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.
