In our Sunday School class, we’ve been going through a book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Last week’s class was on the topic of fasting, a spiritual discipline that was neglected by the modern world. Our teacher pointed out that there were zero books written on the subject of fasting for over 100 years between the 1800′s and the mid-1900′s. My speculation is that the reason for this is that the modern way of thinking, the “enlightened” mind, the “rational” mind, would suggest that it is obvious that going without food is neither rational nor enlightened, and therefore fasting was ignored. It’s clearly not sensible. That’s my guess anyway.
But it’s not the point of this post.
We ran out of time in our discussion, so I didn’t get an opportunity to bring this up in class, but I’ve fasted a number of times. I’m not religious about it, but once in a while I do it. I’ve done a variety of fasts, including varying lengths of hours and days.
Fasting has never been super-difficult for me. I did an extended fast in college one time, and found Foster’s book to be right on target on this point (though after the fact, since I didn’t read his book till the early 2000′s) – the first 2-3 days are the worst. Once you get past the third day, you feel as if you could go without food forever, literally.
That’s not the point of this post either. But we’re getting closer. 
I’ve been on a “diet” for the last 4 weeks. It’s not really a diet, because I can eat whatever I want, whether it’s ice cream or pizza or potato chips (and I’ve had all of these in the last month, multiple times). It’s not really an “eating plan” even, since I can eat whenever I’m hungry.
I’m doing the Weigh Down Workshop. (Please note that I do not endorse this book, nor its author, who seems to be well off the deep end and into the land of cults.) But it’s not really even fair to say that I’m doing it well, since I haven’t read the book, and I haven’t been to the actual workshop. I heard about it from my sisters and a brother-in-law who were all doing it, and had been successful with it. So they gave me the basic details after they read the book, and I’m just going off what they’ve told me. In it’s simplest form, the plan is that you listen to what your body is telling you, and you eat whenever you’re hungry. But you eat slowly, so that your body has time to tell you when your stomach is full. So you might eat 6 times a day, or you might eat three times a day, or you might eat one time a day, like I did yesterday.
This is a radical change for me. I LOVE breakfast, and have eaten it religiously – but I’m hardly ever actually hungry at breakfast time. So I’ve had breakfast maybe 5 times in the last month. I love eating 3 meals a day, at a set time, but I don’t think I’ve had a three meal day in the last month. But I’ve eaten every time I’ve been hungry.
As of this morning, I’d lost 16 pounds on the Weigh Down Workshop. That’s pretty cool, and I’m pretty close to being at my target weight, which is my college weight. I’ve got about 7-8 pounds to go, so I’m pretty pleased with my progress.
Here’s the point (finally ). Fasting’s been easy for me in the past. But maybe the reason it was fairly easy is because I was eating too much food? My suspicion is that if I would do another fast while I’m in the middle of the Weigh Down Workshop, it would be a much more difficult discipline to master. When you have gotten used to paying enough attention to your body to know when you’re truly hungry, I suspect that the discipline of fasting becomes much more trying. I suspect that when I’ve fasted in the past, my body’s said, “Hallelujah! Finally a break from all this food this yokel’s been stuffing into me!” I suspect that when I go to fast now, my body will be saying what it’s supposed to say during a fast – “Whoa! Warning! Need….food…… here…..!” And that’s a good thing.
What do you think?
I’ll let you know how it turns out the next time I fast. I don’t have one scheduled, so it might be a while, but I will follow up here when it happens.
5:05pm
Yep….good stuff right there. I totally agree. Love you Nater!!!
*Just a side note here — you might not want to fully endorse the Weigh Down Workshop. Apparently the leader lady has gone off the deep-end. I do it because of the nutritional aspect of it and the success I’ve had through the actual eating part. I don’t think you are endorsing it, but I just want to throw that out there just in case someone gives you are hard time.
9:28pm
Thanks Bek. I will update the post to that effect. Just looked her up on Wikipedia, and YIKES, she is a bit of a nutcase. But like you say, the nutritional aspect of it seems to work.
3:00pm
Hey Nate. Was doing some research myself recently on the history of fasting. The common consensus of the 19th century all the way up to the 1940′s was that humans could only go for about 4 days without food, it was impossible to last longer than this.
Fasters were often the subject of freakshows for this reason because they knew that they could easily last on only water for several weeks, defying common medical convention (cf. Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist”).
I would imagine, though, even with your new eating habits you’d still find fasting pretty easy. The reason is mathematical. Doctors estimate that for reasonably healthy people (those with a “healthy” BMI of 20 or higher) up to 40% of gross body weight could be shed before entering into starvation (ie *real* hunger). Even people who go for forty days on water alone only average about one pound of weight loss a day since their fairly sedentary existence during this time means that they only expend about 2000 calories of energy a day when one pound of body fat = 3,500 calories.
“Real hunger” can be deceptive also. When doing a long fast (2 weeks or more) it can just mean that your body is done detoxing/healing and expects you to resume eating again (as it is with animals). This can be especially hard if you’re still around food and being stimulated by its sights and smells. I call this the second hump. If you get over it, you’ll be cruising again until your body starts wanting to eat muscle tissue.
That’s more than my two cents though!
6:05pm
Hey BD! Glad to see you here. When are you going to get back to your blog, or are you posting somewhere else now? I check at least once a week, but haven’t seen a new post in quite a while.
Interesting info on the history of fasting, thanks for sharing. Does that mean that my speculation on the lack of writing on the subject of fasting in the 1800′s to the mid-1900′s is close to the mark?
As to your second two paragraphs: I suppose we could probably have an interesting discussion about what constitutes “real” hunger, but what I meant when I was talking about being “truly hungry” is your basic hunger pangs, which I assume are God-given indicators that it’s time for your body to eat. In my view that’s something different than starvation (when the muscles are being consumed – I would in fact term that “starvation”, not “real hunger”), and also different from what I’ll call “scheduled” hunger pangs (a state of being in which those of us who’ve grown up in a culture of “three square meals a day” experience at what we call breakfast time, lunchtime, and suppertime, eating whether we really need it or not.) My eating habits right now are based on: 1-eating when I have hunger pangs. 2-eating slowly so my body has time to tell my brain that it’s had enough. 3-eating what my body tells me that I need.
On the other hand, in my extended fast during college, I don’t remember hunger pangs of any sort after day 3 or 4, even up to the very end of the fast. But it was a long time ago, so time may be making my memory a little fonder than it should be.
If that were indeed the case that I had no more hunger pangs after day 4, would that mean that all of our hunger pangs, whether “real” or “scheduled” are simply conditioned into us by our environment?
Essentially, my question to you would be – Do you think that it will be harder for me in future fasts to put down what I call “real hunger pangs” vs. putting down what I call “scheduled hunger pangs”? And does the answer to that question change if we consider whether we are asking it from a spiritual standpoint or an emotional standpoint or a physical standpoint?
What do you think?