What to Eat After a 7 Day Water Fast
DISCLAIMER:
We are not doctors, nor experts on fasting. We do not recommend anyone do a medically unsupervised water fast. If we had not been in Northern Spain when Lou got injured, he would have gone to True North Health Center (https://www.healthpromoting.com/) in California to do his water fast with the support of their medical team. If you are under 18 years old, on medication, addicted to any substances, have currently or had a history of eating disorders, are pregnant or breastfeeding, have heart problems or any other diseases it is even more important that you seek the advice of a medical professional before attempting a water fast on your own. This post is just explaining what Lou ate after his water fast, but not a prescription for anyone else.
There is something called Refeeding Syndrome which happens when someone who is starving or malnourished eats too quickly and their balance of electrolytes is completely out of whack leading to cramping, ravenous hunger, and can go as far as cardiac and neurological symptoms. This is very dangerous and one of the reasons I don't want anyone to do a medically unsupervised water fast because of our content. Again, Lou was very healthy (minus the back injury and rheumatoid arthritis) and not addicted to any substances going into his water fast.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMy3MDYWXiA&w=854&h=480]
We decided that the best way for Lou to eat after the water fast was to go back to a diet that had provided him so much relief from his Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) symptoms while we were living in Berlin. I have a whole health section of our website that you can check out that goes into Lou's journey to manage his RA symptoms originally and why we eat a whole foods oil free plant based diet.
Let’s get into exactly what Lou ate after his 7 day water fast. He started with one day just organic cold-pressed juice, then one day just raw fruits and vegetables, then one-day raw food plus steamed vegetables. After that initial stage, he was really happy to be back eating solid food. For about two weeks, Lou ate a very simple low-fat oil-free vegan diet - basic oatmeal with some fruit for breakfast, lots of salads with steamed vegetables plus rice or quinoa. The psychological hunger during those two weeks was definitely tough, but luckily he was able to eat as much of these foods as his stomach could handle and still keep his pain levels down.
Today we uploaded a video to our channel that goes into exactly what Lou ate for the 20 days post water fast and we are really looking forward to hearing what you think of his journey. He feels so good still and while not completely pain-free, his arthritis in the morning is down to about a 1 or a 2 which is worlds better than where it was just a few weeks ago at about 6 for his RA pain and 8 for his back. He is still eating a low fat oil-free vegan diet, high in sprouts, greens, and fermented foods. We've added some spices into our diet now, but overall are still really enjoying the basic meals.
I think the potential culprit to his lagging pain is the quality of water we have in the van. We do have a water filter, but it really is just to make sure the water we find is drinkable (ie no parasites) because finding quality water in a van is not always easy. The water filter we have does not filter out everything that our Berkey water filter did while living in Berlin - heavy metals, trace pesticides, chlorine, plastics, microplastics, and much more. We also aren't having cucumber/celery juice every morning as we did in Berlin while Lou was in his first focused healing period for RA, so there are a few variables that could be leading to his last bits of stubborn joint inflammation. Our goal is to get Lou pain free as soon as possible and I am so relieved that we are almost there.
With that being said, I haven't seen Lou this happy in ages. He is full of energy, inspired creatively, and even excited to go on long walks with me whenever I ask :)
