3 Day Water Fast — Day 3 — The Near Death Experience | Living Healthy
OK, so it seems that when I fast, bad things happen at work. Or maybe during the period that I am blogging about fasting, bad things happen. It’s possibly the universe’s way of giving me some content for my page, but I would much prefer for the universe to go about it in a different way!
You may or may not know that my current occupation is a hook lift truck driver which basically entails picking up large bins, dropping them off and emptying them. Most of the time it is a fairly straight forward job, but on occasion there can be some challenging situations.
If you recall a few months ago, I had a little incident where I pulled a bin out at the “shit farm” (sewerage treatment plant), without realizing that it was attached to some electrical cords, which were obviously damaged when I removed the bin.
No-one was injured, the wiring was fixed and it really wasn’t such a serious incident, however, today’s little mishap was a little different and had the potential to be a lot more serious.
Isn’t This Blog Meant To Be About Fasting?
I realize that this blog should be about my fasting experience today but the fasting aspect of my day was really overshadowed by the incident that occurred at the end of the day, so it’s hard to let it go right now.
My day started really well actually considering that yesterday I was feeling the effects of Keto flu pretty bad. Compared to yesterday, my energy levels were up and I didn’t have that fogginess or lethargy that I had the day before.
This energy stayed with me throughout the day. I didn’t have any headaches and life was good.
It seems I had weathered the metabolic storm that comes from the symptoms of traveling to Ketone land and clearer skies were opening up, metaphorically speaking…
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
Everything was going smoothly and I was just about to head back to the yard to call it a day, when I had the call from my boss to do an emergency job, where a garbage compactor was leaking “bin juice” at a shopping complex that we service and need to be emptied urgently.
To get an idea of what this compactor looks like, see the pic below. This isn’t the actual one but it was very similar to this. They would usually be attached to power cables and have a cage locked in near the front of the compactor where garbage is loaded into it from.
Anyway, I high-tail my way over to the job, disconnect everything and load it onto the truck. It seems heavy. Like real heavy. So I check my truck scales and sure enough, it’s more than 2 ton over weight for the truck to legally transport it.
So I make the call to the office to see what I should do and the decision was made to leave the bin at the site and they would get a bigger truck there in the morning to pick it up. Awesome.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any actual photos of the truck that I drive, but to give perspective to what happened next you have to understand how hook trucks unload these types of bins, if you are unfamiliar.
Below is a stock image of a hook lift truck unloading (or loading) a bin. It uses the hook to lift the front of the bin, the truck comes back under it and then it slides forward onto the truck. Voila!
Now picture the compactor from the earlier pick being unloaded in the same way as this bin is.
Now picture that compactor at roughly the same angle as that green bin above but with the truck further forward so that the front of the bin is clear of the back of the truck.
Now picture that overweight, 16 ton, compactor free-falling and hitting the ground from about the same height as that green bin is in the pic.
And that is what happened to me today. And it hit the concrete REAL hard!
Some of the staff from inside the shopping centre said they felt the ground shake when it hit. Needless to say, it scared the living crap out of me!
Thankfully no-one was hurt but after a few seconds of making sure I was still alive, I got out to inspect the damage. I walked around the compactor and nothing stood out to be broken, so I thought that I may well of dodged a bullet.
That was until I noticed some oily substance oozy from the front of compactor, that I assumed was some of that fine bin juice leaking out but on closer inspection, the oily substance turned out to be none other than oil! Assumingly coming from somewhere in the mechanical part of the compactor. This can’t be good….
This oil starts to cause a new problem which I have to try and quickly contain, before the oil starts making its way down towards the storm water drain nearby….ahhh…..
This day was supposed to be a nice, happy day. I was looking forward to getting home by early afternoon, breaking my 3-day fast and thinking about how I am going to continue to move forward with regard to my health, but it’s completely turned into a disastrous afternoon, where I am not going home early and will be feeling like knocking down some straight rum when I get home!
Thankfully my nerves have calmed down by the time I got home and common sense had kicked in and told me not to break a fast with alcohol, which would not be a wise move.
At this point, the cause of the compacter falling like that is still being investigated, but seeing as that it was still hooked up to the arm of the truck when it dropped, it is looking like it may have been a hydraulic failure due to the compacter being so heavy.
One thing is for sure, I am very glad that no-one was hurt. It could have been much worse for sure.
Where To From Here?
This past 3 days has been exactly what I needed to get my head straight and I am already feeling better physically. I’m feeling less bloated, more energetic and clearer in the head from where I was 3 days ago. It’s amazing what a few days off the dependence of food can do.
From here I am going to get back on the Keto diet and get back into being active and getting out jogging again. It’s been a while.
Do I think that I will fall off the wagon again? Unfortunately, history tells me that I probably will at some point, but now I feel as though I have the tools to be able to stop it before it gets too far out of hand. I still have a goal to lose at least another 20kgs (44lbs) and to be honest, I thought I would of achieved this by now.
I shouldn’t beat myself up too much as I have achieved more than I ever have in the last 6 months with regard to weight loss, but I haven’t given up yet and will still keep trying to get where I need to be.
Originally published at https://thelivinghealthyblog.com on April 23, 2020.
