For example, sweet whole fruits seem to seem embarrassingly sweet, and the thought of a piece of candy is suddenly repulsive.  Similarly, that greasy pizza smell from the restaurant down the block suddenly just smells, well, greasy.

I have personally experienced this taste change, and it’s one of the main reasons I fast.  Too often our dietary practices lead to a sort of taste arms race — always adding just a little more salt, a little more sugar, a little more fat, a little more spice — leading to a condition where we’re unable to appreciate foods without heaps of these sensory modifiers. 

Fasting seems to provide a "reset" to the taste buds, so we can start perceiving foods as they really are, rather than in comparison to the last sensory-overloaded thing we consumed.

Chet Day, an experienced faster and natural health advocate who’s been on the web for basically forever, posted a daily journal page about his fasting experiences with kombucha and juice way before there was such a thing as a weblog.  So it’s a long all-in-one-page sort of deal, but chock full of great quotes like this one:

This happens during a juice diet- the clarity of taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch becomes quite exciting. Each of the above seems to improve a bit with each passing day of no solid foods. Another sign, I think, that all of us eat our way into oblivion and consequently miss probably at least 50% of the things we could be appreciating through this marvelously sensitive and keenly attuned organism our souls walk around in. And this morning’s first taste of undiluted orange juice? Oh, heavenly nectar of the gods!

Who wouldn’t want to have fruit taste like "nectar of the gods"?

Definitely one of my favorite fringe benefits of fasting!

So you juiced 20 pounds of lemons during your fast and couldn’t bear to throw away all that organic waste?  Here’s what I did, using about a dozen previously juiced lemons.  The lemons still have quite a bit of juice to them, locked in the fibers.

Pickled Lemons with Goji Berries

Take all your crushed lemons, chop them into quarters, and toss them into the Vitamix.  Then add just enough water (about 2 cups) to get the blender moving.  Finally, toss in about 1/2 cup of goji berries.  Give this mixture a stir with the blender off, using a long wooden spoon.

Run the blender for less than 5 seconds — that should be all it takes to get all of the lemon stuff chopped up into thumb-sized pieces.  The goji berries should get shredded into a pretty confetti.

Add about 1 Tablespoon of rock salt to this mixture.  You should be stirring manually from this point forward.

Optional: Add 2-4 tablespoons sugar.

Add pickling spices as desired.  I added 2 Tablespoons of coarsely ground cinnamon and a tablespoon of thyme.

Pour mixture into a glass jar for pickling.  Make sure the mixture tastes pretty salty and sour.  If it doesn’t, add more lemon juice and/or salt.

Pour 1/4 cup olive oil on top.  It should rest neatly.  This is to prevent the mixture from being exposed to air.

Cover and leave in a clean and dry location for at least 10 days, but I recommend 14 to 21.

When you’re ready to try it, carefully tilt the jar to pour the olive oil into a separate container.

If you can nom through the peels as if they were bananas, it’s ready.  Keep it in the fridge after you’re happy with it.

These are sort of Moroccan-style.  The goji berries add fun colors and a bit of extra nutrition.  I like eating pickled lemons with medjool dates!

I usually welcome the release of a few pounds here and there when I fast.  That said, I have commented that I’m careful to avoid losing too much weight while fasting (even if I think I’m a little pudgey).  Fitness experts agree that weight loss of more than 2 to 3 pounds per week is rather unhealthy.

If you are losing more than that, a few things may be occurring, but one of them almost certainly is not that you are dropping fat.  It’s more likely that your body is catabolizing proteins, and in the process dropping water weight.  That’s a bad scenario — it means your body’s decided that, in the grand scheme of things, muscles aren’t all that important, and you’ll find at the end of your fast you are much weaker and flabbier than when you started.

What’s more, your metabolism will slow down considerably, since muscle mass is responsible for a large proportion of energy usage.  Fasting does bring the metabolism down already — this is unavoidable (though not necessarily a bad thing, which is a concept that will be addressed in a future post) — so it’s important to do what you can to avoid any further slowdown.

To avoid your body consuming your own muscles for fuel, you need to make sure you drink tons of your chosen Elixir.  More than you think!

Most people on their first fast of longer than 3 days don’t realize that the body shuts off hunger after a certain point.  It varies per individual, but generally people’s appetites just fall away during or just after the 3rd day of fasting.

Since the hunger signal more or less goes away, many people on their 3rd or 4th day literally forget to take in enough fuel to meet basic energy requirements.  And that’s when people get headaches, take unplanned naps, and just feel like they’re dragging through the day.  When that happens, there will be loss of muscle, guaranteed.

During a fast, you will definitely lose some weight.  But you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re hoping that fasting will be a shortcut to rapid weight loss.  Yes, you might achieve the loss of 5 pounds in 10 days, but it will probably be pounds of muscle you’ll wish you hadn’t dropped.

I honestly don’t know why this happens, but I figure it’s a cost-cutting measure — it takes energy to signal hunger, and after the 3rd day of getting no response to that signal, the body just figures it’s another process it can shut down to save energy.

It’s important, if you are doing a fast in which you want to keep your energy up and not lie in bed all day, that you keep taking in your Elixir anyway!  Lack of hunger is no excuse for passing out.