After Fasting

Today I completed a 28 hour cleansing fast, during which time I ate no food at all, and also did not watch television or touch my computer — yes that’s right: no email, no blog, no facebook. At the present moment I am not sure which aspect of the fast was more difficult, or more cleansing: the abstinence from food or from the media. And while it may be too much to call this fast a revelatory experience, certainly my period of withdrawal, meditation, reading, and rest taught me a great many things. Right now it seems important to reflect on the experience, before its insights fade into oblivion.

Method: Cleansing Fast

The fast began Tuesday morning at 9:00 am and lasted until Wednesday at 1:00 pm. I woke up as usual on Tuesday morning and went to 6:00 am class at CrossFit Asheville. I had a small, one block pre-WOD meal, inluding black tea and cream. I did not drink coffee on Tuesday morning because I was also planning to abstain from my favorite drug, but I drank the tea to try to prevent or mitigate any caffeine withdrawal symptoms. After the workout I had a regular sized four block meal of of eggs, fruit, almond milk, fish oil, and spirulina powder. By 9:00 am I was ready to begin my fast.

During the day on Tuesday I drank only water, and a half gallon or so (8 cups) of a light and tonic homemade “brew” (discussed below; this brew had 1g carbs per cup). On Wednesday morning, when I got up with another 6 hours to go on the fast, I allowed myself one cup of plain green tea, and later in the day, besides drinking another quart of the “brew,” I had one cup of herbal Tulsi tea.

In total I had about 12 g of carbs, or 48 calories, during my fast. In the same period I normally eat more like 3000 calories.

Beginning at 1:00 pm on Wednesday (today), to break the fast, I had two smallish (3 block) Paleo-Zone meals, eaten between 1:00 and 3:15 pm. Between the meals I took a walk and taught a class. The meals were very yummy, as you can imagine; combined together they included: fresh green and mixed veggie salad dressed w/ olive oil and apple cider vinegar, some almonds, some salmon, and an apple.

Issues that Came Up During the Fast

The first thing that came up for me during this fast happened because I began it in a less than ideal physical state. I was totally exhausted. I had gone to bed late on Monday night, and then for various reasons I hardly slept at all. I was so exhausted, in fact, that I could not distinguish, during much of the fast, between exhaustion from inadequate sleep, bodily fatigue from the morning’s WOD, and weakness or fatigue from not eating. Also, since I had not gorged myself on coffee, I did not feel my usual rush of jangly jingly nervous energy that characterizes my typical day.

I handled the exhaustion by allowing myself two brief naps during the day. These felt incredibly decadent and wasteful, but I justified them to myself by saying that I needed rest and was operating in unknown territory.

I also believe that elements of fear played a role in my bodily and mental experiences during the fast. This was my first attempt at fasting, and I was really uncertain about how I would get through the time without food. Although I was cognitively aware that I would easily “survive” this relatively short period of deprivation, another part of me reacted with real shock to the absences I had imposed on myself.

Another potent issue that came up for me was the use of my time. I had decided to forgo the use of my computer during the fast — and in some ways this was indeed the best, most revelatory part of my day. In the absence of my constant companion, my laptop, I found myself to be at loose ends at several moments during the day. Also, since I was not drinking coffee, I could not go to a coffee shop and sit, computer or no. So, instead of spending time on facebook, answering emails, or reading while hunched over my computer — in my office, or in a coffee shop, or at home — I did a number of productive and or healthy things. For a while I sat in lotus position on cushions on the floor of my living room and meditated, thinking about my duties, thinking about my students, and the subjects I teach, and the things I am writing about, thinking about the sounds of my body and my environment, thinking about the feelings that were associated with the fast, thinking about the divine. Whatever came to mind, I was present with it. I got some good thinking done. I also dropped by the YMCA, took a shower and steam bath, shaved, and groomed myself. It felt extraordinarily good to be clean and well groomed during the fast. I would certainly do that again. I spent some time reading a journal article in my field, and taking notes.

And of course, I cared for my daughter, Lena, since it was my day to do so. One of the things we did was go to Hot Dog King together. It felt strange being there and sharing that time of eating with her, but not eating. She is only two and a half, and I did not try to explain my fasting to her. I worried just a little bit that by refusing to share in her eating, I was sending a weird or mixed signal to her. But hotdogs sell themselves to little kids; she ate fine, and we had a nice time.

All in all, it was a normal day, but I felt the absence of food as a strange presence in the time of the day. There was extra time, to be sure, which highlighted the absence of my usual pastimes such as eating, focusing on food, and working or playing on my computer. And there was an emptiness in my body, and a clarity in my mind, that I can’t explain. I still have it, as I write these words. Like I am floating above my body.

Finally, and this is astonishing to me, I must speak of the night. I was most afraid, I think, that I would not be able to sleep, and that I would lie awake in my bed suffering from hunger all night long. I have always had trouble, I thought, falling asleep on an empty stomach. But I had seen various reports that fasting could produce deep sleep, or solve sleep problems, so I was also prepared to be pleasantly surprised. It was better than I could have imagined. I had no more than, and possibly less than, the usual trouble falling asleep. I slept deeply and soundly, with intense dreams. After my daughter woke up my wife and I at 1:30 in the morning, even though I was fully awakened and had to get out of bed, I was back asleep again without much delay, and again was plunged into deep sleep. I woke again briefly at my customary time, about 4:55 am, and then fell asleep again, and slept in until 7:00 am. I felt well rested.

I definitely attribute this deep sleep directly to the fasting — it still seems paradoxical to me — and so I believe I might even recommend a fast day (or two) to anyone who is suffering from periodic or chronic insomnia.

Insights

I cannot report, as some have, a feeling of unlimited energy or vitality during the fast. But I was surprised at how energetic and capable I felt, in spite of the fact that I wasn’t ingesting any new sources of energy. The body has sufficient energy reserves, it seems, to operate for quite a while without food. I can also report that I felt a bit strange, a bit disconnected from my body. Today I feel a happiness and a surprise that it was, after all, so easy to make it through 28 hours without food. Now, after fasting, I feel astonished that the time went by as quickly as it did.

I also find it interesting that, instead of ravenously devouring my first meal after the fast, my mind and body reacted to the reintroduction of food as if it were something foreign to my experience. I knew it was time to eat, and that for many months I have often thought of little else but eating, that I had devoured and enjoyed countless meals in my life, but it felt odd, or alien. It was time to eat but I did not explicitly desire to do so. And it also felt, I don’t know if this is the right word or not, sacrilegious even, to just sit down and begin eating, while I was alone at my desk in my office, although, that was what I had to do, because of my schedule.

So, I knew it was time to break the fast, and end the experiment, and I did so. I am not normally an especially pious person, but I felt an overwhelming sense of thankfulness for the food. I directed my thanks to God. I ate slowly. The food was delicious, but it was not delicious in the way that I expected it to be. I felt as though the fast helped to crack the surface, to break the illusion that food casts, the spell by which it binds us: we must eat to live, but we need not live to eat. And indeed, if we do not eat, for a time at least, we continue to live. The body can easily handle the absence of food.

The Benefits of Fasting

I have no idea what real benefits can accrue to us through fasting. Its proponents claim marvelous effects. I remain open, and do not find myself particularly skeptical about those claims. I find the evolutionary hypotheses behind the Paleo-Intermittent Fasting crowd to be quite interesting: namely that our ancestors were forced, by the periodic scarcity of food, into fasting or near fasting states, and that the body evolved mechanisms not only for dealing with these conditions, but for thriving through them. I find the spiritual/religious hypotheses of the numerous spiritual traditions of earth, with their claims that fasting focuses the mind away from the world and toward the divine, to be quite plausible. Even if fasting does not automatically do that, the cultural expectation that it might is enough to cause it to do so, for the person who is open to that. I find the health claims of the cleansing crowd, who hypothesize that fasting works by allowing the body to cleanse and heal itself, digesting broken or diseased tissues, and expelling toxins, to be somewhat plausible, and at least worthy of exploration. I will be doing some additional research, in scientific and self-help literature, and I will report what I find in this blog.

In the meantime, I feel ready to proclaim my fast a success, and I will, on the possibility that fasting is an inherently healing, recuperative practice, incorporate a 28 hour fast into the “resting” week of my fitness regimen. This is an incredibly moderate plan… notice that it has me cheating more often (once per month) than fasting (every six weeks)! Fasting advocates like Paul C. Bragg recommend a weekly fast, and four times per year a full seven to ten day fast, for a total of at least 76 days of fasting per year (that’s almost 20% of the year). I don’t feel the need to do it that often. At least not at present.

&nbsp

My Cleansing Brew

For hydration during my fast I chose not to drink plain water, but to have a cleansing tonic brew, modeled after the drink used on the so-called “Master Cleanse”, although, as this recipe will show, I definitely went my own way. I did not drink “the Master Cleanse” drink.

Matt’s Cleansing Brew

Ingredients

1 gallon filtered water,
juice of 1 lemon (4g carbs),
1 tsp. cayenne pepper,
1 tbsp. grade a maple syrup (13.25g carbs)
slices of fresh peeled ginger, about 2 oz.
one very tiny pinch of kosher salt, less than 1/8 tsp.

Put the water in a stainless steel stock pot, bring it to a boil, then put the temperature on low. Put the ingredients in, stir, let sit on the heat for a while (at least 10 minutes at steeping temperature, but for as long as several hours); don’t boil it. Drink it hot or cold.

Nutritional information: 4 calories (1 g carbs) per cup.

This spicy, sour, savory concoction was very helpful to me during the fast. It was refreshing and reinvigorating, if not exactly delicious, and it got me through the difficult spots. I do not ascribe any magical properties to the ingredients I included in the brew, and I do believe that many other cleansing brews could be easily devised. (For example, I think that about 4 ounces of apple juice, and the juice of a lime, could be added to 15.5 cups of water, and steeped with cinnamon and cloves, with a similar effect). I added the ginger because I love ginger, and it has a pleasant, stinging tonic effect which compliments the cayenne.

My brew only resembles the “Master Cleanse” pattern; I followed it because it was easy, and ready to hand, and sounded potentially quite delicious. It was pretty good.

The difference between my brew and the master cleanse is simply this: they use a lot of juice (more than 3/4 of a cup) and maple syrup (a cup, i.e. 16 times the amount I used) and mix that amount in only 1/2 the fluid volume that I used. So one half gallon of the master cleanse formula has a full 225 g of carbs, meaning one cup has 28g of carbs… i.e. each cup is like 8 oz. of Coca Cola, containing 112 calories.

Let me be clear: the “Master Cleanse” is not fasting, it’s a liquid sugar diet. I, on the other hand, was fasting.

Because I had about 12 cups of my brew during the course of my fast, I did consume about 12×4 = 48 calories during the 28 hour period. In my estimation, this tiny amount of calories titrated over such a long period does not “count” as a significant source of nutrition.