Fasting - What's stopping you?

Fasting seems to be getting a lot of press at the minute, some good and some bad. As the debate continues you may be hesitant to get started not knowing whether you should, or if its really worth it.

Here are some things to consider:

You already fast
Every night when you go to sleep, you stop eating (at least most of us do :)) and spend several hours without taking in food or water. Considering that you spend roughly a third of your life asleep, I would argue that your body is designed to handle long periods without eating / drinking.

When you are sick you stop wanting to eat
Depending on what is wrong with you, this isn't always the case, but it happens often enough to be of interest to a pragmatic faster. I believe this is your body wanting to preserve its energy to use in fighting off the ailment, rather than spend it on digestion of food. If at the time your body is most vulnerable it's quite happy to stop eating then this also seems significant to me.

Hunter Gatherers
If you consider a hunter gatherer community (ie they have no real food stores and have to find food each time they want to eat) then two ideas present themselves. The first is that there will be peaks and troughs in their food consumption. The second is that they exercise predominantly when in a fasting state. Must hunter gatherers are slim and capable of extended endurance especially when compared to those of us in the 'modern' world, whose exercise is very limited, and food is essentially an unlimited resource.

If you don't like it or don't get on with it - eat!
Fasting is one of those things that can be started and stopped at virtually any time, don't let the fear of a long fast put you off. Build up gradually, if you are not ready to start with skipping meals, push your meal time back gradually - give yourself time (and permission) to go at your own rate. If you commit to a fast and its too much (for whatever reason) just eat.


It may be that fasting is not for you, perhaps just now or ever, but how will you know if you don't try it?

Fasting and Food Appreciation

If there is one thing that I would wish for you to discover in your fasting experiences it's a heightened appreciation of food. This may seem like a strange thing to say as when we fast we stop consuming food, but its really a complementary concept.

Fasting has many benefits, it can reset your cravings both physically and mentally, it can help you distinguish between real and psychological craving, and bring you to a new understanding of yourself.

Food is something to be celebrated, it nourishes and sustains us, as you know I am very keen on organic food and home cooked meals. I believe in putting the very best (in nutritional terms) into my body and those of my loved ones.

Fasting can bring us to the realisation that eating is not a chore, we shouldn't eat because its 6pm or because we feel we should. Many cultures include prayers before eating, which I think is to bring us to a proper sense of reverence and gratitude before we eat and sustain.

We should eat when we are truly hungry, not because the boss shouted at us, or because the expected cheque (check) didn't turn up or because its raining - this is an abuse of food to my mind.

Eating should be a mindful process, an honouring of the food we consume (especially if its animal based), eating to live, not living to eat.

Fasting Frequency

Once we get into the flow with fasting, it's something that we can incorporate regularly into our busy lives. It's even something that you can start to look forward to (or maybe that's just me :) )

As I've mentioned before I think its very important to establish a solid base, and always end a fast feeling strong and knowing you could go longer. Not only does this apply to the duration of a single fast, but also to the frequency of fasts.

Let's say that you complete a 24 hour fast and feel great, so great in fact that you do another a couple of days later, or a week later, and that goes well too, so you decide to pursue a weekly schedule, and before you know it a month or two has passed.

This is really good and something that you should feel proud of, but you also need to be monitoring the fasts to ensure that you have the frequency set just right for you.

As an example, lets say you've been fasting daily (24 hours) for 3 months, and you are starting to notice that the fasts are becoming more problematic. As you've already 'proven' you can handle a daily fast you may be confused by what is going on - you may also be tempted just to force through (and thereby violate the finishing strong maxim).

What I believe is going on here, is that your body is experiencing some difficulties that need to be addressed prior to continuing on your fasting regime. Things to consider are:

• Has your diet changed recently? (ie is it not as clean as it it was? are you using your fasting regime to justify bad choices?)
• Are there any new stresses in your life? (changing jobs, new relationships, bills, etc)
• Your willpower may be running low, I think that it is possible to consume willpower but also to regenerate it. There was an interesting article floating around on facebook a few weeks ago about how people who restrict things in their lives (ie in our case fasters) can suffer from a reduced ego which can lead to reduced will power.
• Are your motivations for fasting now, the same as they were when you started? Are you still fasting because you want to, or because you are the skinny guy/girl at work who doesn't eat once a week? As pragmatic fasters we strive for self knowledge - be brutally honest with your self and use that to drive forward momentum.

So what's to be done?

Perhaps nothing, you may want to continue and see if this is just a blip

You may be 'done' if you had a certain goal that you've now met, or have got this weird fasting thing out of your system :)

You might consider taking a break for a while. Settle back into a 'normal' dietary routine for a while and see how you feel. If you find that you are really missing fasting, that's likely a good signal to start again (assuming you want to). If you find you are eager to start again to meet a goal, but are not looking forward to it - this may be a sign that you should leave it a while longer.

Ultimately, you have to be the one that takes responsibility for your fasting and for your health. If fasting is bringing you health and pleasure then why not continue it, if fasting is making you cranky, unhappy and hard to live with perhaps you need to relax your duration or frequency or perhaps stop for a while.

I've been fasting (on this particular cycle) since Feb 20th 2012 so about the 6 month mark, this is where I normally begin my introspective process, and start planning my goals for the next 6 months.
I have no idea (at this point) how long my fasts will tend to be, if I'll be doing any long (or longer fasts) or whether the experiences will change at all.

I will be paying attention to my body and looking for the signals that will help me fine tune as I move forwards.