A few weeks ago I finished a weeklong fast where I lived on water and a homemade electrolyte mixture (pinch of magnesium, salt, and potassium chloride) for a week (with the occasional diet sports drink). I had done a 48-hour fast before, but this was my first longer one.
To address the obvious “why would anybody do that”? First, it was kind of an experiential bucket list thing. It’s a life experience I’ve never had despite it being all-too-common across time and space. Second, I was curious what a longer-term fast would feel like in terms of the spiritual high. Finally and least nobly, I had gained an enormous amount of weight during a roadtrip, and, let’s just say, I wasn’t exactly at the body fat level where my body would start to cannibalize itself, and I lost 20 pounds. (I also ran across some literature that suggested that at a high enough body fat percentage losses from lean muscle mass are negligible in a long fast when it’s paired with some resistance training.)
So what did I learn?
- The spiritual high is very real. Honestly, I typically don’t get much of a buzz from our normal fasts, because the first 24 hours of a fast you’re irritably dealing with cravings and being “hangry.” After the first 24-35 hours the cravings and hunger pains go away and you’re left with that mellow, chill (if slightly tired) vibe that makes you feel like a wise monk with a subtle smile on a mountaintop that people line up to for advice. I was actually shocked about how not hungry I was after getting over the initial hump. I had “no more desire to sin.”
- While I have only positive things to say about days 2-6, that last day I hit a wall, couldn’t really do much around the house or play “airplane race” with my kids on the front lawn, and the spiritual, mellow vibe had been replaced by absolute exhaustion. Again, my good experience with days 2-6 may have been a function of my higher body fat percentage (probably about 25%). I assume you reach the super-exhaustion stage sooner if you’re starting at, say, 10% body fat (for males).
- I don’ know the history behind our “water + food” fasting, and I’m not arguing against it necessarily, but I do feel like food only fasts should be more of an option in cases where we want to healthily fast for longer. (But maybe it’s for the better, I remember at one point as a teenager wanting to fast for three days for a spiritual matter thinking I could “brute force” the issue, but not doing so because three days without water sounded more dangerous).
- Jesus’ fast of 40 days makes more sense to me than it did before. Often we think of neat round numbers like that as being symbolic, but I appreciate better now how going on a longer fast while meditating and praying deeply really had the potential to uncover all sorts of spiritual insights. While I couldn’t do it this time around, in the future when kids are older and I have more bandwidth I’d love to pair a longer weeklong fast with intense and frequent temple-going, praying, meditating, and scripture study. Again, not to brute-force anything spiritually, but to be able to take advantage of all the spiritually synergistic possibilities.
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9 responses to “My Experience Fasting For a Week”
In 2021, I accidentally completed a 40-day fast due to Covid. Nothing would stay down, so after a few days, I was down to electrolytes mixed with apple juice, and sometimes even that was too much. Went from 33% bodyfat to 19%, so, in hindsight, probably a good thing, however unpleasant. Alas, it was not a spiritually fulfilling time. I mostly slept and took walks to keep from losing muscle tone. But, I agree – after I stopped trying to eat solid food, I noticed that I had no sense of hunger. In fact, once I was well enough to eat, it was exhausting to digest solid food again. No spiritual insights, but I was impressed with how resilient the body is. We’re harder to kill than it might seem.
Ugh, that sounds miserable. With the nausea and COVID I can see why it wasn’t a spiritual experience.
I’m very glad you didn’t do the 72-hour, zero-water fast thing. Once you go beyond 48 hours without hydration, the shadow of the angel of death tends to darken pretty quickly.
I have never understood the fast and how it can be spiritual. I used to faint as a child when I was required to fast by my parents. Yep, they still expected me to fast even after the fainting spells. Didn’t happen all the time but I am guessing I cheated so I wouldn’t faint.
As a bishop, I fasted just about every Sunday as I didn’t have time to even eat most Sundays. When I was busy like that, I found it easier to fast. No fainting. Fell asleep on the stand lots, but no fainting for lack of hunger.
Fasting is the “thing” now for health which I find fascinating. I also find it fascinating that Jesus is quoted as saying “fasting is required to do X” but as far as I am aware, doesn’t really say why that is. We can easily assume its to make us more spiritual but maybe it just makes us delirious? And in that delirious state our faith is stronger?? Who knows….
Fasting from food, but not water is always an option. As is not fasting at all, or fasting from sweets, or anything above subsistence levels of food.
I decided a few years ago that the recommendation to avoid water was making me insane and I no longer abstain from water, and felt zero guilt about it.
enterprisecaptain,
You should feel zero guilt, so good for you. Some people probably shouldn’t fast at all based on health or whatever.
I had a friend that got really bad headaches when fasting. I asked them why they didn’t stop fasting? It was like they never even thought of that as an option because as members we must fast once a month.
I’ve done three 72-hours water-only fasts in the last eighteen months. Day three was by far the easiest. I’d love to do a whole week if not for the more physical demands of work. As much as I love the idea, I’d find it difficult to take work off for that purpose. I’m surprised you didn’t mention autophagy, which I think has some promising benefits.
If I may ask, how long did you ease out of your fast until you were more or less eating how you were before? I’ve read for every day of fasting, you need a day to gradually increment the amount of food you take in, but I’ve generally done it over the course of 24 hours.
Sorry, just saw this. I don’t feel like my work productivity was affected, but I have very physically sedentary work, so after I got over the early hunger pangs stage it wasn’t difficult to focus.
I took it easy for about a day, and by the end of it I had a full meal. My wife had read all sorts of horror stories about overfeeding though, so that’s definitely something to be cautious about.
One needs to be careful with longer fasts. There is some indication that after the normal clean up of cells through fasting (autophagy), the heart muscle itself can be affected and lose some of its own muscle.