21 Days of Fasting
Each year for about the last 5 years, during the month of January, I do a fast. The church that I previously attended would do fasting and prayer as a congregation. There are differnet levels of fasting, and suggestions were offered as to the levels of food fasting each person could do. Of course, those wtih medical conditions, should talk to their doctor first before doing anything extreme.
For my fast, I always picked a variation of things to fast from. Some included meat, cheese, social media, sodas, and more. Others were opposite and to make a habit to do more of something instead of giving up something. You can read about what I did for my 2020 fast and 2019 fast.
The goals
2022 Fasting Objectives
As for 2022, things that I will be doing during this year's fast. My objective is to provide regular updates to this post.
No Meat
In the past, I have found that I feel different, like more energized, when have not eaten meat for the 21 day period. In addition, I have lost weight, give or take 10 pounds, around my midsection without changing my exercise routine. Going further by doing no cheese at the same time, makes even more weight come off. I am not a dietician, but my theory on this and the documentaries that I have seen, that meat takes longer to digest and process out of the body. Thus a lot of us that heavily eat meat and less vegetables (in other words the typical American diet) are carrying around dead weight and excess fat from eating so much meat. Now there are vegetarians and vegans that are fat, but that is not solely because of what they eat.
Daily Scripture
Reading the Bible offers wisdom and knowledge. I had not been doing this judiciously in 2021, so I want to make a change in this habit. I have two Bible apps on my phone and sometimes I dismiss the daily notification to read a scripture. Will not do that during this period in hopes to make reading the Word a regular habit.
Pack A Lunch
After making all the payments to have a wedding in 2021, I need to recoup my finances and start taking a lunch. When I do cook, I have a tendency to cook too much and thus can eat it for a day or two afterwards. Furthermore, the cost of everything has gone up since the pandemic. Inflation, inflation, in-fla-tion. I remember when the small back of chips were 25 cents. Now those similar size bags, because they have reduce the size of the bag so that people still buy them instead of increasing the cost, cost 75 cents in some stores.
Completing More Projects Before Starting New Ones
I realize that I have a lot of ideas and goals to accomplish. Problem is that I regularly start something, and can be hesistant to complete it. For example, my house has knee walls. In some parts of the wall, the insulation has fallen out from the wall cavity. I purchased some insulation in early 2020 with the intention of replacing the worn, squirrrel-chewed insulation with new insulation and enclosing it in the wall cavity. That insulation is in the same spot and in the original packaging from when I brought it home after purchasing it. Smh at myself. Thus my goal during this time and this year, is to work on these in progress projects, both coding and home improvement, before starting new ones. I will be posting these projects on my business YouTube channel and Facebook page, and Instagram page.
Intermittent Fasting, 8 hour window
In the past, I have done intermittent fasting with a 12 hour window. I am looking to get that down to an 8 hour window. Having a shorter window means that your body runs more off of stored fat and less off of the foods that you are immediately consuming. Burning that stored fat, means you will have a smaller midsection, as it is easy for the body to store fat there since it is near the stomach, liver, and intestines where food is processed.
Day 1 - January 10
Ended up buying a lunch today since I did not cook a dinner that did not have meat the day before. That lunch consisted of eating collard greens, corn, cornbread, and fried okra. I did avoid meat and cheese on this day.
Day 2 - January 11
Day went well. Another day without cheese and meat. Had a salad for lunch and some soft tacos based on a recipe from "Thug Kitchen: Eat Like You Give a F**k". I have had the book for several years, but never made a recipe from it. Thus the wife making this recipe was the first time that something from it was actually made. In addition to the food aspect, I've only drunk water today and did keep my food consumption within an 8 hour window. Slept great last night, but I think that was because of the outcome of the National Championship game and no I'm not going to talk about it.
Day 4 - January 13
Have not been able to focus on some tasks. Thinking that may be a time management issue, or just having a general lack of focus. I attend the first of a multi-week course that is related to digital marketing and branding. I feel that attending this course will help me in a number of areas including the YouTube channel and building business brand online. Have managed to continue to stick with nto eating meat.
Day 15 - January 24
Continuing on with this journey, I have been more dilliegent about taking a lunch to work. Most of the time, it is leftovers from the previous night's meal or a mashup of what is left in the refrigerator that I have taken and collectively eaten as a meal. Defintely helps with keeping the fridge cleaned out. Similar to how they used to do when I was in school where they served the left over food items from the week, usually vegetables, on Fridays with pizza (weird combination to have pizza and corn).
Access to Non-Meat Options at Restaurants
I have noticed that in my area, majority of the restaurants do not have any entrees that do not include meat. Think this in part, has to do with the "Basic American Diet" (BAD) that says that you should always have meat with a meal. You're probably thinkg, "they don't have a salad"? Most restaurants do have salad, but not eating meat does not mean that you always eat salad. Matter of fact, the major fast food restaurants do not offer any meals that do not have meat in the, with probably the exception of Burger King and its Beyond Meat burger.
For example, Hardee's (or Carl's Jr. for those of you not in the Southern US) has all of their meals centered around meat. I remember during a previous fast, I went to Hardee's and ordered a Frisco Breakfast Sandwich with only egg and cheese. The cashier confirmed that I did not want meat, to which I affirmed said confirmation. Cashier took a moment to try to figure out how to put that in the system correctly. Then the manager, who was acting as the expeditor, asked the cashier what meat was to go on my sandwich, to which she relayed that I did not want meat. Then the cook looked at the order and he was confused and asked what kind of meat to which the manager and the cashier had to tell him "no meat". They did get my order correct, but the fact that their system was not set up to take such and order really made me aware of how much meat and cheese are marketed and insisted to be consumed.
Day 16 - January 25
Tax season is among us. As I was logging in and out of the various sites and my email to download the needed tax forms, I realized that I have hit a goal that I had set for myself some time ago. See on my bathroom mirror, I have sticky notes with various words and phrases. One of them is "passive income". This passive income note has been up there for well over a year now. First it started with investing in the stock market, then got more serious about the YouTube channel, and also advertisements on this blog. I have kept saying that this is a goal for some time now, but it did not really click until today that another level in that goal had been reach. What stood out that made that goal noticable? I got an email from Google saying that I had a 1099 that was ready to be downloaded.
For those of you that are reading this outside of the United States, a "1099" is a tax form that companies send to contractors stating the amount of income that they paid them. In addition, a copy of this information is also sent to The IRS (so that you don't cheat the system). I have gotten 1099s in the past, but this is the first one that I have gotten from Google. To me, this is an indicator that I am doing something good and to keep it up, that you will achieve the visions that you write and manifest, and that good things come to good people in due time.