Master Mung Cleanse: By the Numbers

Like most things in life, putting numbers into a graphical form makes them better. Hey! Stop! Come back here! Really, it's true. And it's interesting. Check it out.

Calories consumed during the kichadi fast compared to calories burned due to basal metabolism.

As you can see, the kichadi fast was very effective in moderating my food intake, restricting my caloric intake to what is probably dangerous levels. From these numbers, I would have burned ~8800 calories more than I consumed during that week. This equates to approximately 2.5 lbs.

And yet, no weight loss? Or rather, only 0.5 lb of weight loss?

This leads to the question, is there an explanation for this discrepancy, or I am just full of shit? To answer this, I turn to the awesome power of graphs.

Excitement level and death wish with progression of the kichadi fast. Additionally, days since the last bowel movement (BM) are indicated.

There are a few major conclusions to be drawn from this graph. First, I do not like kichadi and mung. I do not like them, Sam-I-Sung. Second, over time I recognized that the pain of starvation was far preferable to the pain of eating kichadi. And thirdly, kichadi, as prepared, most definitely did not lead to more frequent pooing. As you can see, by the end of the competition, it had been 4 days since my last deposit.

In actuality, it turns out that the answer to the question posed above is both: there is an explanation, that being I *was* full of shit!

As such, any failure to lose weight can be attributed to this side-effect, and potentially to differences in water weight between our infrequent weight measurements.

Kichadi works. Believe in kichadi. You will lose weight. But you will also cry. Trust me. :(

On an important note, I would like to thank the Story Master for her support through this past week of pain. The kichadi fast had many upsides, including a great test of willpower, and a chance to examine my food-related desires in a more critical way.

I would even recommend it as a viable diet option for those with strong willpower and a large surplus of tissue paper (for crying, not pooing, obviously!).

...

Random boring (non-graphical) numbers:

Calories per cup of basmati rice (pre-cooking volumes): 600
Calories per cup of mung beans: 220
Calories per tablespoon of olive oil: 130
My basal metabolic rate: 2200 calories/day