The 40 Days of Fasting… Not So Fast
I fasted for 40 days. I am going to be direct and open about my reasons in this article. First, I am a Christian, and Jesus fasted for 40 days in the Bible, which makes it a big deal in my world. What did it all mean? What could that experience feel like? Second, I was the heaviest I had ever been in 42 years of life. I am over 40 years of age. There was that number again, in my age and in my weight. I was two pounds short of two hundred and forty pounds.
Biblically speaking, there were tons of reasons why 40 was used. Noah’s ark rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The Hebrews wandered the desert for 40 years. Jesus hung out with people for 40 days after His resurrection. Forty is a significant number in the Bible, and I wanted to experience that significance.
Why not wait for Lent?
If you are reading this on my publication date, we are halfway through the Lenten season, and I hope this article can help someone who has considered fasting this year for Lent. Whatever the reason might be, I am glad that you are going to fast. First, you can do it. If you fail or fall down, it’s okay. Pick yourself back up and start again. If you run 14 days on a clean fast and break down one evening over a row of Oreos in the bathtub because you just needed a break, it’s all good. Eat those Oreos. Get back on the horse tomorrow.
I know myself. I have never struggled with food temptation. While fasting with my kids, I am able to make them dinner. I can attend social events with friends and watch others eat. It doesn’t break me down, and I typically don’t worry about hunger getting the best of me.
Types of Fasting
There are many types of fasts. I have participated in 21-day “Daniel” fasts, which mainly consist of whole foods and removing many social components of the world, like movies, TV, social media, etc.
Roman Catholics and many other Protestant denominations also participate in various forms of fasting through the Lenten season. Many of these fasts consist of removing meat from the diet and a vice (something unhealthy you feel connected to). The idea is to replace something bad with something good. You have to do a lot of self-evaluation with an honest heart to remove something that you feel attached to. It’s not easy. I can give up chocolate for Lent, but it’s not a big deal if I don’t like chocolate or if I never eat it. Fasting should be uncomfortable, and if what you fast from doesn’t cause discomfort in your life, you probably aren’t giving it your best.
You have probably heard the cliche, “You’ll get back what you put into it!” This is true. If you challenge yourself, you will see bigger results at the end of your fast. It’s an important step to decide what you want your end goal to be and how you will get there.
In my 40-day fast this year, I decided to pursue total fasting from food, social media, and alcohol. I eased myself into the food portion of my fast. I slowly pulled back on solid foods as I felt my body was ready to handle it.
My Addictions
I struggle with my addictions to social media, entertainment, and culture. I battle many feelings of inadequacy. I spin in circles with worry. Am I making the right choices? Am I good enough? When I run into this sort of temptation, it triggers me into cheating. I watch a TikTok. I indulge in Youtube videos.
Here is my most valuable takeaway from fasting: it’s not about what you give up but what you replace each vice with.
When you stop spending time eating, snacking, or scrolling, you have more time to read, listen to podcasts, pray, sleep earlier, wake up earlier, and sit in stillness. There is more time in a day than most people give credit for. I spent time building a better relationship with God, and I never regretted the time I spent fasting. All of this is readily accessible to anyone who spends time fasting.
As a single guy, I admit I’m a slave to the world. I lust after women and celebrate sex and violence on TV. I eat unhealthy foods, don’t get enough sleep, and scroll through social media for hours. None of these things gives my life meaning, and everything and everyone has let me down. To be fair, most people I’ve had relationships with didn’t know I was left disappointed and alone.
The parameters I set for myself were lenient. I eased myself into the total fasting period, similar to climbing down the ladder into the deep end of the pool. I allowed my body to adjust to the temperature of the water, and I forgave myself for stumbling.
Hunger pains are real, and my body ached and writhed in agony for a week.
Having fasted before, I knew the first week would be difficult, and I typically experienced agonizing headaches on days three through five. I felt hunger pains and immense temptation to quit as my body battled against my will to satisfy itself.
This year was different. I’m not sure if my mind had caught wind of the longer duration, but I didn’t struggle in week one as I have in all other fasts. I never got withdrawal headaches, my body didn’t writhe in pain, and I lost hunger pains by day two. My plan was to completely fast from all food every third day. The first week was quick, and I only experienced fatigue and slight hunger pains. I eliminated all protein, dairy, grains, sugar, and alcohol, but I kept coffee because I’m not crazy.
I learned that the physical pains and temptation were less about the physical and more mental. My body’s job was to try and convince my conscious that I was going to perish from starvation, and my flesh cried out in loud gasps, “Feed me, this is too much!” Each time I pushed back, my body adapted and allowed me to stay in control. I believe that anyone can fast, and I know that some have medical challenges, but I truly believe that 75% of those physical/medical challenges are a direct result of the poor nutrition we give our bodies each day. Fasting is natural. Our bodies adapt, and we end up purging away all of the stored-up toxins. It takes time, but the mental game that your body plays with your mind will pass. Most people will quit their fast within the first seven days.
The second week was much easier. The head games had dwindled, and the physical cravings were gone. I could feel my body burning away its valuable protein, and my muscles were breaking down slowly to fuel my daily activities. It was almost my body’s push back tantrum against not quitting in the first week. I continued to visit the gym, but my workouts changed from weights and jogging to light walks around the track. The protein splurge from muscle eventually leveled off in my body, and my fat stores were now free game.
While my body was eating away at protein and muscles, I experienced extreme fatigue. There were nights early in my fast that I went to bed at 6 or 7 p.m. because there was nothing to do, and I was beat.
Every week was a little different, and it was tough to establish a routine. I thought about food and missed it, like a relationship. It was a strange feeling to miss certain foods. The physical cravings eventually faded away, but I found myself missing the social aspects of food. It was almost as though I was personifying certain meals in my head. Shredded beef tacos became like a long-lost uncle who would bring me trinkets and shiny objects from his mystical travels. Melted cheese over pizza beckoned to me in the evenings like an old college girlfriend who accidentally calls but decides to catch up on life over a friendly conversation. It was weird. This is also how you know that you are too attached to food.
The contrast to these emotional groans was that I was actually happy without them. I felt healthier, and I knew that I was in control.
The psychological challenges
It is difficult to maintain a fast without support or understanding from others. You can’t socialize with others during your fasting period. It was much easier to isolate and to stay busy studying or reading books. There were occasions when I needed to network with others, and I struggled. I would typically explain my fast at the beginning of a conversation so that it wasn’t awkward as almost certainly food was ordered and consumed while we sat together. While fasting, you realize how much time we spend eating and how much of our socializing relies on breaking bread with one another.
It would have been easy to cheat with food. It takes a split second to snatch a fry off of someone’s plate. It was also during these social moments where it would have been easy to compromise my moral fast. I could splurge on my phone, have a beer, toss out some dirty jokes. No one would have judged me; in fact, they would have probably felt more comfortable seeing me break my fast. There can be added anxiety when you believe you might be keeping someone from enjoying food. We feel better when we can all socialize on the same level.
My mind would play tricks, and negative self-talk was unpredictable. Food would start to talk to me. I would find myself engaged with internal dialogue. I am having a full-blown conversation about a piece of candy on the kitchen counter.
“No one would see it.”
I would know.
“We have come so far in the fast, why don’t we just finish in an honest way?”
Honestly, the long conversations in my kitchen with myself are strange enough. It feels normal to write about them now. These arguments continued and even became more passionate over the 40-day period. I am proud to say that I won the battle over food. I did not cheat during my fast.
Let me backtrack. I did cheat, I certainly failed, just not with food. Non-food temptation became a powerful force to reckon with.
Here were my major struggles. I could not look away from social media. I didn’t place any blockers or timers on my work laptop, and as I researched topics on the web, I found myself willingly leaping down some deep dark rabbit holes. Professional requirements were the scapegoat my mind needed to keep a steady pace of cheating flowing through the early days of the fast.
Also, I struggle with lust. Many men do. It’s the taboo unspoken temptation that many people combat but few talk about. I will write additional articles about these trials during my fast, but in today’s post, I am just going to say that I keenly aware and that I struggled. I find women attractive. I am single. I want to be in a relationship. During a visit to confession, the priest on the other side of the partition told me to combat temptation with physical activity.
“Do you go to the gym?” he asked.
“Yes!” I exclaimed as though I had instantly solved this problem.
The problem is the gym is full of woman, and I was actually pouring more hot coals onto the fire. I am single and I have expanded my dating pools into every aspect of my life. I had to become very focused on my vices during the fasting period. The longer I fasted, the more difficult it became to remain diligent to recognize and resist my triggers. I had to prepare to enter places with temptation. I would remind myself why I was fasting, and I would be sure to bring distractions and busy work with me during my workouts. This usually involved music or audio books.
The Spiritual Challenges
It was difficult to connect with God early in the fast. I remember this always seemed to be the start of each fast. I typically felt isolated and alone. As I struggled to hear God through the noise of my own body’s protest, I rarely felt connected. Hunger pains and stomach grumbles often drowned out the quiet whispers of our Creator. It takes time to focus on Him.
The truth is that God was present in a powerful way, and I soon found myself in a state of constant calm. I felt satisfied but I needed to be intentional with Him.
I gradually began to realize the stability of God surrounding me. The further into the fast I moved, the better I became at recognizing this peace. I could move right to His side.
There’s no way I could have completed this fast alone. I am certain that is the point. Far beyond the deprivation and sacrifice of our wants and desires, God wants us to connect with Him first and foremost. That’s my purpose, that’s why I am here. I am a creation that exists to know my creator. We are supposed to trust God for everything. The “how” is what we work out in life. We can see this more clearly when we have removed all of the unnecessary from our view.
I also knew and remembered that I would mourn the fast when it was over. I felt clean. I felt purged of earthly chains, and I was sad that I would inevitably add these weights back to my life. I don’t know directly but it might be similar to yard time while in a prison: a small part of the day that I can soak up the rays of sunlight and feel the outside air encircle me before I move back into my cell for the remaining 20+ hours of the day. I was sad because this was only temporary freedom.
The Physical Results
I lost almost 40 pounds during the fast. While weight loss was not my primary goal, I feel healthy. Overall, I didn’t lose much muscle, and I was able to jump right back into weight lifting and light jogging daily. It was easier to maintain the positive effects from the fast while removing the very few negative effects that remained at the end.
In summary, you should fast. You should, and you can. One of the most common responses I receive when I talk to others about fasting is, “I don’t know if I could do that” or “My body isn’t healthy enough to fast in that way.”
Yes, you know your own body, and I would never encourage anyone to push beyond a healthy place. But you can go much further than you give yourself credit for. That, again, is really the purpose: to step out in faith and to trust in God to provide. If you cannot fast physically, I would encourage you to fast mentally. You can fast from the social and psychological addictions in your life. Concentrate not just on removing these burdens but replacing them with healthy times of bonding and resting in peace with God. He will answer you.
In scripture, Jesus says “when we fast,” not “if you fast.” A fast should be a regular staple in our lives. Prioritize it, plan for it, and use it to gain perspective with our Creator and your soul.
