Observations from a 36 Hour Fast
The benefits of intermittent fasting have been gaining a lot of traction recently. It’s pretty easy to fast between 12–14 hours given that…
The benefits of intermittent fasting have been gaining a lot of traction recently. It’s pretty easy to fast between 12–14 hours given that you sleep for 8 so you just have to stop eating 2/3 hours before and after bedtime. I’ve done such intermittent fasting before but I’ve never done a longer fast like I’ve seen my mother do many times.
So I decided to give it a shot.
Fasting is a regular feature in many religions. Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Hinduism all have differing rituals around fasting. Fasting has also served as a form of protest popularized by Gandhi as part of his non violent revolution. And I think I have a slight understanding of why.
Fasting is very very hard. It..hurts a little too sometimes. And its bizarre how much I think about food. As someone who has always been very overweight, it was quite jarring to realize I don’t actually need all those calories I’m consuming so.. concretely. And it does strange things to your brain. Alternating between razor sharp focus and a couple of hours of mental fog.
There were also definitely stretches of time when I found it hard to think straight, felt anxious and fidgety, slightly unbalanced
I also realized that food is my go to response when there is some anxiety present, or an uncertain situation or I’m worried about something.
Caveats
Don’t do this unless you’re generally healthy
I didn’t indulge in intense exercise — just an 8 km stroll broken up by long breaks every 2 km.
I wouldn’t have tried this if I had a full workday in office — spent most of the day either chatting with friends or passively consuming media
I wanted to initially do a 24 hour fast but as time went by, I thought it was easier to stretch it a bit and ended up with 36 but I would recommend 24 as a good starting point.
Details
I stopped eating around 2100 on Saturday and ate at around 10:00 on Monday. Some parts were very very hard.
Again, I realized that I think about food a lot
Heavy dinner around 2100 on Saturday
Drank green tea with honey for breakfast on Sunday
A coffee with a splash of milk a couple of hours later. No sugar or additives
I walked around 8K with long breaks with a friend — so that took my mind off food for sometime but it was in the background
Felt lethargic and had to take a half nap in the afternoon for a couple of hours
In the evening I was suddenly alert like I’d taken caffeine or something. I was still thinking about food, but I was suddenly very focused on whatever activity I was doing. As someone who struggles with attention a lot — this was interesting
Drinking water was hard — first I had very little thirst which may have to do with the falling temperatures — but when I did, it made my stomach contort and hurt really sharply. I could only take sips.
Slept without any issues
Monday morning was like any other morning. I wasn’t hungry at all — I thought of extending the fast but I had a lot on my plate for the day so started off the day with oatmeal
I had a heavy lunch and even though I thought of food constantly, it was easy to not give in to it for the rest of the day that wasn’t physically taxing.
Think I’ll try doing this twice a month to start with. I highly recommend it.