Fasting Day #21

Time does fly. I have been surviving well during the 21 days fasting day period. Following are the interesting things that happen between day #6 and now:

• I have been asked "What is your purpose of fasting?" I am pretty good at answering this question now. It has evolved from for the sake of trying it to coming up with 3 pretty convincing reasons (a) to cleanse my body from my regular caffeine 4 times a day intake over the past 3 years (b) its a personal calling of doing so (c) to understand my body better by testing its limit.
• Sudden increase of awareness - this feeling is amazing. Although the feeling of hunger strikes during the lunch hour period (for approximately 10-15 minutes), after that, my mind is able to focus more on the things that I do. No sign of memory lost, however, nearing dinner time, the feeling of anxiety kicks in.
• Flow of good knowledge into my life during my fasting period. Things that I do (read, listen, see) all seemed to carry messages that evolves around personal growth, understand myself better and life purpose.

There were two occasions where I break my fast during the 12 hours daily windows - It was during Swami's birthday celebration up in Aberdeen (29 November) and on Friday (4 December)

After today's traditional Ceilidh invited by Neil, I have got the realisation that musical instrument that we use, our body organ (such as voice box, heart etc) have their own life. What we need to do is to learn the language to communicate with them. One way to achieve this is to practice the attitude of gratitude.

Helping and Caring

Interesting topic of conversation with Ma today.

She said:

One should take care of himself before taking care of others.

I added:

One should also care for others like how he/she cares for his parents and siblings, vice versa.

Then I continued:

One should give full focus in helping and caring others if he/she enjoys the process of helping and caring. Don't help others just for the sake of help and not enjoying the process.

5 Steps to Turn Around Your Life

Love this video - from Anthony Robbins' Blog.

1. Feed and strengthen your mind
2. Feed and strengthen your body
3. Find a role model
4. Have a plan and take action
5. Feed and strengthen your spirit

Fasting Day #6

The fasting schedule of 8.00am until 8.00pm with pre-fasting breakfast worked quite well for my 8.45-5.30 job. Managed to sustain my focus at work. During the fasting period, I felt tired after 10pm and woke up at around 7am. For my usual day without fasting, I would usually sleep between 12am and wake up at around 6am.

Therefore, in my opinion, not having food and drinks for a continuous 12 hour period during the day (when you brain is working) would actually drain more brain energy than passing a day without fasting, at least for my case.

Today - Saturday, I woke up at 8.30am and missed my pre-fasting breakfast. At around 10am, I felt slight pain in my stomach. Fearing of having stomach gastric, I ate a bar of Jordan Frusli cereal bar and a glass of water. The fasting continued until 6pm.

***

Came across the following blog from Dr Ben Kim (http://drbenkim.com/fasting.html) regarding the benefit of water fasting

Fasting for Health

Posted By Dr. Ben Kim on Dec 15, 2006

Historical records tell us that fasting has been used for health recovery for thousands of years. Hippocrates, Socrates, and Plato all recommended fasting for health recovery. The Bible tells us that Moses and Jesus fasted for 40 days for spiritual renewal. Mahatma Gandhi fasted for 21 days to promote respect and compassion between people with different religions.

For much of human history, fasting has been guided by intuition and spiritual purpose. Today, our understanding of human physiology confirms the powerful healing effects of fasting.

Fasting is a powerful therapeutic process that can help people recover from mild to severe health conditions. Some of the most common ones are high blood pressure, asthma, allergies, chronic headaches, inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease), irritable bowel syndrome, adult onset diabetes, heart disease, degenerative arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, eczema, acne, uterine fibroids, benign tumours, and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Fasting provides a period of concentrated physiological rest during which time the body can devote its self-healing mechanisms to repairing and strengthening damaged organs. The process of fasting also allows the body to cleanse cells of accumulated toxins and waste products.

Fasting gives the digestive tract time to completely rest and strengthen its mucosal lining. A healthy intestinal mucosal lining is necessary for preventing the leakage of incompletely digested proteins into the bloodstream, thereby offering protection against autoimmune conditions. A healthy digestive tract also helps to protect the blood and inner organs against a variety of environmental and metabolic toxins.

A fast that is appropriate for your situation will allow for you to experience some or all of the following:

• More energy
• Healthier skin
• Healthier teeth and gums
• Better quality sleep
• A clean and healthy cardiovascular system
• A decrease in anxiety and tension
• Dramatic reduction or complete elimination of aches and pains in muscles and joints
• Decrease or elimination of headaches
• Stabilization of blood pressure
• Stronger and more efficient digestion
• Stabilization of bowel movements
• Loss of excess weight
• Elimination of stored toxins
• Improvement with a wide variety of chronic degenerative health conditions, including autoimmune disorders

It is important to understand that the detoxifying and healing processes that occur during a fast are also active when a person is consuming food. A fast can be helpful for people whose conditions are not improving as quickly as they would like, or for people who have health conditions that require a concentrated period of healing to resolve. It is also important to understand that the most important part of a fast is how a person lives after the fast. Fasting can provide a clean and revitalized foundation upon which you can build and maintain a strong and well-conditioned body by consistently making healthy food and lifestyle choices.

Thought of The Day

Its scary to experience 'the world is a reflection of you'. Will write more about it over the weekend.

Fasting Day #5

Managed to survive a fasting day + a Toastmasters meeting on day #4. No food and water for approximately 14 hours. Felt very exhausted at the end of the day.

Fasting Day #3

For some reason, I slept longer than usual after day #1 and day #2. On both occasions, due to me waking up during the fasting period that I set for myself (6am-6pm), I skipped my pre-fasting food intake. That may affect my body physiology.

Today I have decided to have my breakfast and try out a 8.30am to 8.30pm cycle.

Fasting day #1

Fasting day #1. I had not taken any food for about 18 hours and water for 9. I would say the experience of having my first few bites of the plum and clementines were indescribably good.

After today's experience, I am planing out a pre-fasting and post-fasting meal schedule that would keep me going for the day and see how that works.

Why not raise some fund for charity while doing this? Crazy idea huh? Well people fast anyway.

Thought of the day

Woke up this morning and noticed the quote on my Goal Board.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is then, not an action, but a habit." by Aristotle.

Then life is simple isn't it? Where the only thing that we need to do in order to achieve the best outcome is merely just the act of doing the thing over and over again, and turning it into a habit.

***

Reading this quote reminds me to cultivate back the habit of reading out my affirmation every morning.

P.s read about the ancient Persians way of drinking from the book called Brida.

Trial

Testing la.

Engineers Without Borders

A very interesting weekend trip to Wales and meet up with old friends.

Three years after university, I noticed that things have changed. Friends that I spoken to has grown mentally and spiritually (which of course is a good sign).

I shared my vision. And my friend mentioned an organisation called Engineers Without Borders. I came across this organization before during my university years but never pay much attention to it.

Engineers Without Borders... is it able to satisfy my vision of empowering people across the globe and improve their quality of life?

Speaking to Inform - Project 1 The Speech to Inform

The goal is to become a professional speaker with the following profile description:

Eu Jin will entertain, provide practical advice and inspire native and non-native speakers to deliver their ideas with confidence.

This description is also listed in my Speakers Bureau profile description http://www.capitalcommunicators.org/page2.html

After completing my Competent Communication manual, I am on my journey to give speeches from advance manuals (a world that is full of excitements, a dimension that would lead me to unknown opportunities). As a stepping stone to become a professional speaker, I had chosen two advance manuals to start of with, i.e.

• Speaking to Inform and
• Storytelling.

Now the challenge is to plant the spirit as described in my profile description in all the speech projects from the above two manuals.

As I have been given the opportunity to speak for the coming Toastmasters meeting, 27 October 2009, I decided to give a speech which satisfies the objectives of Project 1 The Speech to Inform from the Speaking to Inform manual.

After a long thought, the outline of my first advance speech could be summarised as follows:

• My speech title is ... Don't be afraid, Let's Smile
• After listening to my speech... the audience will understand by practising to smile at people will allow one to develop the confidence in delivering their ideas.
• Introduction - Telling the audience of my great big smile and my journey of smiling through my speeches
• Body point #1 - Smile = Research to show the power of smiling, explain how smiling could benefit in developing self confidence when delivering an ideas,
• Body point #2 - show the impact of smiling/not smiling on the introduction story
• Body point #3 - when to use/not to use it
• Conclusion - Re-emphasis the 3 points.

Give and You Shall Receive

Decided to set up a charity fund to empower people across the globe so that they are able self sustain and improve their quality of life.

This charity fund will be taking 50% of the profit from my work as a Kleeneze distributor. Which means, my customers will be donating a proportion of their payment to the fund with no additonal cost!

The funding component for the charity is half way done. The other half is finding suitable vehicles to grow the funds.

The next big step is to think about how to use the fund to empower people?

Estee Lauder, The Woman - A Life of Beauty

Estée Lauder founded this Company in 1946 armed with four products and an unshakeable belief: that every woman can be beautiful. Today, more than 60 years later, that simple notion has literally changed the face of the beauty business.

Beginnings
Born Josephine Esther Mentzer, Estée Lauder was raised in Corona, Queens, by her Hungarian mother, Rose, and Czech father, Max. The name Estée was a variation on her family nickname, Esty. Always interested in beauty, she was mentored by her uncle, chemist John Schotz, and began her business by selling skin care products to beauty salons and hotels.

The Power of Touch
Perhaps Mrs. Lauder's most important legacy was her belief that in order to make a sale, you must touch the customer. She spent a great deal of time advising customers and teaching Beauty Advisors. "I didn't get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it," she often reminded her sales force.

A Great Leader
Mrs. Lauder's leadership inspired thousands of people. She received scores of honors, including the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom and France's Legion of Honor. However, Mrs. Lauder was happiest advising women during her in-store appearances. One of her favorite quotes was "Telephone, Telegraph, Tell-A-Woman," because she knew that once a woman tried an Estée Lauder product, she would love it and share it with her friends.

Approachable Beauty
When the company began to advertise, Mrs. Lauder insisted that its images portray beauty that was both aspirational and approachable. Over the years, supermodels Karen Graham, Willow Bay, Paulina Porizkova—and now Elizabeth Hurley, Carolyn Murphy, Hillary Rhoda and Gwyneth Paltrow—have represented Estée Lauder.

Elegant Style
Mrs. Lauder was also deeply involved with the package design of her products. Among her many contributions was the choice of Estée Lauder's signature blue, which she believed would coordinate with the décor of most bathrooms and bedrooms.

Content and images obtained from http://www.esteelauder.com/about/index.tmpl