Day 6 of 21 Days without Food.

Fasting should be a happy experience. As we free ourselves of our addiction to destructive habits, it’s also good to enjoy some time to relax.

Six days without food and 14.9 pounds of total weight loss! What else is happening today?

Not a lot has changed since yesterday. Today is more of a continuation of day 5. I feel pretty much the same. I’ve spent the past 6 days pretty much working around the clock, only taking an hour or two as a break to relax. 

It’s saturday today, so I'm going to relax a little more and enjoy the accomplishment of creating a new Awaken Qi YouTube channel and blog with daily posts!

The one difference today is that I finally decided to have a drink with some salt in it. I had a glass of the zero calorie xtend electrolyte replacement drink that I mentioned on day 4. In that posts I cover other ways to get salt without calories as well as why I think it’s a good idea to take in some salt if you feel like your body needs it. 

Listening to my body today, it’s time to relax a bit. I’ve been super productive and it will be nice to enjoy some quiet time of not doing. I’m still committed to creating a video and posting to this blog every day, so that’s my only “responsibility” for today 🙂

Let’s do some more Qigong!

In my book Qigong for Weight Loss, one of the fundamental practices is Bigu Breathing. I’ll be covering this technique in one of my next videos. Before I get into bigu breathing, I’m introducing a preliminary practice that serves two purposes. 

The practice of dantian breathing will serve as training for preparing to learn two of the practices that I cover in the book. Practicing dantian breathing will prepare you for learning bigu breathing and the fat burning meditation. 

Dantian breathing also helps you connect to and focus on the dantian more deeply, which has been the main purpose of 4 of the last 6 days of Qigong teaching. At the beginner level, learning to connect with the dantian is the most important single aspect of learning Qigong. 

We’re starting simple and building at a nice comfortable pace. Following this should be easy and even fun. 

With each simple practice, you’ll notice a slightly different quality of Qi flowing into your body and dantian. This learning process is designed to lead you down the discovery path. By following this program, you aren’t being taught. You are discovering the nature of Qi for yourself!

Here’s the Dantian Breathing Practice:

Choose either the sitting upright or standing Qigong posture for this exercise.

Begin by closing your eyes, setting a positive intention, and smiling inwardly. 

Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth 3 times, continuing to smile inwardly. 

Now you will breathe in and out only through your nose. As you inhale through your nose physically, imagine that you’re breathing in through your skin below your belly button and into your dantian. 

After inhaling, pause for a moment and hold the energy at your dantian for 1-3 seconds. Don’t time it, just hold it for a moment. 

After pausing for a moment, breathe out from the center of the dantian through your skin and forward out of your body. 

Repeat this cycle of breathing into your dantian, pausing for a moment, and then breathing back out. Synchronize the feeling of breathing to your dantian mentally with the actual physical act of breathing into your actual lungs. 

Repeat this cycle for 9, 18 or 36 breaths. Count each breath on the exhale. Practice this until you can comfortably perform 36 dantian breaths. 

At this stage no visualization is necessary. Just try to get a sense of breathing into, holding for a moment and breathing out from the dantian.  

Focus on the dantian the entire time as you breathe in and out. Your main focus should be on the dantian and your secondary focus on the breathing in and out from the dantian.  

As with all Qigong exercises, by doing this you are creating greater Qi flow into your body and to your dantian. Even if you can not feel it, you are still getting a benefit. You will feel the sensation more and more each time you practice. 

Day 6 happened on March 28th, 2020. Today I did less work and relaxed more. I drank more water today than usual, probably because I was doing less and paying more attention to my thirst.

Here’s what I did during day 6:

I'm feeling accomplished. 6 days ago there was nothing on this blog and nothing on my YouTube channel. Now there's a wealth of information already. It feels good to have done so much while living off of Qi and not resorting to eating food to power progress. 

What’s your experience so far? Are you feeling the Qi? How much more can you feel it compared to day 1? It’s amazing how much progress you can make in even just a few days with regular practice. Leave a comment below and let me know what you’re experiencing!