped it on their door hoping they would get the message. The next time it happens I am calling the police. Seriously, no person in their right mind would turn their music up that loud!

Anyway, I bought a bunch of different tea varieties today so that I wouldn't get bored. We shall see how it continues! I will keep you all updated with anything half interesting :)

Sprained ankles, fasting and jobs...hurry!

Howdy!

So most of my last post holds true. Physikum is still always there, lurking like an evil munchkin. I am also active in all the things I said I was with the exception of the work out classes. 

On a Monday a few weeks ago, my friend asked me if I wanted to go play volleyball with her. During warm ups I fell to the ground with a twisted ankle. Great! The first thing I said to my friend when she ran to my aid was, "I felt my malleolus on the ground!" This makes me a huge nerd. For those who haven't been absorbed by what is known as Anatomy, the malleolus is the last bit of bone of the two bones in the lower leg. Nerd....I know. Anyways, I got ice on it right away and even rode my bike home. I wasn't about to go to the ER for a sprained ankle. Later that night, my roommate tried to convince me to go though. I didn't really want to listen to him and instead called all my friends to find someone with a bandage I could use the next day to get to lecture. Nobody had some! This really surprised me with all of us being med students and all. Three of my friends advised me to go to the ER. Manu called up his friend that lived nearby and has a car and he came and picked me up. I was checked out rather quickly in the ER and they told my I tore a few ligaments on the outside side of my ankle. Fabulous. I got crutches and a light bandage with some pain relieving cream on it. I got home around midnight and promised my ER buddy that I would invite him to dinner sometime as a thank you. This ER visit was followed the next few weeks with 3 more appointments. Every time, the doctor would mention something regarding my last name. Apparently the first doctor I had went around telling his colleagues that he treated a relative of the Hoff. At the second appointment, I was supposed to get a brace but my ankle was still too swollen. I finally got it at the third appointment. This brace allowed me to walk without crutches. This was particularly useful because I flew to London the next day over Easter and was able to run around the down without looking like a total gimp. At my follow up appointment 2 weeks later, the doctor told me I could stop wearing the brace and start working out again. He didn't have to tell me that twice and the next day I was on the elliptical, bike and treadmill!

Classes are keeping me busy as are my jobs. Psychology stress is now hopefully over because we had the exam today. I don't think it went very well I must say. This was the first exam where the German language created problems for me. I haven't had that problem on any exam so far. The way they worded questions was difficult sometime and I even found 2 words that I have never heard before! We don't get the results until Wednesday. I hope I passed. But I won't be very happy either if I just pass. Those who know me know that is just how I am. I don't see the point in just passing an exam with 1 or two points. Then I might as well fail. But let me not get ahead of myself, I will know Wednesday.

Last weekend I was in America. My big sister graduated and I surprised the whole family. This was only possible because my grandma paid half of my ticket. That said, the ticket was one of the cheapest I think I ever purchased to get to America and that less than a week before take off! The surprise was a huge success and I had an amazing weekend with family and friends.

My newest challenge is fasting. We've been hearing it in lecture in reference to biochemical reactions and after talking to a few people about it, I have taken on the challenge to fast until Friday night. I will try to post my experience here. I have heard that the hunger feeling goes away after 2-3 days. I wasn't planning on starting until tomorrow, but after breakfast I just didn't eat anything anymore and I figured I could just go with it. I even sat through dinner with friends at a restaurant tonight where they all had pizza and I happily sipped my tea. The people who have fasted before reported that they felt so good after the 2-3 days where they were hungry. Can't wait to see what that feels like. But it wasn't hard at all today. Since I am willingly doing this, my stomach seems to play along.

I also got myself a new job. I will be writing I blog about my Anatomy experience in a Blog for an organization here called MediLearn. I don't know when it is officially starting. The guy wanted to get back to me sometime soon. Once I have a link for it, I will post it here.

That is all for now. :)