"I'm not Charlie Thom"

One of the native American Medicine men we often went into sweat lodges with was a Karuk Medicine man (now passed away) called "Charlie Thom" who had a college degree and I think taught at Humbolt University when he was younger.

Charlie was known to have done either an 8 day or a 9 day no water or no food "Vision Quest" and survived it. There are stories of some medicine men surviving up to 10 to 14 days doing this. However, to me, this seems unless you are of remarkable genetic stock of people doing this for thousands of years that most people just wouldn't survive doing something like this either physically or psychologically.

4 days of no water and no food was difficult for me in 1983 when I was 35. So, imagining how psychologically and physically altered from 8 to 9 days of doing something like this is not something I want to even attempt to imagine.

However, I have in my youth gone 7 days in my 20s on water, organic lemon juice and maple syrup with success because the lemon juice cuts your headaches from a water fast.

But, the nicest experience I've had is an organic Apple Juice fast of 1 to 4 days. This often is very pleasant if you have the time to do something like this.

What I'm presently enduring is not something I would normally choose. However, it might be a strategy presently to force my body to loose weight for longevity(which might make more sense. My friend was saying most people over 70 or above are fairly thin and trim so to live much longer likely I will have to do this too. I have paid thousands of dollars to dietitians to help me do this in the past with little to no success which has been very discouraging even when I'm exercising every day except during my forced diet now.

Blesssings.