Don’t you know, dear worst-reader, I just finished my second fasting session. The first fasting was at the beginning of October last year. It was followed by a low-carb diet. I finished the second fasting Saturday. I’m now back on low-carbs. Result? I’m down forty-plus pounds. At five feet ten, approaching sixty years, kinda enjoying the solitude of covid and enjoying a lot of good cooking and drink to coincide, by the end of summer last year, it was time to attack what I’ve been putting off for far to long. Needless to say, as I worst-write this, my fasting partner (my better-half) and I are pleased. The attack is working.

During the last four months the quest for reaching a body weight I haven’t had in over thirty years is near. Needless to say, the comments I’ve been getting from the locals when walking Beckett, the killer pug, varies between Are you healthy? to Are you sick? to What’s wrong? Indeed. Typical German to not just ask or say Wow, you look good or Congratulations or What’s your secret?, etc. When I tell everyone I’ve been fasting their eyes look around as though I’m talking about something fascinating (that rhetorical Spock thingy) or they show a kind of emptying unobtainable curiosity. Conversations continue along the lines of whether or not they can fathom not eating any solid foods for five days.

For any worst-reader out there, even with a slight weight problem, worst-writer highly recommends fasting in a controlled and regimented manor (see pic above). The best part of it, other than being kinda reborn once it’s over, is that the struggle of hunger (from dieting) is not longer an issue. In other worst-words, it was no problem to go low-carb after the first fasting. Subsequently it was never an issue again to remove all the other things that form bad (eating) habits, you know, the stuff in-between, the snacks, the booze. One other things that got me through all this is herbal tee. Lots of it. But first.

Worst-writer’s fasting regiment

Day 1: Relief day. Relief from regular eating. This is the last day of food with a light breakfast and a bland lunch of boiled potato and carrot. No dinner. Start drinking herbal tee.

Day 2: Elimination. Morning starts with Glaubersalz (sodium sulphate) diluted in one litre of water; drink the whole thing within fifteen minutes. After one to two hours you will have discharge fit for royalty. Set aside a few hours for this to finish. Sounds terrible but for worst-moi this is what really starts the show as it empties you.

Day 3 – 6: Fasting. No solid food. Lots of herbal tee and water. For vitamins and minerals dilute (half juice, half water) organic (no sugar!) vegetable juice or fruit juice and drink it like you’re eating it. Slowly. Try to chew the fluid. (Seriously!)

Day 7: In the morning eat one small to medium size apple with small bites, lots of chewing. It will taste incredible. Lunch is a simple soup made of organic veggie broth with two small boiled potatoes, an equal amount of boiled carrots garnished with chopped parsley. Dinner is fresh plain yoghurt with fruit.

Day 8: For breakfast a small portion (no bigger than your fist) of organic porridge. Lunch is same as Day 1, boiled potatoes and carrots. For dinner we continued our low-carb diet.

The Herbal Tee Man

Euphoric and tickled that I lost so much weight, I can’t quit Herbal tee. To replenish my supply I went out to my local herbal tee shop the other day to stock up. It’s a nice little shop owned by an elderly couple born and raised in Düsseldorf almost a century ago. If you walk by the front of this store and don’t see the sign above the sidewalk, you might mistake it for a Christmas store–it’s that flashy. Entering from a small but trafficked one-way street, the door triggers one of those automatic bells that is both big and loud. The showroom is about twenty by ten feet. Directly to your left upon entry, behind a long counter, is a wall full of green and gold trimmed two gallon cans labeled to the highest German Ordnung. The arrangement almost looks like a spreadsheet come alive. At the top of each column of cans is Darjeeling, Assam, Herbal, Heil, etc., underneath (rows) are the tee varieties.

Upon entry, after a short wait, where I could sing sweet-nothings in my head thereby distilling the obnoxious door bell that continued to ring in my mind, the owner eventually entered from a stairwell underneath the middle of the showroom floor. As his head bobbed up and down ascending the stairs, he slowly emerged out of what was most certainly a bunker circa seventy years ago. Keeping his distance, for he was unmasked, he proceeded to a desk at the back of the showroom to put on his covid attire. Salutations ensued.

After requesting three different herbal tees @ 100 grams per bag, I asked him what other tee he recommends for Fasten (Fasting). As stated above, I really haven’t had any major and/or irritating hunger issues since my first fasting session in October. But I did read that there are some tees that go especially well with fasting. Since I’ve been drinking so much of the stuff, I am always open to variety. But then the old tee man asked if I wanted tee for Heilfasten or just plane old Fasten. Heil in this context means therapeutic–but I didn’t know that at the time–or at least it didn’t register that way. So I was curiously confused at that moment because I hadn’t expected to start thinking about the type of fasting I was doing. I just wanted more tee. As is the case with my limited and undisciplined German, I asked about the difference. The old man squeezed out a sigh and then proceeded to kindly teach me not only his language but a bit of cultivation, which may or may not have been the way I’ve learned German for the past thirty years. Well. That and reading Marx and Goethe and, my favourite, Schiller. You know, the three amigos of all-things German. Turns out that Fasten (fasting), at least in Germany, relates more to religious beliefs, aka Lent or Ramadan (Sawm). Heilfasten, on the other hand, what I’m doing, is the therapeutic stuff that is part of a diet or something related to health issues. Long worst-story short, and after the language lesson was done, the old tee man didn’t have a new tee for me. Reason? He said that all I should drink are the herbal tees and anything else would contain caffeine, which was allowed for religious fasting. Oh well. Live and learn (German), don’t you know.

The low-carb diet continues till I hit that weight of thirty years ago–which only a few pounds away. As far as fasting in the future again, I think I’m gonna make this a two time a year thing. We’ll see.

Rant on.

-T