Aloha friend! Welcome to my new series, “10 Easy Ways to Sky-Rocket Your Weight-Loss with Body Regulation”!Each week, I’ll be posting an in-depth article pertaining to how to regulate the body and achieve weight-loss and fitness as a byproduct. If you’d like these weekly posts to be automatically delivered to your inbox, subscribe to my substack at www.answerstolooseskin.com (and if you’re reading this, then you’re on my substack! Hi! I’m new here and would appreciate a follow!)

How did this series come about?

Well, it took me a while to understand the concept of “body regulation”.

For years, I was obsessed with the prevention of loose-skin. I inherently knew that the casual dismissals of “oh! It’s all genetic!” were baseless. Our body is wiser than that, and epigenetic research shows that our environment is vital.

I released a 6-month program called Secrets to Loose Skin following my weight-loss journey of 150 pounds. In this program, we go into the DEPTHS of fascia, lymph, musculature, abdominal pressure, and more. If you’re interested in check this program out, it is live on my website (www.yvettebam.com).

There was an undertone between everything I was doing, a foundation that I didn’t even know I was addressing… but what was the common connection between all of these modalities?!

A connecting force was present, yet I couldn’t put a finger on it.

I began to study people with different conditions. As a body worker, I became acquainted with tissue. Fascia began to speak to me underneath my fingertips, telling me the unconscious stories that individuals were holding…

There's something about the body that we, fundamentally as a society, have lost sight on.

But what is it?Everywhere I looked, I saw individual’s using heavy dieting measures and exercise routines to alter their shape.

But was this the only way?How was it possible that unless you were extreme in your approach 24/7, the body would turn fat? How was it possible that you could only have one cookie per month, or the body would revolt? How was it possible that a diet of green salads was the only way to go if we wanted to remain fit and trim? It didn’t make sense to me. Surely, we aren’t meant to be perpetually monitoring our body, day-in and day-out?

Yet everyone seemed to be convinced that the calories-in and calories-out mentality was the only way to find success, and 5am morning jogging routines were a necessity that screamed “Motivated Babe”.

After I lost 150 pounds, I noticed something weird: the amount of food and calories I ate did not change by much.

How was THAT possible?

Slowly, over 7+ years of learning everything I can about the body, I began to understand the underlying foundation that I had been touching on throughout my work (without consciously knowing what it was).

That foundation is regulation, which sounds simple but can actually be quite a complex process in the modern world. We have grown very detached from the regulatory force of the body. Regulation is working WITH the body and its processes instead of attempting to control the body, restrict it, or move from the classical space of “I am not enough.”.

Regulation is about re-forming a relationship to your body that is oriented in truth, and the truth is that your body is your deepest friend - not an enemy to force into a new shape. Regulation also requires understanding multiple body processes - especially if you’re coming from an obese sector, where your hormones need loving attention.

Regulation is a key underlying-yet-VITAL component to health, vibrancy, fitness, and shape. Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers, and until we REGULATE our vessel, and subsequently regulate the informational flow throughout our body, we will struggle with an up-hill battle with fitness.

Secrets of Loose-Skin is a 6 month REGULATORY program, in which we work with the body’s state (obesity) and re-wire it, slowly, with respect toward the body at the forefront. I take you through the program using my own body as an example. The ultimate theory behind loose skin is that it is a byproduct of DYSREGULATION. Many people approach the body in an incorrect way when it comes to weightless, believing in the top-down hierarchy of Calories Are King.

Now, you deserve to know that working WITH the body and its systems will always be your winning ticket, which is why I am making this FREE Series of “10 Easy Ways to Sky-Rocket Your Weight-Loss with Regulation That Has Nothing to Do With Food or The Amount of Calories You Eat.”

Subscribe to get future posts sent directly to your inbox. All future posts are FREE for two weeks only, and then moved to an archive for my paid subscribers..

Welcome to Part One, and remember…

Your body is NOT working against you. Your body is NOT something to control. Your body is your best friend, your loving vessel in this reality, and it is time for everyone to learn the interconnection of regulatory practices so that we may BEGIN TO ENJOY OUR BODY’S AGAIN (instead of being in perpetual cycles of “omgggggg I ate too much caaaaake”)..

Enjoy the next few weeks of REGULATION tips and tricks! Subscribe to this substack to get them emailed directly to you! Paid substack members get video bonuses every week.

Part 1: Reprogram Your Breath

Most people are terrible breathers. It sounds silly, I know. We’ve been breathing since the first second of our life! Common sense tells us that we’d at least be “good” at breathing. Turns out, we’re not. We live in a chronically dysregulated society, and this imprints itself into our breathing patterns.

My take on body regulation is a process of returning back to the original blueprint of our body, of functional patterns. But what does functional breathing look like? And what caused our breathing to go into a disarray in the first place?

The core of the breathing problem in society is stress.

Well… not exactly.

Stress itself isn’t a bad thing. Stress is a hormone, known as cortisol, and it’s necessary. The core of the breathing problem in society is ACTUALLY that we haven’t been taught to regulate stress effectively.

Everyone has stress, it’s a part of life. There is never going to be a moment in your life where everything is in balance, everything is perfect, and you can FINALLY begin the thing you’ve been wanting to do for the past few years! Move on from that daydream. Part of living functionally is being able to manage stress well, and a large part of that is a simple perspective shift.

The stress hormone, cortisol, can serve as a motivational hormone when it’s in balance. In fact, without cortisol we wouldn’t be able to wake up in the morning! if we all were tasked with living docilely as monks in the mountains then unregulated stress wouldn’t be as big of a deal… but how do we, as normal people in the day-to-day mayhem of present society, regulate stress?

Turns out, breathing is a large part of it. You have 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body, and ensuring oxygen efficiency is where regulation starts. Efficiency being the key word, but more on that later, because… wink wink.. it’s not actually about breathing MORE.

There’s a lot of misinformation about breathing. A classical one is “Buddha Breathing,” with the abdominal walls flaring out. I cringe every time I see this, because clearly there is zero understanding of abdominal pressure and pelvic floor pressure with standard Buddha Breathing work.

So, how can we approach functional breathing?

Let’s begin with a mini-exercise.

What do you think of when you think of relaxed breathing?

Don’t scroll ahead!!!

Let’s do a correlation test for a moment. Think about three words for….

* relaxed breathing& 3 words for…

* stressed breathing

Got it?

Seriously, just take a moment. It will help begin the reprogramming aspect of your consciousness here.

La-la-la-la-laaaaa.

Got it, for real this time?

I trust you…. Okay. Here’s mine:

Relaxed breathing: slower, deeper, mouth is closed, quieter, air travels through the nose only, uses the diaphragm to descend down the abdominal cavity, shoulders are down, connection to our core

Stressed breathing: constricted, stays in the upper chest cavity, faster, noisier, quicker, air travels through the mouth, more agitated in upper body, shoulders might be moving, limited body connection

Now, with this in mind… I have some rapid fire questions!

Why are we telling people to breathe MORE, when “more” equates to “faster” and “faster” equates to stressed breathing?

How do you breathe MORE without breathing FASTER?

You can’t.

So, what are we saying when we tell people to breathe MORE?

What does it mean to be oxygen deficient, in a society where most people are actually breathing quite rapidly?

Furthermore, if we do the opposite and slow down, or breathe less, then how does this fit into the regulation equation? How does breathing LESS serve the body? Doesn’t the body need MORE oxygen, not less?

Even if the in-breaths are deeper, what does it matter if the perfect calming breath is thought to be one-minute in duration?

How can the body function optimally by breathing… less?

We’ll answer all of these questions, and more, in a way that makes SO MUCH SENSE!

Nose Goes…

Rapid, fast breathing is correlated to stress with good reason. Our body goes into a sympathetic nervous system state, which redirects blood flow from the internal organs and into the extremities. The body does this with purpose. A sympathetic nervous system activate is also known as “fight, or flight” and it prepares us to either run away from the threat, or fight the threat. Blood flows into our limbs, digestion is put on hold because it’s less important than staying alive, and adrenaline shoots into our system.

Stress breathing is also oriented in the chest cavity. The diaphragm, a muscle located under our rib cage, does not fully engage. We use rapid inhalation to draw in more oxygen in order to prepare the necessary muscles to fire up.

When we become “stuck” in this immobilized-diaphragm chest-breathing stress response, often due to the fact that modern-day stressors are in new formats that do not require a physical release, it causing a multitude of domino problems for the body, especially in consideration of loose-skin and weight-loss.

The body receives a lot of input FROM the way we breathe. When we are breathing in a stressful way, our body is encoded in a certain way by certain sets of hormones. Luckily, we can change the input our body receives by consciously changing our breathing. This will gradually alter our vagus nerve, and turn on the parasympathetic nervous system state.

Let’s start with the bare-bones of regulated breathing: breathe through your nose only.

Mouth breathing is terrible for you, there’s no doubt about it. Mouth breathing often starts in childhood and leads to deformities in face shape. For example, the tongue doesn’t exert necessary pressure on the hard palette of the mouth, which leads to deficient maxilla formation.

Nose breathing creates 50% more resistance to the airstream when compared to mouth breathing, which naturally results in up to 20% more oxygen. Mouth breathing leads to stress responses that inhibit physical performance, quality of life, and weight-loss. So, first things first, re-train yourself to breathe through your nose. I don’t care what you have to do, just do it. You must begin to breathe through your nose. This is a non-negotiable.

Set yourself conscious reminder timers every hour, if you have to, to check your breathing posture… and CLOSE THAT MOUTH! This is where proper breathing begins.

Once you are nose breathing in your daily conscious life, work on the nighttime. I have always been a nose breather… or so I thought. Then, I started to notice drool on my pillow, a dry throat in the morning, and also had one-too-many horrifying experiences on an airplane where I woke up from my own snoring with my mouth wide-open like a zombie.

Turns out, I had been a conscious nose breather. But turning the night-time? Not so much! How do I stop my jaw from opening when I’m unconscious?!

I began going to bed with a simple intention of keeping my mouth closed. I worked on inter-oral exercises to strength under-used muscles in my mouth and throat. It worked. Where there is a will, there is a way. Nowadays, there’s even mouth tape specific to making sure the mouth stays closed during sleeping! A whooping 1/3rd of your breathing time is at night, so it is vital to work on your night-time breathing too.

(My paid substack subscribers have a bonus section of videos in which I show you exercises to strengthen the underactive inter-oral muscles to help with nighttime breathing).

Once we have trained ourselves to breathe through our nose, we can work on the flow of the breath throughout the body. Imagine your breath as it descends down into your body. The breath does not go horizontally INTO the nose, but rather, immediately begins traveling DOWNWARD. Sometimes, just using the imaginary of the breath flowing downward instead of INTO OUR FACE is enough to yield a micro-adjustment.

Now, locate your diaphragm. The diaphragm is a muscle that is just underneath your rib cage. You can think of it as a pump. Use the imagery of an elevator… the lungs fill with air, slowly, while your diaphragm travels downward toward your pelvic cavity. The diaphragm is an essential muscle to begin fine-tuning and re-mobilization. Upon the exhale, the diaphragm returns back to its base position underneath the rib cage.

The abdominal and pelvic cavities are actually a mutual pressurized system, and this is a fact that many people do not understand, and also a leading reason why abdomens are so loose-looking after significant weight-loss. While it is beyond the scope of this article, beginning to attune yourself to these layers of the body is a key component to loose-skin prevention, and something I throughly explore in my six-month program: Secrets to Loose-Skin.

Proper diaphragmatic breathing is a game changer, and it is a far-cry from buddha belly breathing. The Buddha Breath encourages the splaying of the rectus abdominis, and that is NOT what you are doing with diaphragmatic breathing. Buddha belly breathing serves purposes, as most breath work modalities do, but long-term regulation is not one of them.

Naturally, when we begin to focus on breathing in this way, our breathing slows down. But that still begs the question: doesn't breathing SLOWER reduce oxygen intake? Shouldn’t we want MORE breaths, and hence MORE oxygen?

The Equation of Fat Loss…

Now, let’s get to the meaty parts. We learned that nose breathing is paramount. Once nose breathing is mastered, we can retrain ourselves to breathe diaphragmatically utilizing imagery of air going DOWN into our body, from the nose to the chest cavity to the abdomen.

Once we begin practicing diaphragmatic breathing, we may gradually begin to notice increased tissue mobility. For example, you may notice your back ribcage being able to expand, instead of remaining immobilized as chest-breathing inevitably causes. This will take time, but the point is: you will naturally begin to gain bodily awareness through a simple re-aquaintence with your diaphragm. In Secrets of Loose Skin, we get into myofascial techniques that can help RELEASE a lot of adhered tissues that can help expand breathing.

Every time you practice diaphragmatic breathing, also practice being WITH your body. Anything that brings you into CONSCIOUSNESS works wonders with hormonal regulation in the body, especially with cortisol. Breathing is extra special because the regulation of breath can switch you from a sympathetic nervous system state to a parasympathetic nervous system state. Your breath can be used as a remote control between nervous system states, from stressed to peaceful, because our brains receive input from the way we breathe and release hormone accordingly.

Now, let’s go a layer deeper…

Did you know that the majority of weight-loss actually occurs with breathing? The equation for weight-loss is…

C55H104O6 + 78 O2 à 55 CO2 + 52 H2O  

In other words: fat molecules, with the input of oxygen, get turned into carbon dioxide and water.

The key components in breathing are oxygen and carbon dioxide.The key components in transforming body fat are oxygen and carbon dioxide.

With this knowledge, we can see that exercising off calories isn’t a major contestant in weight-loss. Exercise is effective because it mobilizes more of your tissue. And, with increased tissue mobilization comes increased carbon dioxide output.

It’s less about…

“OMG! I ate a brownie! Exercise! 2 hours at the gym, let’s go!”.

And more about…

“How can I properly address my breathing to make sure I am effectively releasing oxygen into my tissues and effectively increasing carbon dioxide loads?”

People are obsessed with exercises because we created a culture system of illusion called “calories” in order to effectively market products. I am working on an article about the Calorie Myth, so be sure to subscribe to my substack if you’d like that delivered to your inbox.

Weight-loss has far more to do with hormonal regulation than it ever had to do with calorie-obsessed exercise, but I digress. Exercise is certainly helpful due to the fact that the majority of weight-loss happens with respiration.

Yet, this doesn’t mean “breathe faster to lose weight!”

Please don’t do that! I don’t want you going into stressful breathe-faster patterns.

So, HOW DOES THIS ALL CONNECT? How do we get MORE oxygen, without breathing more?

To properly explain, I need to tell you another breathing secret.

Ready?The secret is this… carbon dioxide is not just a waste gas!

The Carbon Dioxide Falsehood

Since elementary school, we’ve been taught that carbon dioxide is a byproduct of respiration. Carbon dioxide is the natural product of our body breaking down fats and carbs. As we saw in our handy-dandy equation, most oxidized fat leaves the body as carbon dioxide and the minority of it turns into water. And as we learned in elementary school, carbon dioxide is a waste gas that we breathe out and give to the trees, right?

While this is partially true, it’s not fully true. Carbon dioxide serves a deep purpose in the body.   

Logically, we know that a more oxygenated body is a healthier body. This makes sense! Greater oxygen availability boosts blood flow, increases energy levels, stabilizes hormones, boosts metabolism, and so much more. It causes a full-body “YES!” effect.

But remember our questions above?

* How does this work, when breathing in MORE air leads to FASTER breathes and a stress-response?

* How do you obtain more oxygen without breathing in MORE?

… And this is where it all ties together, folks.

The answer is in increasing oxygen availability, not in increasing oxygen flow.

How do we increase available oxygen in the body?

With carbon dioxide.

Carbon Dioxide is Not the Enemy

We’ve been taught that carbon dioxide is a waste product, because it is a byproduct of metabolism… but did you know that you actually need carbon dioxide in order for oxygen to be delivered to your cells?

This is how it works: When we breathe in air, we receive oxygen into our lungs. The oxygen molecules attach to hemoglobin, which is the most important component of red blood cells. Oxygen becomes distributed through the body via a blood transport train.

Carbon dioxide is needed in order to detach an oxygen molecule from the blood transport train. When we do not have sufficient carbon dioxide then oxygen cannot detach from the blood transport train, leaving the body unable to effectively deliver oxygen, despite the fact that it is trying to deliver it.

(A note for curious, studious readers: pssst… add facia contortions into the mix and oh-boy, do we have a problem!)

In fact, common symptoms of chronic fatigue may actually be linked more to faulty carbon dioxide amounts, then oxygen intake. There is a condition called hypnocapnia, or a state of low levels of carbon dioxide, that leads to a stressed out nervous system state, heightened anxiety and fearfulness, faster ventilation, a “stuck” fight-or-flight state, less oxygen utilization, and tense muscles.

The body counteracts a state of carbon dioxide deficiency through a “tightening” response. This is the body’s way of trying to help obtain more carbon dioxide. Through this tightening response, the body makes it more difficult to breathe out air. In an effort to get more carbon dioxide, this constriction response effects EVERYTHING.

Counteractive constriction effects not only our breathing, but our circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, urinary system… and onward. In short, it affects the entire body.

Imagine the 100,000 miles of blood vessels that are in your body. Imagine that entire network of vessels in a constricted state due to lack of carbon dioxide. Often times, cold hands and cold feet are a big sign of blood flow constriction… and changing your breathing pattern can produce immediate warming results.

When you move more, like while exercising, you create more carbon dioxide. Said differently: your tissues generate more byproduct, and it’s why your breathing usually changes during exercise.

Movement is ALWAYS efficient - and it doesn’t mean you have to get up and start running. Anything that increases byproduct is advantageous, from walking to body squats.

However, there’s a different type of training, that has nothing to do with movement, that we can do in order to break the feedback of a chronic stress response…

And I’ve termed it: Carbon Dioxide Maxxing

Carbon Dioxide Maxxing: The Big Man of Breathing Regulation

Forewarning: When we come from a background of…

* being a mouth breather,

* utilizing quick and short breaths,

* depending on chest elevation during breathing,

* forming diaphragm restrictions due to the aforementioned chronic chest breathing,

* chronic obesity,

* hormonal chaos,

* sympathetic nervous system freeze states,

… and onward then when we first begin to practice Carbon Dioxide Maxxing it can give rise to a uncomfortable feeling.

It’s important to start small. You will be surprised by just how “far” you can advance, even with small 10-second rounds of Maxxing. I advise anyone reading this to work WITH THEIR BODY, in the current state their body is in. Don’t overdo it, because if you generate feelings you don’t like too often then you’ll create more resistance towards actually doing it! Body regulation activités should always be enjoyable, peaceful, and nurturing (if not straight-out fun!).

One great thing about the body? It takes an inch of effort, and gives you a mile of returns. The body returns your love in flourishes!

Beyond working on nose breathing, and working on remobilizing the diaphragm, we have to also work up an ability to hold greater levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. That is what Carbon Dioxide Maxxing is all about: being able to retain greater amounts of CO2 without a stress response. In the beginning, you will have a small stress response as you work with a new modality. This is part of breathing pattern retraining.

The uncomfortable feeling this *might* elicit is called air hunger.

With higher carbon dioxide retention, the body is able to move a greater amount of oxygen into the blood. That is why breathing more SLOWLY leads to greater oxygenation. It has nothing to do with actually getting more oxygen INTO the system, it has everything to do with the utilization of carbon dioxide. The body has *plenty* of oxygen molecules to utilize from even one full, deep breath per minute! It’s a matter of actually being ABLE to utilize that oxygen with enough carbon dioxide. Breathing 4 times a minute is my personal goal with this practice. For me, this slows my body down into a content, peaceful state.

When we retrain our body’s breathing patterns, we will see a gradual progression from shallow rapid breathing, in which oxygen is being inhaled just as quickly as carbon dioxide is being exhaled, to slower, diagrammatically-activated breathing… in which 4 times per minute is fully feasible. By changing your breathing, you can change the state of your body.

So, how do we do it? We can start training our body to effectively utilize carbon dioxide by gradually extending the feeling of “air hunger”. Begin with a 5 minute exercise in which you gently, ever-so-gently, breathe in-and-out. It helps if you hold your finger in between your nostrils… the force of your breathing should be gentle enough so that you cannot feel the breath on your finger. In other words, the breath is imperceptible.

The gentleness of the breathing should extend the times of your breath-in and breath-out significantly. After a few repetitions of this gentle breathing, you may feel the beginnings of Air Hunger. This is the feeling that we want to work on extending. When I first began this exercise, my body quickly escalated into wanting MORE AND FASTER AIR. This desire is a byproduct of a stress-state. A lot of us may be walking around with mini-hyperventilation as our normal breathing, which the brain interprets as being under threat. In my case, it was caused by the uncomfortable feeling of Air Hunger.

By practicing Air Hunger, you break the cycle of Air Hunger. It’s a strange dichotomy! With more practice, comes more carbon dioxide retention… with more CO2 retention the body begins delivering more oxygen to cells… with more oxygen being delivered to cells the body creates less of an “air hunger” feeling because it begins to become comfortable with its cell oxygenation level. The Air Hunger comes from a chronic habit of quick breathing in order to perpetually deliver short oxygen bursts.

Another common aid in building Air Hunger, and my personal favorite, is Box Breathing. Box Breathing is a simple technique in which you breathe-in, HOLD, and then breathe-out. So, say you’re working on a 10-second hold… you breathe in for ten seconds, hold for ten seconds, then breathe out for ten seconds. There are a LOT of videos available online that will take you through box training modalities. Some people box train for several minute holds!

BUT WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE IN THE DAY-TO-DAY?!

Does this mean you have to be “on” all the time, continuously monitoring your breathing? No. But, remember, whatever you do… start with limiting mouth breathing. Try mouth tape for nighttime monitoring. Doing a breathing exercise even once per day is exponentially better than simply ignoring the state of your breathing. Begin with something you can handle! Work it into your schedule, as a micro-habit, and gradually change will present itself. Box-breathe during traffic stops, or practice gentle non-perceptible breathing before bed… or practice diaphragmatic breathing to warm up the body and then through in some box breaths. The possibilities are in your hands.

Set a timer for 3 minutes in the beginning of your day and at the end of your day to practice slow diaphragmatic breathing. If you’re feeling above and beyond, do your 3 minute breathing exercises before every meal. Gradually, you’ll begin to draw your own attention to breathing more and more. You’ll find yourself walking down a sidewalk and randomly checking how you’re utilizing your diaphragm. Soon, you can work on the concept of air hunger and carbon dioxide utilization. If you find yourself having cold feet at nighttime, for example, slow and gentle air-hunger breaths may really help out. Carbon dioxide will increase, leading to oxygen utilization, leading to a full-body warming effect. It’ll become easier and easier, as you retrain your body into functional breathing patterns.

The goal of Air Hunger Techniques is to elevate the tolerance level of carbon dioxide in the blood WITHOUT added stress, and again, this will come as you practice and become more oxygenated. The threshold you may have for this tolerance can be low in the beginning of your practice. This is OKAY!

Now that we know why functional breathing is so important, not only for mobilizing the diaphragm but for increasing actual oxygen UTILIZATION (and not necessarily oxygen flow), take the next step by subscribing to this substack for future posts.

My approach with weight-loss and the body is a functional approach that is regulatory. It 3333is my goal to show people how to achieve a state in which fitness is a NATURAL BYPRODUCT of regulation. Nature did not intend for our body’s to be obese, or chronically overweight. When we view the body as a friend, and seek to understand what made it go off-balance, everything changes.

Thank you, my name is Yvette Bam, and I loved spending time with you today! I’ll see you on my website, yvettebam.com, bammingbody.com, or on substack.

Thank you for reading Answers to Loose Skin. I hope to see you next week!

The First Element of Self-Discipline is Hunger

I’ve seen the above photo floating around social media periodically.

An ensuing wave of protests often follows that image, with angry individuals accusing the image’s statement of promoting disordered eating.

In recent years, it feels like a buffer has been placed into American society. Like a large energetic buoy, for lack of a better word, has been inserted between the world and the American public.

Individuals in America are so seemingly protected in their procured walls, so righteously minded, and *so* into sanitizing their environment in sake of further protection (this has nothing to do with the dreaded 2020 C-word). It feels like people can’t take the heat anymore.

Everyone gets offended over everything. We have built a culture of highly-bubbled people that are so KEEN on penetration from something that isn’t highly-bubbled that they JUMP at the first opportunity to be #triggered.

These are the people that spend hours replying to comments online, desperate to FEEL SOMETHING other than the soft curation of their whimsical fantasy-land. Does this trigger you, reader? It is with purpose. Call me an annoying a*****e, you are self-righteous in your world.

We jump at the first opportunity to have something penetrate the bubble (if only we would realize that artistic living involves purposely penetrating our own bubbles!).

But the worst dichotomy our little bubbled lifestyle offers is that it is only through the #privilege of living in a curated society that we can even afford to BE triggered.

When I first read the statement of the “first element of self-discipline being hunger” I was captivated. A resonance of truth struck me. The thought of disordered eating didn’t register. It wasn't until I scrolled through the comments that I realized how vastly different my interpretation was… and just how weird our 3+ large meals pLUS SnAcKieS society has grown.  We buffer ourselves with food, and are convinced it’s healthy because corporate food giants invest in studies that tell us to eat more, and then they slap heart-healthy labels on insulin-spiking refined-grains.

To date: my longest water fast, in which I consumed nothing but water, has been 40 days.

To date: My longest dry fast, in which I did not consume any food OR water, has been 7 days.

To date: the driving force of both of these examples was Discipline.

When I speak about my experiences, I get peppered with projections. It came to the point where it shut down my voice for a couple years. I LOVE the world of fasting, I LOVE the world of the body, I’m still in school at the age of 32 learning MORE about the body. I will never stop learning about the body. In car rides, I forfeit music for audio books. At home, I am plagued by books in every corner… plagued because they are all screaming at me, simultaneously, “Read me! Read me!” On the computer, I have 1000s of hours logged reading medical journals.

I love the body, and it was my experiences with FASTING that unfurled my relationship to the body.

For a long time, I struggled to coherently express my experiences with fasting.

I lamely replied with casual variations of... "Well, it really opened me up emotionally!" before placing the subject further down on my list of "Things Not to Speak to Normal People About". I felt as if I couldn't, for the life of me, transmit my fasting experiences accurately.

In particular, I had a horrid experience in Jerusalem while on a pilgrimage with 40 other people. A dozen of us sat around a campfire, talking story at the end of the day.

Inevitably, it came to a discussion of “what do you do…” and a Polish-speaking man heavily focused on me, in front of the group. I replied with my usual variations of, “oh, I do so much that it would take too long to explain!”

He pressed me. He told me not to be embarrassed if I was out of a job.

I was flustered. My Polish language capabilities are 50% less than my English, especially for topics that are out of my “zone”. I tried describing more of my work. Inevitably it turned into a discussion about the body (my line of work!) and he, seeking the FIRST POSSIBLE CHANCE TO INSERT HIS GORGEOUS OPINION, told me that I was a beautiful woman, but that I definitely needed to lose some pounds.

Sigh. He completely ignored my statements of my current project, Secrets of Loose Skin, in which I regained weight to lose it on camera, and instead told me a way to make myself more attractive for him.

Lose weight, Fattie.

So I get it. Guys, I get it.

I say a lot about this buffered culture of #triggered people because the truth is that it IS a lot. And the truth is… if we pull the sticks out of our own asses and simply don’t pay attention to energy vultures who like to purposely state inappropriate comments, then the cycle of energetic consumption ends.

The bubbled-#trigger movement in this society is a massive contraction for me BECAUSE of the cycle of energetic consumption that gets fed from it.

But I get why people are so sensitive about their body. They’ve had a lot of situations with Polish a******s, for example, commenting unsolicitedly about the gorgeous body they have.

As if our goal in life, as women, is to make sure the a******s peckers get hard when they turn their eyes onto us in viewing pleasure…

Not only was I insecure in relying my experiences (the ongoing lesson of learning how to use my voice is... well... still ongoing...) but I also didn't quite know how to formulate the "proper" wording for it. In the one year since that conversation I thankfully have grown 100-fold in being able to state what it is I do, exactly, and being able to handle a******s.

My life’s work with the body is far broader than fasting, but fasting began it all. Fasting was the tiny snowball at the top of the hill, right before it begins to roll down and gain momentum.

I began my fascination with fasting because I wanted to lose 150 pounds without loose skin, over 7 years ago now. After I lost 150 pounds without loose skin, I wanted to put out a lot of information about this miracle healing agent… only to realize that many people cannot fast for as long as I have.

I decided to regain some of the weight and lose it again, but this time using absolutely NO long-term fasting. I needed to find a way to lose a lot of weight WITHOUT loose skin and WITHOUT long-term fasting.

I knew that loose skin was a byproduct of dysregulation… and I knew fasting was so healing for the body DUE TO REGULATORY PATHWAYS… so I began with:

How do I balance my body in regulation while losing weight and NOT incorporating intense fasting protocols? What are the regulatory pathways fasting uses, and how can I best mimic them in normal day-to-day functioning?

That’s how “Secrets of Loose Skin” was born: a 6-month program in which the viewer JOURNEYS with me as I lose the weight, in real time, in a SUBSTANTIAL AND APPROACHABLE WAY while working with hormones, nutrition, fascia, lymph, and musculature.

But in real life, every time I tried to describe my experiences, it fell flat. It felt as if a congruence factor was off, as if the receiving party was interpreting the color blue when I was trying to speak green. This feeling would shut me down.

I was unwilling to dive into a subject that I already felt was misunderstood from the intro. It was much easier, in every single possible scenario, to simply let it drop and pretend I didn’t have much to talk about. I spent years of isolation during which I, quite literally, spent 90% of my time alone in the middle of a rainforest.

And I stopped talking about fasting.

To someone who still believes a human would die after about a week of not eating, hearing information about a 40-day water fast is bound to bring up a hell of a lot of disbelief... and immediate judgement. It goes against our social patterns. It goes against nearly everything that we have been conventionally taught about food and the body. It goes against recommendations of mainstream Western (and petroleum-based, profit-generating, big-pharma) medicine.

Thankfully, the tides are turning now… with Reddit forums about fasting being prevalent, and more people that have experimented and reached levels beyond 40 days sharing their healing experiences. (Psssst: I know a man who has dry-fasted, no food or water, for 20 days!). The edges of what is possible are definitely expanding as more people choose to turn against pill-popping medical disciplines.

Nonetheless, when you fast… you simply "go against” the general tide.

There is a lot of societal sigma with fasting. It draws attention. Usually in a bad way... but that's the general process of going against a tide. People notice you. They finger-point and shake their heads and secretly await the moment that a current pulls you under so that they can hear your redemption story of “I was lost but now I am found!” And proudly congratulate you on returning back to the safety of nurturing the metabolism like a two-year-old child who needs to eat every few hours.

I have had more side-eye looks, worried expressions, and baseless variations of speeches about how incredibly "bad" water-fasting is than I can count. My favorite one came from a distant relative of mine... who, with an escalating voice, told me all about how terribly fasting would effect my health (oh the ABSOLUTE horror I was bestowing upon my body!) while her fingers were greased from a meal that beckoned artery clogs *aaaand* right before she drank herself silly for the third weekend in a row.

But I admit, all of these energetic contusions shut me up for a few years. I was exhausted with trying to share. You cast your pearls before swine for long enough, metaphorically speaking, and yeah… you stop wanting to share.

I wanted to talk about the vast spiritual and emotional whirlpools that extended fasting fostered! I wanted to talk about the parts of Self that I slowly became acquainted with, about how fasting plants seeds that flourish into consciousness! I wanted to talk about the patterns I became able to recognize, the lull of the reptilian brain, the numbing effects of binge-eating and disassociation, which I used to have problems with… the silliness of being ordained to believe that constant near around-the-clock consumption was normal, the food-like chemical substances we’re brain-hijacked to ingest… the ones that are specifically engineered so that your taste buds CAN'T have just one... and so much more.

Instead, I fell into a pattern of energetically shunting people. I gave up on trying to be understood.

As time progressed, fasting became more popular in the form of intermittent fasting. When I initially started water fasting the information available online was nearly non-existent. Back then, I resorted to reading translations of Russian medical journals. With the recent popularity surge of intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets, I’ve found people to be far more accepting of my fasting practices. OR... perhaps I'm beginning to actually surround myself with like-minded individuals... either way, it has been a beautiful relief.

Something else began to happen in my years of isolation. I didn’t have any friends, it was hard for me to relate to anyone, but I began to solidify in my selfhood. I studied so much that I began to be able to see the faulty energetic threads in other people’s arguments, and contest them without being rude. I began to see deeper into the layers of society, and how insanely warped it gets with topics like weight-loss surgery, ozempic, and liposuction for lymphedema. I began to grow extremely sad with how deeply the body has come to be misunderstood. The body needs loving regulation, not another artificial hormonal drug cocktail.

I share the above story so that you, reader, can understand where I am coming from.

Our culture has been taken over by a virus within people that feeds off of the consumption of being offended about nearly everything. Our society has been taken over by a conviction that the body is something to defeat, that the body needs to be assisted with a perpetual drug cocktail, that we need to CUT into the body in order to regulate it (or make it look #hot).

While at the same time… wanting to lose weight is akin to a near-sin from the vantage point of the fat-acceptance movement. Quotes, such as the hunger and discipline one, are being immediately taken as accusatory (how dare you suggest that I should starve myself!) instead of evoking deeper discussions (what is the difference between starvation and fasting?).

While we’re here: let’s clarify something… an eating disorder and fasting are vastly different worlds. The difference is prevalent on a physical, mental, and emotional level.

An eating disorder can be based in control, or in shame, in guilt, in constant mental noise purring about your lack of worth, in dictation of "bad" versus "good", in numbing, in emotional wounding that needs to be addressed but has been stuffed into the subconscious for holding... and onward.

I don't care if you lose 100 pounds. If you haven't addressed the underlying emotional warfare that caused your body to have that extra 100 pounds in the first place then say hello to a new vice, even if it gives rise to a vice that is “accepted” by society… like a work-out obsession. The body, once again, needs loving regulation… not a sentence rooted in shame or control.

Fasting is…

Fasting is a conscious choice of orientation, of reorientation, of further reorientation, and some more reorientation, of emotional propagation, of spiritual alignment, of working on the mental body, on the emotional body, on the spiritual body, of cultivating mindset... of becoming a conscious captain of your ship, of sitting within your silence and somehow not screaming from all of its noise, of intense physical healing, of determination and willpower, of opportunity towards alignment, of greeting the parts of yourself that have been hidden… of regulation, if we choose to stay conscious during the fast, if we choose to stay WITH ourselves and not propagate ourselves in a mentality of control.

The deeper energetic aspect of my work in Secrets of Loose Skin is one of regulation, of learning how to re-write the body from the top-down mental control hierarchy to listening TO the body. A fit body is a byproduct of a regulated body, yet we often don’t realize this and use control to attempt to be fit.

A 40-day water fast isn't easy. A 7-day water fast isn't easy. A 1-day water fast isn't easy! Hell, persistent intermittent fasting isn't easy! Not when you have been conditioned, throughout your entire life, to be either constantly eating, thinking about eating, or worried about your body. Three meals a day! Five small meals a day! Three meals and two snacks to keep your metabolism up! BUY MY PROTEIN SHAKE! I HAVE AN AFFILIATE CODE!

Discipline takes cultivation!

We are infused in a culture of three-dimensions. Spiritual aspects, once a large part of society, have been displaced. Materialism and physical perceptions run rampant. Therefore, judgements about appearances are all too easy to associate with inherent worth. Especially when a large part of our indoctrination includes images of surgically altered women waving a buttocks full of silicone, associations of power and wallet size, and teachings of smiles coming alongside acceptance.

It's a culture that produces shame, lack of worth, individuals who subconsciously strive to "prove" their worth on account of being indoctrinated with the belief that they are simply Not Enough in their current forms.

There is always something to prune, pick, alter, advance, portray in a different light, justify, trim, or suck-in. There is always more to be done. There is a certificate you can gain and wave around the face of potential employers to justify your worth. There is a number on a scale you can proudly smile at to justify your worth. There is a red sports car you can slide into to justify your worth. There are endless deviations of ways the external world can give you a thumbs-up... but they will always be fruitless if your internal nature does not sing the song of your heart, and if your abdomen does not radiate it outward to encompass your environment.

When oriented in this type of consumeristic, material, machine-like reality, there’s a lot of natural shame surrounding food and body size simply because food has turned into a profiting machine of its own accord. Variations of refined grains and corn syrups now make up like 50% of local grocery stores, yet not one public education curriculum is teaching about how refined grains cause immense hormonal disruption due to insulin spikes.

America the Great is here to make a profit out of you. And if you can’t stay away from the chemically engineered concoctions of taste-bud glory then shame on you, fatty, but we have surgical enhancements you can save for instead.

In fact, we’ll convince you that there is something wrong with your body and that you can’t lose weight naturally because your body is basically working against you. Actually, here’s a condition that we have now labeled as having no cure (lymphedema) but that can be helped with SURGERY. Let us CONVINCE YOU all about how its natural to have loose-skin after weight loss… and did you hear about our tummy tuck special this month? Education would cut this s**t in half. Spiritual encompassment would decrease it by another 25%. Yet, instead, we have consumers. Consumers that get triggered by “the first element of self-discipline is hunger” but somehow nod their heads agreeably when told that “the body needs pharmaceuticals, or needs surgery, to be able to function normally and look hot again”.

The Western Culture has successfully churned out customers that are concerned about eating too much, about eating too little, about having a piece of cake, about our mom's making commentary regarding our appearance, about attracting a partner using the particular curvature of our butt... becoming convinced that our deeply-seated feelings of inherent lack would be fixed if we purchase a particular diet plan, allow our body to be infiltrated with silicone, obtain the perfect hair highlights that gives off an appearance of a greek goddess... all while reinforcing the need for More.

It never stops. More. The next product is out! You can be EVEN better! This one will work like a charm! More! 32 red-notifications on that selfie? But the last one had 65! More! I reached my goal-weight! Still not quite happy here though, might need a little MORE! Don't like the shape of my body now, I need to alter this!

More! More! More!

It’s a consumption machine - both energetically and monetarily, specifically designed to never end. These external manifestations of acceptance and desire are simple illusions. They only have face-value. That is the reason beyond why they never end. They have no substance. The machine of it is eating you alive, by it is only a head. It has no body. It’s perpetually hungry.

But YOU are a Being of substance. You, in your core, are unable to accept illusions. You will strive toward them, because that is what this world propagates... that’s the system in place, a perpetual hamster wheel that will keep you spinning and spinning and spinning... until you decide to get off.

You have been taught to strive toward consumption. This is not your fault. But until you heal the cries that are reverberating within you, the wounds that cut and never quite healed... you will always want More.

The body is weaponized in Western Culture because it is (1) ridiculously easy to do… if you install people with the belief that They Are Not Enough it’ll drive the cog machine with We The People’s energy, (2) makes a lot of other people money, (3) disconnects us from ourselves and ensures we are perpetual material-density-obsessed consumers.

When we are disconnect from the body in this way, when we view it as something that must be conditioned... when it is seen as a near-evil, or a near-glorified trophy, we become a tool for spiritual hijacking. We are living in the heavy density of the third-dimension... our inner world is beckoning, on a far threshold, waiting to be explored... but our eyes roaming for the next hit of More, for the next reassurance that we are NOT ENOUGH, because it drives the cog machine for achieving MORE, and for the emotional storms that we attempt, time and time again, to rectify through the numbing of More.

I’ll leave you with this:

Become conscious toward all that arises for you, no matter what it is. Fasting was a tool that I used to learn this differentiation: WHAT IS MINE, and WHAT IS WORKING THROUGH ME?

Discipline goes far beyond hunger, but hunger is a primal force that is deeply weaved into our body and working with ABSTAINING is the true power in fasting. Abstaining from around-the-clock consumption. When you abstain, you begin to cultivate a different set of eyes: a vision field away from consumption, and toward your foundation.

Thank you!

Join Secrets of Loose Skin Here:

https://www.yvettebam.com/secrets-of-loose-skinSecrets of Loose Skin is a 6-month program in which I loose a heck of a lot of weight on camera, while teaching you everything I know about bodily regulation, skin, and the preventing of loose-skin. We dive into fascia, lymph, musculature, nutrition, and SO! MUCH! MORE! And no, we don’t use extended fasting…

I did it! I successfully underwent a (very long) dry fast…

…*aaaand* I’ve tacked on another point to my list of “THINGS I WAS TOLD US ABOUT THE BODY THAT ARE DEEPLY WRONG”.

This one being: a human cannot survive for more than 3 days without water. FALSE.

7 days of no food and no water, just pure body functional livin'. We all know that dry fasting is controversial as heck, and I’m not here to convince you of anything!

I don’t think you should dry fast… unless you want to.I don’t think you should NOT dry fast… unless you want to.You do you.

I’m here offering my experience for your reading pleasure, and maybe you’ll write me a nasty comment or two to generate more viewing eyes. Fingers crossed, please tell me all about how I am Spreading Dangerous Information About the Human Body’s Capabilities. I’m ever-so-eager to hear it…

(Hehe)So, why did I do it? I completed a seven day dry fast for purely experimental purposes. In short: I wanted to see if I could do it.

Would I repeat this length of a dry fast? No, I wouldn’t, not unless there was a specific medical necessity for me to do so.

Good news: I didn't die. My kidneys didn't shrivel up. I didn't even enter a coma, by golly! Everything the internet told me will happen… has not happened. I spent the majority of the fast in a semi-blissful state of relaxation, with a few occasional intrusions of media telling me that I was going to die. My body, however, felt just dandy. The Russian Medical Journals I’ve been reading pertaining to research about dry fasting may just be onto something. My body feels as if it’s in an optimal state of health and, dare I say it, I'm even feeling a little bit superhuman.

Fun Fact: Fasting has been intensively studied by the East for a very, very, VERY long time. The West, as most of us know, has turned toward making billions of dollars per year colluding with pharmaceuticals instead of offering true pathways to health. The body IS a miracle worker, but many of us have been subdued by the spell of this society, and installed with a belief that we cannot trust our body, or that the body is something to control.

Why is it that almost everyone is on prescription drugs nowadays? Weird. Hmmm…

Anyway, back to my experience!

PREPARATION

Prior to this seven day dry fast, I completed too many 1 to 3 day dry fasts to count properly. My first EVER dry fast was three days long, back in November 2018. Surprisingly, this first ever dry fast, despite being over half as short in duration, was more difficult than the seven-day dry fast! Fasting, like most things, becomes easier the more you do it. Why? The body develops a metabolic switching “muscle”.

Back in 2018, after I finished that first three day dry fast, I remember thinking that I wouldn't DARE go past three days. Three days still seemed like a shock-factor to me. The more I practiced fasting, however, the more a longer dry fast seemed… perfectly feasible. I am now acquainted with people that have even completed a twenty day dry fast, which is just mind boggling to me.

Going into this dry fast, my goal was initially five days. I ended up going past that, which was a lovely bonus. On my previous attempts of reaching five days, I kept having mind hiccups on day four.

I say "mind hiccups" for a reason. My body could have kept going. I have no doubt about that. My body seems to be so adapted to these kind of altered states that it barely rolls its eyes at me anymore. It feels like a trained fasting athlete, or something. I didn't even have any problems sleeping on this seven-day dry fast... which is weird because my cortisol spikes should have kept me up!

It’s always been my mind that needed convincing… not my body. My body adapts, and it adapts well, because the body knows what it is doing. The more I become acquainted with fasting, the more I find myself being able to trust my body. My mind is the one that always yielded, expertly crafting reasons why it yielded. These reasons can be incredibly, viscerally convincing when you have not had a drop of water in 3+ days time… but it all goes back to the simplicity of…

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't... you're probably right”.

I’ve proven this quote to myself, over and over again, with my log of fasting experiences. Fasting has been an incredible tool of mind-training.

This time around I decided that I COULD actually do this, and that’s what made the difference between another 3-day fluke and a successful goal accomplishment. I recognized that my mind was telling me that I COULD do it, but that I didn’t actually believe it, and that’s what was causing my perpetual flops. Fasting introduced me to deeply subtle layers in my own mind-body connection. I also view the fasting journey as a deeply spiritual exercise, choosing to implement a conscious observer point-of-view as I enter altered mind-body states. This is what helps me get through the mind ping-pong battles of “OH I’LL JUST START AGAIN TOMORROW!” And “No! You already committed to it!”

This is easier said than done, especially when you're a beginner. Hunger and thirst are powerful motivational inlays that'll weave themselves into your mind like you wouldn't believe... It's hard to be an observer in these types of primal states!

That, however, is EXACTLY why I love getting myself into these states.

There's no doubt about it: dry-fasting is like water-fasting on steroids. It does get easier the more you practice, but going without water still obviously remains a hefty challenge. Learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable is akin to an art form. It takes a continuously chosen and honed state of mind to help you recognize that you're so much stronger than the part of you that identifies with your mind.

Let's start with the most common question:

Won't you like... die?

Sure. You'll die. Eventually. We will all eventually perish, into a little piece of dust, return to the stars and sing Oh-La-La in our heavenly homes.

You pose a great risk of dying every single time you get into your car on your morning commute. And if you don't die from the six hundred car rides you take per year then you'll surely die from the compounded years of having your soul sucked out a tiny societal straw that has you doing jumping jacks to impress shadow projections. Woo!

Oh, and if you think I’m being obnoxious now with this completely unrelated example then let’s dapple a little splooge of relation into the mix and talk about the long-list of foods that’re banned in other countries that America the Great gives a thumbs up to… yummy nutrition like titanium dioxide, brominated vegetable oil, BHA, BHT, rBST, skittles, pop-tarts, gatorade (advertised for athletes and health but truly just a hub for refined sugar!)…

Or, let’s go FULL DABBLE mode and see how precious our nutrition recommendations get. The Classical American Food Pyramid has you thinking that a diet full of refined grains is a heart-healthy diet…

Oh, but we don’t talk about that. We talk about how dangerous it is to go WITHOUT food, yet cannot accommodate conversations about the danger of the poison that we have all around us in today’s little corporate society…

What do you think your body would prefer: three days with food or water, or a artificially dyed drink loaded with an insulin-spiking fructose sugar bomb that can only be processed by the liver and thus leads to an inevitable down-the-line fatty liver syndrome due to the fact that our liver cannot process SO MANY FRUCTOSE MOLECULES at a time?

I would place my bets on: the body would prefer nothing, in comparison to poison.

But I digress…

Look, the body is high-functioning. It knows what to do. Your body knew what to do when refrigerators didn't exist. Your body knew what to do when your chances of eating for the next couple days ran past your peripheral vision. Going for extending periods of time without food and water is NOT new. We didn't always have easy access to BPA-enriched fluorinated water.

Somewhere along the way of living within our current paradigms, we've been taught to mistrust our bodies... that our bodies will suddenly go "caput" on us and collapse without warning. Horror stories of going into the doctors office for a regular checkup only to receive lab-test results of terror are paramount... but questions revolving around the systems of life as we know it are blankly averted. Doctors are more interested in the ticking clock than your explanations, the medical system has been set up to fail with pharmaceuticals that quell symptoms but refuse to address the underlying causes, food items are more akin to rat poison, and the horror story goes on.

The point is: our skepticism is heavily misdirected. Fasting is not the concern, but it takes a lot of the brunt force blame from individuals that have products to sell you (*cough* westernized medical industry *cough*).

Fasting is a natural state for our bodies to slip into and our bodies have a methodology in place that not only recognizes fasting, but flourishes within it… the body just needs a little time to adjust if it’s been living under the 6-small-meals-a-day recommendations of corporate America.

Your body: Yes! Finally! A chance to rest the constantly churning digestive tract and actually pay attention to all the back-log of work we've been putting aside!

Cell autophagy agents: it's go time!

I am an advocate for the belief that our bodies are our greatest allies. Our bodies main job is to keep us alive. It knows what to do and it always does what it can to its utmost ability. Methodically abstaining from food and water might just be one of the best things you can do for your body.

The World of Fasting

Informed fasting can be used as a healing agent for the body. It is my belief that our bodies, when given proper time and attention, are miraculous self-healing agents. Your body can be your best friend, if you choose to harness the connection. Problems begin to accumulate when you do not give your body enough time to actually do what it does best: preserve and heal itself. Fasting is just one of the many tools you can begin implementing on your journey.

There are many forms of fasting, here is a couple huge differences in common styles:

Intermittent Fasting: Intermittent fasting (IF) is the most popular form of fasting. It encompasses the very natural idea that your body needs a break from constantly metabolizing and utilizes an eating window of your choosing. The most popular form of intermittent fasting is 16/8, in which you eat during an 8-hour window per day and fast for 16 hours.

Water Fasting: water fasting is the complete abstinence from all food. You drink only water. Shorter term water fasting becomes relatively easy when your body becomes adjusted to intermittent fasting.

Ramadan Fasting: Ramadan is a type of religious fasting in which the faster abstains from both food and water for intermittent periods of the day. The faster is still eating and drinking daily... but only when the sun is down. During the daytime, there is no consumption of any sorts. I like to refer to Ramadan as an intermittent dry-fasting protocol.

Dry Fasting: Dry-fasting is completely abstaining from food and water for a period longer than 24 hours. Any periods shorter than 24 hours can effectively be considered to be intermittent dry-fasting.

Dry-fasting is described by many to be "water fasting on steroids." It has been stated that one day of dry fasting is equivalent to three days of water fasting in terms of the potential benefits. Dry fasting can accelerate healing, creating an intensely competitive environment by which the "best cell wins," and is a powerful tool when used correctly and in conjugation with your body's innate intelligence.

No, seriously though, why didn't you die?

In short, the true reason behind my lack of death are my humps.

That's right. My humps.

My hHuMpS, MY HUMps, my lOvELy laDY lumps.

We've all know of camel being being able to trek across the dessert due to the large water storage hump on its back. But WAIT! …. That’s not actual true.

The hump on the camel’s back is not filled with water, and it’s kind of obvious when you think about it… did we really expect a giant canteen of internal sloshing water? I know I did, once upon a time.

The hump on its back is filled with fat. Camels trek across the desert because they have a special fat reservoir, alongside some other adaptations to be able to handle the heal… and create metabolic water as needed.

I’m not a camel, but I have humps too… AND I’m also built to handle the heat. The heat of DETERMINATION!

Humans might not be camels but metabolic water can still be generated by our bodies through metabolizing fat tissue. One hundred grams of fat will produce about one hundred ten grams of metabolic water. The fatter you are, in theory, the longer you can dry fast. It's the same as water fasting except with an extra step because your body is not only relying on fat for energy reserves but also converting the fat into water. Yes, you burn a heck of a lot more calories in the process, naturally, because your body is doing a heck of a lot more work.

Metabolic water is simply defined as water that is produced during cellular metabolism... and, not only that, but it is considered to be the purest, “most” living water. That sounds funny to people who still think that “all water is created equal”. Not in today’s work, and I wrote an introductory article about it here (https://www.yvettebam.com/blog/the-best-water-for-water-fasting-in-2024-a-guide-to-water-types-benefits-and-filtration-systems-and-why-your-water-matters).

The water we ingest matters and, unfortunately, the majority of people consume water that is not only full of contaminants but can effectively be considered dead. Consuming your water in the form of organic vegetables, for example, is a far better option than mindlessly throwing back eight glasses of dreaded tap water.

So… in summary… your best friend during the process of dry-fasting is... your fat.

Who thought they'd ever be saying THAT?

As a child, I was particularly fascinated when I learned about bears and hibernation. A picture of a brown bear sleeping inside of the hollow trunk of a tree, cozy as can be, toasty and awaiting the arrival of spring. The bear gorged on food, got himself a nice belly of energy reserves, and retired for the winter. And the bear is not the only mammal displaying such abilities… the humpback whale is another!

Unfortunately, due to the fact that there’s absolutely no money to be made from telling people that their body is possibly their best healing agent, fasting on humans iN THE WESTERN WORLD has simply not been well researched.

Dry fasting, in particular, is an area of scarce scientific research. There's small wonderful communities online, with people who share their experimentations and garnered knowledge, and there's some information source coming from obscure Russian doctors... but, beyond that, you'll be hard-pressed finding concrete, fail-safe anything in American Medical Culture. When you realize that our medical system was set up to create lifelong patients as opposed to actual healing, however, you'll become more accepting of your innate capability to listen and work with your body.

Why Would Anyone Choose a Dry fast?

Dry fasting, as mentioned before, can be considered to be water fasting on steroids... it's believed to have more benefits than pure water fasting in a far shorter duration of time, though with added risks and added post-fast considerations.

Yes: it’s harder, much harder, for someone who is just starting out in the fasting world. But realize there is no one telling you that you MUST DRY FAST FOR SEVEN DAYS because a random woman on the internet did it. You can incorporate dry fasting into your life slowly, at your discretion, with an intermittent dry fast beginning at 7pm that extends till 7am. From there, you can bounce around with time schedules and eventually do a 24-hour dry fast with little notice. It is all about working WITH YOUR BODY, which includes acknowledging the current state of your body and not forcing yourself to do anything.

The re-feed portion after a dry fast can be debilitating, if you do not work with your body. There’s no recommendations I have for you here because, once again, it all depends on the degrees in which you worked WITH your body. Are you doing this out of force? You’ll create a resistance driven mindset that may find it hard to re-feed normally. Take it slowly, with consciousness, and Stay With Yourself. This isn’t for the meek. It isn’t for the casual “heheeeee” person. This is for someone who wants to work with their mindset, or who wants to help aid in the healing of a serious illness.

Dry fasting creates an extremely competitive cell environment due to water restriction. It’s all hands on deck in a dry fasting environment. Your body goes into a self-preservation mode, needing to allocate resources to cells that need it most. It's a "survival of the fittest" type of scenario, with the healthy cells receiving all of the attention and the sickly cells being sacrificed. The body goes into a cellular recycling mode called Autophagy, and healthy cells are spared.

If I were to ever have a debilitating illness, such as a tumor, or diabetes, then I would highly consider a dry fasting schedule.

My 7-day Dry Fast - Review and Personal Notes

Days 1 and 2,

for the most part, chugged along just fine...

Expect for the tongue aspect.

Yuck.

One of the worst parts of dry fasting, for me, is the terrible taste that forms in my mouth. The mouth becomes dry, yet oddly gooey at the same time. One of the first telltale signs of both water and dry fasting is a white-coated tongue. This tongue emerges much quicker with dry fasting, especially if you're doing a hard dry fast with absolutely no water contact (including showers), and the taste is just a constant, uncomfortable and nagging reminder.

On my first three-day dry fast, I remember all days being hell on earth. On day two, in particular, I remember working an eight-hour standing shift and becoming lightheaded to the point of needing to hold onto a table and continuously breaking out in cold sweat. Dry fasting is just NOT something you want to do while you are actively working. This is an obvious statement, but for some reason I have a tendency to want to break the "rules" and see what happens. This time around, I had all days apart from the 7th (and hardest!) day off work and that is one of the reasons why I wanted to take advantage of the free time.

Having a dry-throat is also common for me and I did not avoid it this time around. When a case of the dry-throat hits me I pretend to be a vampire who developed a moral compass and is intent on NOT drinking any more blood. Hey, it works!

At 24 hours I woke up with a pounding headache and neck ache. Neck aches are very common for me when I’m NOT dry fasting and they almost always come with a resounding headache. I went back to sleep for another five hours and that alleviated the majority.

40 hours in I went running for 1.5 miles. I felt fantastic, despite the continuous bad taste in my mouth, and extremely determined. A peaceful feeling stayed with me for the rest of the day and I wanted to go outside to sunbathe.

While I did go running, I do NOT recommend exercising while dry-fasting. Despite wanting to push my personal limits to the extreme, and feeling okay for the rest of the day, I believe my exercising really offset Day 3 for me.

It is so important to use this time to rest, rest, rest, aaaand REST. Even though it may not feel like it, your body is doing SO MUCH. You may feel lethargic, lazy, or "guilty" for lounging around all day... but allow yourself to slip into the laziness!

The time-aspect of dry fasting can suck. Time inches along, which would be perfectly fine. In fact, it can be considered a pristine opportunity to jumpstart projects, read that book that has been on your bookstand for three months, or tune into that beautiful body of yours. Except for the fact that you may just feel a burning desire to drink. You start thinking about all the glorious opportunities you had to drink water... brilliant, ice cold water...

The first time I dry fasted I remember cuddling on my bed with a five pound bag of ice. Granted: It was in the middle of a 95 degree heat wave in Lahaina, Maui during August and I didn’t have air conditioning. My body felt like it was a heat generator and faint-like hot flashes weren't helping. IIf anyone actually wanted to take an ice bath then it would have been me. I'd have volunteered as ice bath tribute. I couldn't do much besides read, the heat was brutal.

Napping helps pass the time.

Day 3

Besides day seven of the dry fast, day three was the hardest day for me. I experienced an insane, unrelenting headache that manifested from neck pain. It was blinding, to the point where I had trouble looking at lights, and it was absolutely miserable.

I think my running had a lot to do with it.

63 hours in the neck ache started. My body was trembling, and I had a few eye twitches happen. I felt extremely foggy and withdrawn.

After sleeping for well over 12-hours... I woke up feeling primarily like crap. The feeling lasted throughout the day, despite my attempts at sitting down and resting. I alternated from sitting outside and listening to the rain, to typing away on my couch... to crying on my bed (fasting is deeply emotionally purging for me)… to typing away at my desk.

My primary crap-focused area was my neck. It hurt. I cracked that motherflower to no avail. The pain persisted. I considered dry-swallowing an aspirin. The pain persisted. I didn’t do it. It persisted. I distracted myself, going into some publications and reading all about some new mouse studies. The pain persisted.

Finally, after finishing up a skin routine, I peered into my closet and noticed my essential oils sitting calmly in a little basket. Hmmm, I thought... well, it couldn't hurt.

Essential oils are something I have recently started to become roped up in. Quite literally. My friend convinced me to buy a starter kit and I agreed, more to appease her than of actual interest. Months early, when I was on day 14 of a water fast, she muscle tested me at a park. I tested positive for the Citrus blend and he placed two drops on my tongue. The effect was almost instantaneous. I felt, quite literally, revitalized. My adrenals were weakened during my fasted state and the citrus sparked them back up.

I remembered our afternoon in the park, looking into my closest, and my eyes focused on peppermint essential oil. Menthol is what gives peppermint its cooling properties and increases bloodflow. After all day with this neck pain, I was ready to give anything a try.

I placed three drops of Peppermint into my hand and gently massaged my neck with it before breathing in the leftover particles. Ahhh. Relief. My neck was feeling nice and spicy and no longer radiating pain. It allowed me to concentrate on tasks I have actually wanted to do that day, instead of being constantly displaced in a little pain bubble.

It worked, and after looking into the WHY some more… I discovered that peppermint applied to your forehead is just as effective for the treatment of a headache as 1,000 mg of acetaminophen. Who would have known?

Ah, so there I was, day-three and feeling some relief. I'm peeing quite normally. The amount is definitely less than it would be in consideration of the insane amounts of water I usually drink BUT the color of the pee is still pale yellow.

My cravings consist of... early grey tea with cream, avocado, tomatoes, goat cheese, green onions, crackers FOR a combo of that yumminess, riced cauliflower, and I wouldn't say no to a hearty steak either,

Day 4

Four days into the water fast! My initial goal of five days is still on the horizon, but I had never made it this far before and was so excited to fully surpass the day three mark. The momentum this gave me made it pretty clear that day five was very achievable.

Day four was probably the easiest day out of the whole week. Dry fasting propels you into a keto-adapted state much faster than water fasting does (in water fasting it can take between 3-5 days while with dry fasting it takes me 1-2 days) and my body was in full cruise-mode today. I made sure to take it easy and alternated between sitting on my butt and laying on my backside.

Day 5

Day five was also a hard-hitter for me. I went to a dance class for an hour, having already prepaid for a series of lessons and not wanting to miss out. I tried taking it easy during the dance class but around the 45 minute mark I had to excuse myself.

I went into the bathroom, where I simply sat down on the toilet and practiced conscious breathing. I was feeling lightheaded and faint.

Once the dance class was over, I sat in my car listening to music for just over an hour. I felt a LOT better, despite being pretty wiped out, and slept like a baby that night.

Noted: It is not advisable to wear stripper heals and pole dance when you are five days dry fasted.

Day 6

I went into work on day 6. Admittedly, there were numerous occasions during my eight-hour shift in which I considered sipping on water. I spent the entirety of my lunch break twiddling my thumbs and juggling the thought of having water back and forth.

My brother, who was the only person actively aware and receiving updates on my fast, was extremely concerned for me during day 6 because of the fact that I was working a physical 8-hour shift.

Admittedly, I probably sent him one text too many of sarcastic jokes. I felt absolutely fine, for the most part, my mind was perfectly clear and I was actively walking around and completing my work supervision duties with no problem. The thought of water, though, was inescapable… and my hands developed a wrinkly appearance, that went away during the night (with more metabolic water generated? Unsure!).

I looked at the people drinking water and shook my head longingly to myself. Did they not realize how incredibly lucky they were? They took sips of that water like they didn't even think about it, like it was just always available to them on their beck and call...

It really opened my eyes to just how grateful we can be for the simple necessities. There is nothing quite like choosing not to drink water for an extended period of time that'll really open your eyes to just how fortunate you are every single time you lift a glass of water to your lips.

I stared at those people incredulously, without even mentally mentioning the numbers of coffees and teas I saw. My goodness. So much wealth, so much access, and their they were... complaining about things that they could be considered fortunate enough to complain about.

And the worst part of it all? I was the same way!

Day 7

I thought the day would never come! Day 6 dragged on and on... the thought of coconut water being on the horizon made the clock feel as if it was purposely playing a time game with me. I was impatient, and that motherflowah was scheming against me and going backward.

I had a flight to catch later on that day. The flight was 9 hours long and, to be quite honest, I wasn't sure how I would fare in a high, claustrophobic altitude in a seven-day dry-fasted state.

One thing was for certain: I wasn't about to break this fast while ON the plane. It was going to be either before.... or after, taking me into day eight.

I weighted the options, back-and-forth. Ultimately, I decided to break it beforehand. I did not want to be faint on the plane. I did not want to have an adverse reaction. I did not want to cause an emergency landing of some sort.

And... my body was telling me it was time. I made it past my goal of five days and I needed to rehydrate before entering that plane.

Let me just say: Thank GOD I did. I ended up running for the duration of my time at the airport and I was the last person to make the plane. Two minutes later and the plane would have left. I would not have been able to run so much, while dragging a heavy backpack, while dry-fasted.

I broke the fast with coconut water. It seemed too delicious, with all its juicy electrolytes, to pass up. I kid you not when I say I felt the coconut water make a trail of cool-ness down to my stomach, and felt a full-body relief and thank you upon drinking. It was amazing!

Sleeping

Sleeping, throughout this particular fast, was no problem.

I'm not sure why, perhaps my body has grown relatively used o dry fasting from my 3-day fasts, but this time around my body wanted to sleep for ages. And ages. To the point where I was slightly concerned. At least when you have insomnia you are conscious of your body’s condition! But my body was just a sleeping little beauty.

One of the most common observations about fasting, especially dry-fasting, is how difficult it is to fall and stay asleep. There's a reason for this: your body is really stressed out and, as can only be expected, is on overdrive. The majority of accounts I've read on dry fasting have reported tossing and turning throughout the night before finally calling it quits and getting up.

The lack of sleep can put you in a further, stressed out state... and, with sleep deprivation, irritability and confusion can rise. As always, pay attention to yourself and trust your body signals more than anything, or anyone, else in the world.

What I found most interested about sleep was that I always felt better AFTER I sleep. On day 6 of this dry fast, for example, my hands became pruny with dehydration following a 8-hour work shift. I went to sleep and woke up, peed normally, and had no pruny hands. Perhaps metabolic water creation has something to do with sleeping… just like a lot of fat burning has to do with breathing. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Did you... pee?

Yes, I peed! Quite a bit! Around twice a day, I'd pee around half a cup or so of extremely clear liquid.

That's right: my urine stayed completely light and clear throughout the entirety of the fast.

One of the key dangers of overall long fasting in general is the question of electrolytes. During my 40-day water fast, for example, I experienced a total aversion to water around the 28 day mark. My body was repulsed by water. Every time I would try to take a sip, it would throw it right back up and dry heave upon the sight of a glass despite the skin on my hands developing a wrinkled dehydrated appearance. Why?

I hadn't been taking ANY electrolytes. I completed my 40-day water fast way before there was a ton of fasting information on the Internet, before the importance of electrolytes was easily found. The closest thing I was able to find, at the time, was an article about certain athletes taking salt pills. That struck a chord in me... salts! You needed salts in order to process water! Duh!

Point is: Despite the more difficult nature of an extended dry fast, you, at the very least, are not urinating out electrolytes in the same capacity as you would be during a water fast.

With that being said, electrolytes are still an extremely important topic to be familiar with in life, not just in fasting.

Exercise

Don’t be like me. Don’t push your already-extreme limits. Exercising while dry fasting just is NOT worth it. My exercising was mild: a 1.5 mile run, a 1-hour full-body dance class, and an 8-hour physical work shift… *but* it is better to avoid all of that. Dry-fasting is a time of healing, not a time to push your limits. The next time I dry fast, I would love to be in an outdoor camping-style environment to truly reconnect with nature, take it easy, live by the sun… be by a stream of water…

My 1.5 mile run resulted in some nasty repercussions the next day. My 1-hour dance had me not only breaking out in cold sweat but feeling extremely faint. What I did was extremely stupid and highly inconsiderate towards my body’s active healing state and obvious energy conversation need.

My experiences with fasting have really opened my eyes towards working with my body with a loving approach, as opposed to my tendency towards being testy in a negative way (I can withstand more! Give me more! I can take it!). I have had to, on multiple occasions, take a step back and examine my own intentions. Am I really trying to push my boundaries in a healthy way?

The running decision was a very conscious "let me show you what can be done" type of move. I was very present with myself throughout the run and felt really drawn to being outside in nature. It did not leave me heaving on the side of the road. My body had been feeling great throughout. The after-effects, however, caused me to feel like a withdrawn zombie. My dance class was a different story. I could feel my body was not on the same terms as me, yet insisted on enduring because “I had pre-paid for the class”.

The mind over matter discussion in the beginning of this article was what I was going for with my exercising. I'm happy to have experienced this during this fast. Next time, if any, I choose to dry fast I will NOT be implementing any form of exercise... including standard working hours.

Why I Personally Choose To Dry Fast

As I've progressed on my fasting journeys (which started with intermittent fasting a handful of years ago) my reasons for fasting have broadened. I keep being met with more and more wonderful effects.

I started out fasting because of the indisputable health reasons. For someone who didn't quite know (at the time) what they were doing with nutrition yet, intermittent fasting was a fantastic way to assist in taking a step towards a healthier body. Then, inspired by a juice fasting documentary, I tried out a few juicing fasts... which fully propelled my curiosity toward fasting ad caused me to start looking up avenues of research on water fasting

Soon, I was doing extended water fasts with my first big-one being 40-days. Dry-fasting is experimental for me. My fascination with the body is only growing, and the way that I have been able to notice the knots in my mindset on account of fasting is revolutionary.

I notice that dry-fasting brings up a lot of “old pains”. Pains from injuries I had as a kid. Dry fasting also helped a lot with the scar tissue I have on my back, When I was 7 years old I had a cancerous tumor and to remove it they took a large chunk from my back. I was not able to feel the middle of my back until my fasting experimentations started in 2018. Present day, I have regained a lot of sensation on my back.

My vision has improved from -5.75 to -2.25 driving. For computer work I use -1.00.

It’s events like THESE that make me wonder… how many lies have we been told about ourselves and our body’s, in order to generate profit?

It just goes deeper, and deeper…

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A memorable quote I read somewhere:

“When I lived on the lake, I was just good dog. He often

running away from home for various reasons, for a long time. Come

home very skinny and hungry, it was fasting with water. But

Once he was hit drunken motorcyclist, when I examined him, he was

in poor condition, but most interesting is that he crawled into the dark

a barn and refused food and water. Any injury - is primarily

edema, and he instinctively felt it. Seven days he neither ate nor

and drank only on the eighth day was eat and drink water. He fully

recovered.

So when respected nutritionists talk about the terrible

the dangers of dry fasting, I always tell my patients that if

it was harmful, the nature of time evolution would long ago have cleaned and

use the mechanisms of dry fasting.”