For two days straight those heart-shaped cinnamon candies followed me wherever I went.
The first time I saw them they were in my husband's vehicle on our way to play trivia, but I resisted them because I was still on my "Daniel Fast." Then they were in a couple of different places in the kitchen. But I never ate any.
At the end of the second day, it happened. I sat down in my husband's favorite chair in the living room... I saw then off to the side of the chair and I broke down. First, I actually looked around the room as though someone was going to catch me - and then I ate two heart-shaped candies.
I was disappointed in myself because I wanted to make it through the 21 days of this partial fast and since sweets were on the taboo list, cinnamon candies were certainly a no-no. "You have to draw the line somewhere," I had been telling myself. "If you eat even one candy, you've gone over the line and where will you stop?"
I may have eaten those two pieces of candy...but
I MADE IT THROUGH OVER 21 DAYS WITH NO COFFEE!!!
After going almost a month with no coffee, I wasn't getting any more headaches from withdrawals and the mornings got easier and easier to handle without it.
But guess what?
"They" say that there are certain benefits to coffee and I enjoy a cup or so in the morning, so I am back to my morning cup of Joe, as of yesterday. (I am not going to go into detail, but it seriously took me four attempts at making it before I had some coffee to drink, so maybe I should have taken that as an omen...)
I will now confess to you that I stopped the "fast" two days early (except for the coffee. I did make it over 21 days not drinking that). My husband and I went to a social downtown the night before my daughter Carly's TEDx debut and the original, unique array of foods and wine caused me to lose all resolve. (Yes, I know that inanimate objects cannot force you to do anything).
I started this fast to see if I actually felt any better at the end of it and to tell you the truth, I didn't really notice that I felt different. I will never know if my cholesterol went down or if anything else positive happened "internally," though. Some people have attested that they get things like that checked out before and after and that there are huge differences.
I think that for myself personally, the reason that I didn't feel a big change is that these past (almost) three weeks, I didn't eat or drink much differently than I normally do. I typically don't eat things like white breads, pop and sweets anyway, so there wasn't a big change in diet there. The biggest change I made was not having any eggs or yogurt. Water was the only beverage allowed on this "partial" fast and I had no problem with that - except for the coffee of course!
I will say, though, that since my job was cut, I have had a very sedentary life style sitting at this computer all day, so being extra careful about what I eat is going to be very important, unless I don't want to blow up like the "GoodYear blimp"
.
"Everything in moderation", so they say. I think that I agree with that.
(I may not have noticed a big difference in how I felt, but I did notice how many occasions there are to eat junk food when you are especially trying to avoid it! So, I think that I did pretty well...)
I think that often when people think of a vegetarian diet (which is similar to what I was on), they believe that one's diet has to be bland. One thing that this experience did for me was to open my eyes up a bit more to how amazingly tasty fruits and vegetable can be - if you take a little time and eat them in some other form besides how you bring them home from the grocery store!
I made a few recipes that were absolutely delicious and I am going to share one easy recipe with you:
Cabbage Steaks
To make them, just peel off the outside layers of the cabbage, cut them in one-inch slices, brush olive oil on one side of them, put pepper, salt and garlic (if you like garlic )on them. Bake in the oven at 375 or 400 degrees for about 25 minutes on each side. Delicious!
So there ends my saga of the "Daniel Fast."
Nothing life-changing, but I learned a couple of things ... and I'm OK with that.
Thanks for reading
P.S. If you are curious about what "TEDx" is, here's a brief re-cap from their web site:
"TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. At TEDx events, a screening of TED Talks videos -- or a combination of live presenters and TED Talks videos -- sparks deep conversation and connections. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis."
My husband and I had never heard of TEDx until my daughter was asked to be one of the presenter's at Grand Fork's first TED talk this past Friday. You may want to google it some. Very interesting...!
