Some Observations On Fasting

Commonplace Newsletter #72

It’s very difficult to find good images related to the topic of fasting. It’s mostly infographs. But here’s a nice icon of St Daniel, one of the worlds many spiritual fasters.

I haven’t eaten in six days. Now that’s a fairly dramatic sounding way to start an essay but it is a fact nonetheless. Or at least it is if you do not have much experience with fasting. Veterans to the under appreciated practice of simply not eating will probably give a slightly derisive snort or a shoulder shrug to that pronouncement. So what, they might say. Whoop de do.

But they are not the people who I am aiming these reflections at today. Those who know, know. I’m interested in talking to the people who are still stuck in the paradigm of three squares plus snacks, to those who think that more than twenty four hours without food will lead to fainting, starvation mode (whatever that means) or even something close to death. Mere minutes of honest reflection will tell you that all of these notions are of course palpable nonsense (surely pre civilisation humans weren’t able to successfully hunt or forage for food every single day of the year) but conventional ways if thinking have a way of taking root and remaining unquestioned, especially if they are first planted and watered while a person is very young.

But if these weekly essays are about one thing they are about gently questioning and examining conventions and assumptions. Not in a spirit of confrontation or contrarianism necessarily, but in a spirit of trying to actively attend to things that can so easily go unnoticed while we rush through our busy, distracted often overly-cerebral and head-centred lives. And food is a big part of this. And the temporary removal of food is, in my experience, one of the most effective ways to counteract this way of being. So let me tell you a little more about it.

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A sadly necessary catalogue of the health benefits

If you want to persuade someone of something, and especially if you want to persuade someone to try something you have to give them a laundry list of supposed benefits. I suppose in a wi-fi enabled world of hyper-abundant information it is simply unrealistic to expect someone to take something on faith. It makes sense. And from the perspective of the person being given the suggestion, they would simply pinball from one practice to another, one diet to another, one system to another where they not given compelling enough reasons to stick with any one particular thing for a sufficient length of time.

(Now I would argue that many people still wildly pinball from one thing to another due to the endless overwhelming flow of online information, but that is neither here nor there really)

So. Adopting a consistent fasting practice whereby you eat daily but in and a restricted eating window (anywhere from 1-8 hours) or where you don’t eat at all on certain days of the week will bring a myriad of health benefits. Assuming you don’t go ridiculously wild on the calories when you do eat you will see fat loss, noticeable improved focus during the fast itself as well as improved blood markers and feeling of energy and wellbeing.

I am neither a doctor nor a health-care professional (any more), nor am I a multi-level marketer looking to sell you snake oil or an information product. I won’t bog us down here by referencing studies and data. However, I will say that if you want citations look up the works of Dr Jason Fung and if you want anecdotal data screamed directly at your face by an intense Canadian man who swears like a sailor then look up ‘Snake Diet’ on youtube.

Anyway. Fasting, from my experience is the closest thing to a cure-all that I have ever experienced. In my n=1 experience I have lost stubborn bodyfat while spading muscle, I have gained mental clarity and seen a noticeable improvement in my writing and I have seen improvements in chronic health problems that have plagued me for years. I have also saves a not insignificant amount of money on groceries and kicked previous dependencies on nicotine, alcohol and caffeine. It’s fair to say that living what you might call a ‘fasting focused lifestyle’ has changed my life, but vital though it is I consider the health improvements to he a drop in the ocean. Because the real changes that fasting brings are mental, which is to say spiritual.

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Fasting as spiritual practice

16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:16-18 (NIV)

Every single religion has some kind of fasting protocol at the core of its practice. Muslims have Ramadan, Buddhist monastics don’t eat after the noon meal, Orthodox Christians fast or keep to a very restricted diet on most Wednesdays and Fridays. Christ fasted for 40 days in the desert. All religious leaders and figureheads fasted at some point as part of a practice of either inner purification or outward renunciation or protest against an unjust leadership or system of control.

They do so because the practice is powerful. It works. It builds discipline and shifts your focus from pleasure and the self to others and gratitude, if I may be excused for using that word which has now been overused and misused to the point of almost robbing it of its original meaning.

Gratitude is what motivated my own fasting practice. There was a period this year where Halloween and Christmas merged into one- Christmas being a whole season now rather than a day or a week. The sheer inundation of the plastic tat and the hyper-palatable Frankenstein junk-food and the God-awful music got me down. Rather than feeling joy and contentment and cosiness I felt overwhelmed and hyperstimulated to the point of numbness. There was no gratitude within me. The conditions to feel that blessed state weren’t present.

And so I cut things out. I began to fast. When you know a meal is not on the cards you become grateful when it does eventually arrive. You savour it. You make better food choices because it’s not as if you can make up for any deficiencies in an hour or two. The inner sugar monster dies and cravings turn to protein and vegetables. Things become simpler. With the time gained from less grocery shopping, less cooking, less keeping yourself propped up with quotidian stimulants and dopamine in the form of snacks you become more reflective I have found.

And all of this seems to me to be in the true spirit of the season. If Christmas is a feast of eat, drink and be merry then it makes sense that the lead up to that- Advent- should be a time of less, a time of restriction and reflection and generosity.

Now I’m not one to tell people what to do. I believe in show, don’t tell. I believe you should let your example be your sermon. But with all of that being said if any of the above resonates with you I would suggest doing your due diligence and giving fasting a try. It’s ancient. It’s free. And it might just change your life.

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