I can’t believe how quickly January has passed; I now have less than twelve hours until my fast starts. I have been checked over medically and everything seems to be in order, so it is all going to be down to mental strength. I will be going into unknown territory once I pass twelve days; I still have plenty of body fat so that is not going to be a problem, my biggest problem is that I miss eating food. I will be giving an update at least once a week, covering all the relevant information. On my last fast which was ten days, the damaged skin on my right leg started to repair, and I ended up with nearly three inches of new skin. This is something I am hoping can be covered with a series of photographs over the four week period, autophagy in progress.

On a totally different note having nothing to do with health I am looking for information. I have three cats, two males and one female, for the last six months the oldest male called Boris, has started bringing my mail up to me. I live on the first floor, and once the postman has been he goes down and brings any post to me one at a time. It started off with just the occasional small package but now it is everything, and my question is, has anybody else come across a cat that brings the post to you, I haven’t been able to find anyone else yet. If anyone has any information please let me know in the comments

Until next time I wish you all the very best of health…

Have you done it this year yet, broken your New Year’s resolutions, if you have don’t worry just look at it from a different angle. The only important thing now is that you made a decision to change something, and change can take time and preparation, so stay with me and I shall try and explain.  Two friends of mine went to a New Year’s Eve party, and at midnight they both decided that 2019 was going to be a healthy year, and they gave up smoking. One of them was a very light smoker, and had run out of cigarettes before midnight, and the other a heavy smoker stamped on his packet and discarded them. By 4am the heavy smoker had found his discarded cigarettes, and although they were squashed he managed to smoke them, the other one went until that evening before he caved in. In reality they had very little chance of success trying to stop on a whim.

To stop smoking is a massive change, and to be successful it takes preparation, for me it took four attempts, one lasted two years and another eighteen months, now it has been over eight years and I know I will never smoke again. Like any addiction your brain needs time to prepare, and I have found the easiest way is through affirmation. The last twice I used this method, once for two years and the last for over eight, and my two friends are using it now, it cost you nothing, and is better for you than patches, pills, gum or E-cigarettes. This doesn’t just work for smoking, it also works for alcohol and many other things, and you first set a date at least two weeks away and write, “On The 5^th Of February 2019 I Am Going To Stop Smoking For Ever For My Health” or whatever you want to write, then every day up to that date you read it aloud and write it again, when the date arrives it is like you are programed to stop, and it is easy. For people I have explained this method to, it has helped over twenty smokers to stop, and three heavy drinkers. It has failed with three people but they only wrote it down once or twice, and didn’t bother reading what they had written. Affirmation can be a very powerful tool if you use it the right way.

These days we all know how dangerous smoking is to our health, but the other day I was reading an article by one of the world’s leading heart surgeons, and he said that if he had a patient who smoked and used sugar, and would only give one of them up, he would have to recommend that they gave up sugar. The big problem with sugar is that people only think about how much they use, not how much they eat. Sugar is in virtually everything you eat, unless you use single ingredients and prepare all your food yourself. To make things worse the food industry use scientists to find ways to get more sugar into their products, because they know they will be more addictive and therefore they will sell more. In general the food industry are not interested in your health, only their profits, your health they leave in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies. There is only one person who is, or should be looking out for your health interests and that is you! We only get one chance at life, no replays or practice and that time passes very quickly, and the most important thing is to stay healthy, and regardless of your age you need to seriously think about that now.

Let’s get back to New Year’s resolutions, if things have not panned out as planned yet, don’t give up just keep trying to make the changes that you wanted, it must have been important so why would you not want to continue trying. My resolution was to do a 28 day water fast, but there was no way I was going to start at midnight on the 31^st. I decided it would be easier to not eat for February which is 28 days, and it would give me the time to prepare myself. I am going to write a weekly report on this fast, covering how I am feeling, and what I have noticed especially changes I can see, like my skin, which has improved on shorter fasts previously. I am hoping by giving up food for February it might inspire some of you to give up something to improve your own health, like sugar laden foods or drinks. Until the next time I wish you all good health.