Healing Crohn's disease Week 3 - Intermittent Fasting

        This past week was rough! My intention was to do a 15 minute Shamanic Journey daily as my next step along the healing path for my Crohn's but life had other plans. I had a huge flare up...major pain through my abdomen to the point where I had a hard time standing up straight. I took some time to 'sit' with the pain and intuitively knew that taking a break from eating was going to be the best thing for my system. So, I switched my plan for the week from Shamanic Journeying (original week 3 plan) to Intermittent Fasting (original week 6 plan).

        The first 2 days of fasting, I only ate a small meal around 5:00pm and the pain by the end of the second day was substantially better. On the 3rd day, I transitioned into only eating between 12:00pm and 5:00pm. This was definitely a challenge as I'm usually more of a daily 'grazer' and not snacking was tough both because I was hungry but also because of the habit of snacking, lol...I had to find something else to do when I got bored instead of finding something to munch on.

        By the end of the week, my intestines are very grateful for the break I have been giving myself during the fast and the results have been pretty great:

I have NO bloating...wait...let me say that again...NO BLOATING! Yes!

My joints are feeling better during and after lifting.

I'm feeling less brain fog (still not completely free of it though)

Dramatically decreased pain in my abdomen

        These benefits are enough to keep me persevering through the challenges of being hungry and perhaps that will get easier with time.

        Up next, adding a cold shower daily. Admittedly, these are not my favourite but I ask myself if I'd rather have pain on a regular basis that I feel is completely out of my control, or would I prefer to voluntarily do some unpleasant tasks through my day that will give me the ability to control the possibility of constant nagging pain???? This entire 16 week journey is about finding out which of those 'control' tasks I can handle and make the biggest difference...so, I choose to most likely despise the 5 minutes of cold water daily if that aids in having the rest of the day pain free. To me, it's like lifting/training...learning to understand which pain is not useful (ie. injury pain) and which pain will help me achieve my goals (ie. muscle soreness).