My Experience Doing the 5-Day Fasting Mimicking Diet

 I knew it would be hard.  But I had no idea how attached I was to the joy that I feel when meal time arrives.

DAY 1

8am Breakfast nut bar.  Pretty good. Not what I'm used to eating for bfst, but I'll make it for a few hours.  At least I still got my green tea.

12pm: Somehow I made it to 12pm with 260 calories on board and a dance class and bike ride.  Packaged tomato soup never tasted so damn good.  Seriously.  I reveled in the pasty tomato goop for all 14 bites that I could muster out of the bowl. Ate slowly and savored. 7 olives. They tasted fine.  Good thing I really like olives.  Kale Crackers.  Quite good.  Again, hunger is a great condiment.  Left me with a large amount of garlic aftertaste which just reminded me that I was hungry.

1pm. I'm already looking forward to my next meal.  I keep seeing restaurants everywhere.  I'm getting mad.

2pm.  My second nut and fruit bar.  Delish.  Tasted better than it did at 8am. I ate as slowly as I could so it would last until at least 2:15pm. Only 3 hours until I can eat again.

4pm.  I'm mad again. I'm hungry. I'm eyeing the banana and peanut butter on the counter.  I abstain. Drink Spearmint tea instead.   Totally adequate and totally unsatiating herbal tea. Harrumph.

5pm.  Thank the lord.  Dinner time has arrived. There is a dried minestrone soup and a choco crisp bar.  I panic when I read that the soup will take 15 minutes to simmer.  I eat the choco crisp bar (meant to be dessert, I presume) first.  It's pretty dense and oaty, but I enjoy it.  The minestrone, which I tried to chew as much as possible, was damn good. However, I think I might enjoy raw cricket powder at this point. 

1100 calories down.

I cannot wait for day two just so I can start eating my allotted 800 calories. No Kale crackers and 1 less bar tomorrow.   I can only imagine how mad I'm going to be.  I will be positive. I love olives.

DAY 2

7:30am Another day, another breakfast bar.  Again.  This bar is fine.  I might even say "I quite enjoyed it!" But when I finished the last little crumble out of that package (and I should say I licked the inside of the wrapper!) I felt a little gloomy.  On a serious note: This is giving me even more compassion for those who go regularly without. 

11:30am: Apologies if I sound dramatic but I'm starving.   I made my quinoa minestrone for lunch and ate my olives.  As you may remember, I love olives.  But I wanted 40 of them instead of 7.  The quinoa minestrone was pretty good.  I got impatient while it was on the stove simmering and mocking me so I may not have cooked it for as long as I should have which is why it had a curious chew to it.

2pm: Mad and hungry. Ate my choco crisp bar meant for tonight's dessert.  So what.  I don't need no stinkin' dessert later. I need a snack now. 

2:02pm: Settled for the time being. 

3:11pm.  Surprise. I'm ravenous. (And still mad) I drink hibiscus tea.  I cannot stop eyeing the raspberries in our yard.  They are calling to me.

3:12pm:  I ate 2 raspberries.  Such sweetness.  Am I in trouble?

When I was 5 I loved...

When I was 5 I loved:

• Bradley. Brown-eyed with a flop of sandy hair. Liked to hold my hand.
• A green bikini I wore on a trip to Mexico.  Paraded around as I munched on mangoes.
• The stuffed Toto dog, greying from love with every passing month.
• "Bienvenudo", my pet dragon, whom I imagined was on the end of my invisible leash.

When I was 10 I loved:

• Zachary. Wrote it in my diary.  Told him in the closet and he said "Yeah?"
• "The Pirates of Penzance", "Cats" and "Annie", whom I knew I would play on Broadway one day.
• Rice Krispie Treats, hot, a spiderweb of marshmallows melting in my mouth.
• Stickers that puffed out, glowed in the dark, whirled around on the page in my scrapbook.

When I was 25 I loved:

• John.  Blue-eyed. Sexy, funny, sensitive. Drummer. 
• The ginormous oak coffee table in which we could both fit.
• Italian restaurant dinners, full of pasta and "Merlot" which I thought was the only type of red wine.
• Gatherings at our apartment of women telling stories, making us laugh, strutting their wares.

At 50 I love:

• Keith. My steady, silly,  soulful, soy-free soulmate.
• Kale, sauteed. An emerald gift.
• Any sign that the world might be a better place than I think it is.
• The feeling of possibility when it's finally 72 degrees and I can think.