Why I went five days without food
I’ve never gone hungry for more than a few hours in my whole life.
Last month, I fasted for five days.
No calories. Just water.
Here’s what happened…
My story
I had never really considered fasting until this year.
One friend said that it had helped them break through some health issues. Another began intermittent fasting to manage their weight. And someone else extolled the benefits of fasting for their spiritual development.
These conversations ticked over in my subconscious until the opportunity arose to do a joint 3-day fast with some friends.
I was already taking some time off work and I was told it was wise to keep the calendar free in case you were struck by fatigue or irritation.
The timing seemed perfect.
Why fast?
Fasting has a deep connection to religious and spiritual practice. Think Ramadan or Jesus’ 40 days in the desert.
And according to some people, there are health benefits to fasting. Supposedly, the body starts to eat away at malignant cells and expels toxins when starved of other food sources.
This theory largely sits outside the research of modern science, so use your discretion as to whether or not you believe it.
But one idea I do find compelling is that the process of digestion creates a lot of background noise in the body.
When we fast, the digestion process stops. We turn down the volume of background noise so that we can tune in better to the body.
As Gandhi said, “What the eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner.”
We can pay much closer attention to the feelings and thoughts that arise.
At the very least, we set the intention to do so when we commit to a fast.
My experience
I felt relatively ‘normal’ during the first two days of fasting.
Sure, there was a sense of urgency around hunger (the state you might know as ‘hangry’). But as this arose, I sat with the discomfort and explored its qualities.
I noticed the distinction between a desire for food in my body (a hunger pang) and my mind (a craving for taste).
I saw that there was no direct correlation between food intake and energy, which was surprising.
In fact, I felt empowered about being able to continue with my day despite the mood I was in and without a dependency on something to shift my state.
On the third day, I actually felt sparky and light.
I decided to continue the fast for a couple more days, and experienced fatigue on the fourth day and then mental clarity on the fifth.
Meditation felt much deeper and more profound.
I felt connected to my heart, experienced a sense of embodied awareness and greater attunement to the sensations running through me.
Gratitude
Fasting also fostered a sense of gratitude.
In the West, we’re fortunate to have food so readily available to us.
For hundreds of thousands of years, sourcing food was our primary drive. We would have gone for long stretches of time without adequate sustenance, constantly meeting the edges of hunger and food insecurity.
Today, we walk unconsciously into a supermarket containing delights from across the world.
We are so disconnected from our sources of nutrition that ultra-processed foods now represent up to 60% of our diets1. These products are mass-manufactured, reconstituted, and unnatural.
We ignore the signals our bodies are telling us that these foods aren’t being digested properly.
We numb ourselves to the tastes and sensations of something we deem quite ordinary.
Fasting opens our eyes up to something that has become quite unconscious.
Moving forward
I broke my fast at the end of five days with fruit: a buffet of pineapple and plums and apples. The taste was like nothing else.
It’s now been a month. And as with many experiences of retreat, it can be hard to integrate their lessons into normal waking life.
I’ve found myself slipping back into old patterns: eating too quickly, not savouring the taste, feeling less connected to my body.
But I now have an anchor of experience that I can return to. An awareness of how things can be.
I think I’ll be fasting again as a semi-regular practice.
It’s good to go without.