Some days can go by really fast, can’t they?

Heh, no, that’s not what I’m writing about here. I’m writing about fasting, the conscious refusal to take in food (and in some cases, water). I have fasted a few times in my life, and each time has been a learning experience. I remember my first one vividly. I had heard of spirtual practices involving the giving up of food for an amount of time, to lighten the spirit that can be so often weighed down by food and the heavy activity of digestion. Wanting a taste of this lightness, I vowed to give up food following my evening meal one day, and to take nothing solid until the morning after next. That is to say, to go the entirety of the next day consuming only water and herbal or fruit teas and juices.

I have dabbled with vegetarianism at times in my life, going several months sometimes without eating meat. I have also engaged in restrictions of foods such as sugar, or artificial additives and chemicals, and even to the extent of eating only purely natural and wholesome foods (that would be sticking to wholegrain breads and rice as opposed to white/refined foods). I have also spent time eating whatever I wanted. From these I have learned that what I eat does affect me, physically and mentally. That sounds really obvious, but for me it was so clear I didn’t see it for a long time.

It came to me one day [through a story told to me by a youngish tree in a circle of others - maybe I'll share that with you another time], that I might also fast by way of honouring the life that I have taken in order to eat. Mostly people will say that in thinking about animals, as I did too at the time, though I like to consider plant life in my honouring as well now. Though it doesn’t have the personality that animals do, it is living, just the same. So, I fasted, putting my physical discomfort toward a purpose beyond gain for myself.

As a third reason, on a purely physical level, I hoped that the rest of my digestive system would enable my body to detoxify itself a little, as I had read that the body steps up its degree of waste and toxin excretion during this time.

I managed through the morning quite easily, ignoring first my habit to eat breakfast around a certain time, and then later ignoring the actual hunger I experienced. I went on like that through the day, drinking water often, or making a herbal tea, to try and quell any hunger feelings that came. I learned that hunger is more than just a rumbling in the belly, and a call for food also comes in various different feelings, some of which many people have had I would guess.. feeling weak, the typical feeling associated with what modern science would call “low blood sugar”, for example. As the day wore on, I found myself increasingly listless and I did feel like I should be taking it easy anyway, almost fearfully in fact. However, in the late morning, when I was feeling an extra lightness and energy before my body began complaining in earnest, I enjoyed some gymnastics in the garden, joyful that I felt mobile and light and flexible.

I finished the day drinking teas and gradually feeling weaker and more ill. I remember that food became an increasing thought on my mind, and my senses became acutely aware of any scent of food that came from anywhere. By early evening, cat biscuits smelled absolutely delicious, and it required a degree of willpower not to eat them! By late evening, though physically tired, mentally I was not, my mind was whirring on and on much to my surprise. I went to bed grumpy, having suffered similar waves of feeling towards late evening. I hoped for an undisturbed sleep, a passing of the rest of the time without food in unconsciousness, ready to wake and eat. But hopes are sometimes dashed, and this time they were dashed thoroughly.

I woke often, and was often in great pain, feeling sick in the stomach. By early morning, I vommited, gaining a brief relief, physically. Mentally, I was in quite a different state. I was terrified. I thought I was dying. “Oh God, what have I done to myself?” I cried to myself. I had read that the re-introduction of food had to be slow after fasting to prevent further pain and damage, and feeling the way I did, I worried that I may have gone past the point where food could save me. I feared death, or permanent damage and pain. I stood (well, slumped) face-to-face with the greatest fear and unknown of all. This was not the sudden shock of nearly getting run over, this was a drawn-out affair, made all the worse by knowing it was my own doing.

I managed a few berries later on when my stomach settled after vommiting, but this soon set me vommiting again. Of course, with no actual food to be vommiting, it was mostly stomach acid and bile. “Oh no, I really can’t eat again, what if this never stops..?” I thought.

I put on the Animal Planet channel on TV. It was keeping me company while my family were away. I remember watching a programme following a family of cheetahs. Carnivores such as the big cats don’t eat every day, if unsuccessful in the hunt, it can be two or three. But of course, the longer without food, the less well the hunter performs. I suddenly related strongly to this mother Cheetah, chasing after a gazelle across the African Savanna, desperately hungry, and desperate to feed her cubs also. After two days of failure, her eventual success created an overwhelming euphoria in me. Something I had taken for granted, having plentiful food, was such a precarious thing for other lifeforms (and indeed our own in some cases). I cried, tears of great joy and great emotion for this Cheetah who had taken a life to keep the lives of her young, and herself, going. Perhaps then, there was hope for me too. I had kept down some small pieces of bread, nuts, raisins.. I nibbled ever so slowly, ever conscious of the process of eating, the tastes, the textures, in analysis over whether this is something my body is truly calling for, and what does it call for anyway? It prompted me to seriously re-evaluate what I ate for a time, what would be the optimum diet?

I spent much of the rest of that day feeling ill, laid up on the sofa, but I would recover in time. And I had learned, oh I had learned.

I have fasted a few times since then, some for shorter periods of time [having breakfast, then having nothing until breakfast the next day], which I hoped would leave me less.. ill, but in fact didn’t. I was worried, feeling myself fragile.

Most recently, I fasted on Monday. This time, with the same reasons as before, but with the added one of proving to myself that I could do it. If I could go through the day without food, if I could also continue activity as normal, then perhaps I would overcome a subtle fear of missing a meal, and with it learn to truly appreciate what I eat. The day went well, I walked to town and back, and did some heavy physical work shovelling and digging and wheelbarrowing earth around. It was interesting to me to see how a lack of food affected my body, but I also acknowledged that there were other ways to energize myself besides food. I found myself tender, and kinder, not in a tight grip ignoring food and hunger, but simply witnessing it and letting it be. Hunger did not consume me as it had before. I even prepared food for others without it being torture. This day I had only 2 cups of herb/fruit tea, and some water, closer to a complete stop of any consumption at all. Perhaps that had an effect, I do not know.

My night was disturbed, however, I woke often, though only once in pain, thinking I’d vomit. But instead, I enjoyed an irregularly timed bowel emptying, and the pain passed quickly. I slept once more, and enjoyed a small amount of fruit as breakfast. The day continued, I worked (gardening), proving indeed that I could continue to function without food for a while, and ate fruit for lunch, and a vegetable soup for dinner, letting this day be a continuing detox.

I have grown much stronger from this most recent fast. It has also helped me get in touch with my body’s instincts for food, and for hunger. It has helped me alter my habits to eating with more awareness, actually chewing my food, and not continuing to shovel it in despite the warning signals of fullness. I desire simpler foods, they taste different, taste better eaten this way, and I feel better for it.

And with that, I’ll go and have something to eat..

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2005 at 3:50 pm and is filed under abarefootman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.