Meditations on a Fast

Photo by Andrew Coelho on Unsplash

Any man with real ambition should fast. I know of nothing to make a man formidable quite like the voluntarily forgoing of food for a time.

Earlier this week I finished the longest fast I’ve ever undertaken. On the one hand, I am pretty happy to have achieved my objective (water only from Tuesday PM to Monday AM, 132 hours). On the other hand, I am still a little angry at myself. As much as I got out of this, I could have gotten even more, could have fasted harder, could have grabbed my weakness by the throat and throttled it. My thoughts are already turning to how I might do better next time.

Here are a few random meditations from along the way, with some information and encouragement for those who haven’t yet made a practice of testing themselves thus.

O hours

Even before the first hour of this fast, I’ve made it more promising by recruiting some friends to join. Previously I had only fasted on my own. The energy is more charged when your friends are with you, ready to suffer together. We established a group chat to share thoughts.

The guys were intrigued by the health benefits of fasting—particularly the cellular regeneration, detoxification, immunity, and HGH. For the longest time I was under the impression that a man physically wastes away during a fast, but that is not the case at all. Remarkable things happen to the body during fast.

And then of course there are the spiritual benefits. My friends are all Catholics as well, and on some level they lament the Church’s misstep in lowering the demands of this discipline (almost to the point of non-existence). Once upon a time, our Church asked us to fast twice per week, not twice per year. For a good account of these changes, see this series.

Food for thought from St Francis de Sales: “The enemy … stands more in awe of those whom he knows can fast.”

28 hours

When I first started experimenting, I was unaware of the utter necessity of sodium and magnesium intake during a fast. My fasts went nowhere as a result. Sleep was all but impossible because my stomach was twisting in discomfort. Just a little salt and magnesium change all that.

Food for thought from Pope Paul VI: “This exercise of bodily mortification—far removed from any form of stoicism—does not imply a condemnation of the flesh which sons of God deign to assume. On the contrary, mortification aims at the liberation of man, who often finds himself, because of concupiscence, almost chained by his own senses. Through ‘corporal fasting’ man regains strength and the wound inflicted on the dignity of our nature by intemperance is cured by the medicine of a salutary abstinence.”

This theme is crucial to remember. We are not fasting because food is in any way bad. If anything, we are fasting because food is good. But food is not the ultimate good and we must fast so that our attachment to food does not get in the way of high goods.

36 hours

One of the great benefits of fasting is focus. Books read differently when you have zero food in the stomach.

For a while I was attempting to fast 36 hours every week (from a late dinner on Thursday to an early breakfast on Saturday). But for a few reasons I grew unhappy with this. I’ve since come to see more value in entering into deeper fasts, more like Jesus in the desert. These will obviously be less frequent. The five-day fast allows for a more thorough reset and healing, as well as a greater test of the will.

Our current aim is to go no longer than a quarter without a four or five-day fast. Best to tie these into the liturgical calendar, so we’re looking to implement something like this: 1) Advent fast, 2) extended Ash Wednesday fast, 3) Holy Week fast, 4) summer fast, 5) autumn fast. Keep that in mind if you’d like to join along. I will post reminders and encouragement when these fasts roll along.

40 hours

Fasts should be seen as training in chivalry. One reason I love chivalry is because it is a code of physical and moral excellence. It refutes those heresies which seek to separate spirit and body, exulting one and disparaging the other.

We all know to be properly vigilant against the elevation of the body and the neglect of the soul—but what about the other way around? There is a creeping form of Boomer Manichaeism which seeks to exult the spirit and disparage the body. We pay lip service to this whenever we say things like “It’s what’s on the inside that counts” or “It’s what’s in your heart that matters!” In this view the body is somehow dirty or unworthy, a house of deception. I aim to write more on this thinking in the near future, but for now let it suffice to say that this is not sound theology. It is heresy. God created a body for man. And all that God created is good. Therefore the body is good.

I mention this because fasting is a particularly devastating refutation of any such heresies. At the same time that a fasted state means greater focus, it also means a deeper sense of embodiedness. I don’t know how to say it any better than that so I won’t try. Food takes on a new reality too. An apple or a piece of bread has a real form when you look at them not as a consumer but as an appreciator.

Food for thought from St Thomas Aquinas: “For we fast for three purposes: (1) to restrain the desires of the flesh; (2) to raise the mind to contemplate sublime things; (3) to make satisfaction for our sins. These are good and noble things, and so fasting is virtuous.”

61 hours

For the most part I stay out of the gym during fasts, but today I’m dropping in for a brief and light mobility workout (mostly Ben Patrick’s Knees Over Toes exercises). As with anything, experimentation is needed to see what works for you. For the most part, though, an extended fast should be a break from serious exertion. This makes for a serious challenge for the fitness maniac. I try to compensate by serious walking, during which I like to say the Rosary.

I’m already down six pounds. It is worth noting that weight loss will be faster at first, and then slow down. One of my friends is apparently down fourteen pounds, which is rather shocking. But you should not worry about losing gains. I always gain the weight back quickly, and I return from fasts with renewed vigor to pursue my aims. Fasting leads to long-term Ws in the gym.

62 hours

And then I return home and go to Twitter and see a couple of people chiding me for talking about fasting. “Muh, haven’t you heard of Matthew 6:16 bro?!”

16 And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.

17 But thou, when thou fastest anoint thy head, and wash thy face;

18 That thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret, will repay thee.

Yes, thank you, I am well aware of that passage. And if you cannot tell the difference between a) obnoxiously dramatizing the difficulty of your fast to people in real life so that they will know what a difficult time you’re having and b) attempting to spread the word about a genuinely good practice, then you are not a serious person. You might even be a Pharisee and I might have no choice but to mute or block you for annoying me with your small-souled captiousness. C’mon guys!

Food for thought from Pope Benedict XVI: “Fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person.”

90 hours

Anyone interested in understanding what happens in the body during fasts should read up on autophagy. In 2016, Yoshinori Ohsumi won a Nobel Prize for discovering the mechanism by which this process works. When you don’t have energy coming in, the body turns to devouring itself (autophagy literally means self-eating). Might sound brutal, but really what this means is that that an extended fast causes the body to devour damaged or unhealthy cells, which leads to regeneration and renewal. The authorities say there’s much more research to be done on this process, but the implications for healing and longevity are intriguing. I cannot help but suspect that cancer rates, for example, would be way down for those who fast.

Autophagy seems to start sooner in the fasting process, but a longer fast cranks autophagy up to the max. Which is part of the reason why I’m partial to longer fasts.

Food for thought from St Augustine: “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, kindles the true light of chastity.”

115 hours

Time takes on strange properties during a fast. This is one of the most interesting experiences of not having eaten in days—both promising but also challenging.

The days become almost literally longer. When you don't eat meals, don’t prepare meals, and don't clean up after meals, suddenly a couple hours are freed up every day. Still more time presents itself when you don’t go to the gym. You also don’t need as much sleep at night when the body hasn’t expended so much energy on digestion. In all these ways, the day is longer.

I have not handled this challenging blessing all that well on this go-round, allowing distractions to occupy too much of my attention. In the absence of food, I’ve craved dopamine bursts and I’ve given too much time over to them.

Next time I will need to approach the fast with the attitude of a warrior-monk going into the desert to do battle with all that is weak within himself. A dopamine fast should probably accompany an actual fast: no pointless scrolling, no podcasts, no background music, no Youtube, etc. All that extra time freed up by fasting needs to be dedicated to prayer, work, and study—and a man needs to be belligerent about making this happen. It might also be a good idea to have some sort of project that needs doing—a cleaning or organization of the house, for instance. 

132 hours

I heat up a cup of bone broth and break my fast. The fast is over. Thanks be to God for seeing me through.

For anyone who doesn’t know, you have to be very careful when breaking an extended fast. Do it slowly and begin with high quality saturate fats. Bone broth is just about ideal. Give it the William Wheelwright treatment and add a hunk of butter for good effect.

Food for thought from John Henry Newman: "They alone can truly feast, who have first fasted."