- Special Offers
-
Wilson: Day 9, July 12, 2006
Hunger Strike: Day 9
by Diane Wilson
July 12, 2006Diane Wilson, author of An Unreasonable Woman is participating in the Troops Home Fast. She will be on an indefinite hunger strike until American troops are pulled out of Iraq. Thousands of people from around the world are participating in this rolling fast. Find out more at TroopsHomeFast.org
Holding this water bottle pretty close. I try not to use a different plastic bottle every day and end up polluting the earth with more trash. We’ve got enough landfills. The car that has the water jugs is out at the capitol so I’ve got an empty water bottle. Oh well, so much for drinking water. Dick Gregory, the legendary faster and our official ‘doctor’ said drink at least a gallon of water a day and I certainly don’t do that. Probably more like 2 pints. Maybe that’s the reason my voice gets lower and lower; its gotta be a water issue there.
Dick said don’t go to the doctors if you get sick because they don’t know nothing about fasters. They’re only interested in those that have been eating. Have no advice other than, “start eating!”
I find that pretty amazing especially as research with rats (or maybe its mice) have shown that starving them a little bit lengthens their life. So if this hunger strike doesn’t kill me then I’m sure I’ll live to a ripe old age. Another little amazing fact is that when you start fasting, the body burns the fat cells for energy and the fat cells are where chemicals you have been exposed to are stored. So fasting releases those contaminates from your body and hopefully with all that water you’re drinking, you get rid of a lot of bad stuff. Probably why you live so long.
“Doc” Gregory comes down to the park every day. Very well dressed man. I wont even guess at his age but he does discuss Babe Ruth and folks like that. Yesterday he was in sharp looking white suit and he looked like he just stepped off a model ramp. Fasting has certainly not harmed that man. He’s on a juice fast and the last time he did a juice fast he was on it for 270 days. Gregory also said he use to weigh 300 pounds. Now he’s about 125 pounds dripping wet.
Ive done 7 hunger fasts so I’ve got a good idea of how it works. The first 4 days are usually the worst and then it starts getting better. You’re not hungry anymore, although a woman yesterday in our evening circle said she was “hungry!!!”. I know I’ve been on strikes before and at 20 days I feel that maybe I’m mistaken; maybe I’m not on a hunger strike at all. The “Doc” says this is because the body’s own morphin is cruising through your body. It’s an automatic reaction to the fasting. “Doc” says when you see all those starving kids in Africa with bloated bellies and tiny arms and legs and you wonder why they don’t swat off all those flies, its because they’re high as a kite. That’s what the “Doc” says.